The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind. . ???aop.label???

This essay takes a transhistorical leap to connect the philosophy of Thomas Reid to the dramatic presentation of ethical choices in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Juxtaposing the two figures reveals an underlying moral ontology common to both. This shared ontology is remarkably nuanced, ultimately affirming moral liberty whilst decisively registering the fallibility of the ‘moral faculty.’ The final section asks whether the degree of comparability warrants any further speculation, revisiting the question of a ‘common humanity.’.

A crucial question for libertarians about free will and moral responsibility concerns how their accounts secure more control than compatibilism. This problem is particularly exasperating for event-causal libertarianism, as it seems that the only difference between these accounts and compatibilism is that the former require indeterminism. But how can indeterminism, a mere negative condition, enhance control? This worry has led many to conclude that the only viable form of libertarianism is agent-causal libertarianism. In this paper I show that this conclusion (...) is premature. I explain how event-causal libertarianism secures more control than compatibilism by offering a novel argument for incompatibilism. Part of the reason my solution has gone unnoticed is that it is often mistakenly assumed that an agent's control is wholly exhausted by the agent's powers and abilities. I argue, however, that control is constituted not just by what we have the ability to do, but also by what we have the opportunity to do. And it is by furnishing agents with new opportunities that event-causal libertarianism secures enhanced control. In order to defend this claim, I provide an analysis of opportunities and construct a novel incompatibilist argument to show that the opportunity to do otherwise is incompatible with determinism. (shrink)

Libertarians claim that our experience of free choice is indeterministic. They think that, when we choose, our choice feels open in a way that would require indeterminism for the experience to be accurate. This claim then functions as a step in an argument in favour of libertarianism, the view that freedom requires indeterminism and we are free. Since, all else being equal, we should take experience at face value, libertarians argue, we should endorse libertarianism. Compatibilists, who think that freedom is (...) consistent with determinism, respond to this argument in a number of ways, none of which is adequate. This paper defends a stronger compatibilist response. Compatibilists should concede, at least for argument's sake, that our experience of freedom is in a sense libertarian. Yet they should also insist that our experience is in another sense compatibilist. Thus, even if libertarian descriptions of experience are phenomenologically apt, there is still a sense in which the experience might be veridical,.. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss how Samuel Stanhope Smith advanced Reidian themes in his moral philosophy and examine their reception by Presbyterian revivalists Ashbel Green, Samuel Miller, and Archibald Alexander. Smith, seventh president and moral philosophy professor of the College of New Jersey (1779–1812), has received marginal scholarly attention regarding his moral philosophy and rational theology, in comparison to his predecessor John Witherspoon. As an early American philosopher who drew on the ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment including Common Sense philosophy, (...) Smith faced heightened scrutiny from American revivalists regarding the danger his epistemology presented to the institution of religion. The Scottish School of Common Sense was widely praised and applied in nineteenth-century American moral philosophy, but before the more general American acceptance of Common Sense, Smith already appealed to Reidian themes in his methodology and treatment of external sensations, internal sensations, intellectual powers, and active powers of the human mind. In this paper, I argue that Smith's use of Reidian themes for grooming his student's morality conflicted with the educational expectations from revivalists on Princeton's board of trustees who demanded more attention on orthodox theology. I identify Smith's notions of causation, liberty, and the moral faculty as primary reasons for this tension over Princeton's educational purpose during the first decade of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that the work of Keith Lehrer, especially in his book Self-Trust has applications to feminist ethics; specifically care ethics, which has become the leading form of normative sentimentalist ethics. I extend Lehrer's ideas concerning reason and justification of belief beyond what he says by applying the notion of evaluation central to his account of acceptance to the need for evaluation of emotions. The inability to evaluate and attain justification of one's emotions is an epistemic failure (...) that leads one not to act on one's own aspirations and desires and treat those desires as if they did not exist. I argue that this is a common condition among women in patriarchal societies because patriarchy can cause women to believe that they are not worthy of their trust concerning what they accept, specifically acceptance of their anger over their own mistreatment. As a result, many women are unable to realize the self-protective role of their anger. All of this reflects a lack of what I shall call epistemic personhood, a concept based on Lehrer's theory concerning the keystone role of self-trust in the epistemic arch of rationality, justification and knowledge. Lastly, I use this concept of epistemic personhood to develop a care ethical account of self-respect that counters the Kantian account. (shrink)