Mele's ultimate purpose in this book is to help readers think more clearly about free will. He identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to justified belief in the existence of free will and meets them head on. Mele clarifies the central issues in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will--one for readers who are convinced that free will is incompatible (...) with determinism (incompatibilists), and the other for readers who are convinced of the opposite (compatibilists). Luck poses problems for all believers in free will, and Mele offers novel solutions to those problems--one for incompatibilist believers in free will and the other for compatibilists. An early chapter of this empirically well-informed book clearly explains influential neuroscientific studies of free will and debunks some extravagant interpretations of the data. Other featured topics include abilities and alternative possibilities, control and decision-making, the bearing of manipulation on free will, and the development of human infants into free agents. Mele's theory offers an original perspective on an important problem and will garner the attention of anyone interested in the debate on free will. (shrink)

Mele's ultimate purpose in this book is to help readers think more clearly about free will. He identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to justified belief in the existence of free will and meets them head on. Mele clarifies the central issues in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will--one for readers who are convinced that free will is incompatible (...) with determinism (incompatibilists), and the other for readers who are convinced of the opposite (compatibilists). Luck poses problems for all believers in free will, and Mele offers novel solutions to those problems--one for incompatibilist believers in free will and the other for compatibilists. An early chapter of this empirically well-informed book clearly explains influential neuroscientific studies of free will and debunks some extravagant interpretations of the data. Other featured topics include abilities and alternative possibilities, control and decision-making, the bearing of manipulation on free will, and the development of human infants into free agents. Mele's theory offers an original perspective on an important problem and will garner the attention of anyone interested in the debate on free will. (shrink)

Self-deception poses tantalizing conceptual conundrums and provides fertile ground for empirical research. Recent interdisciplinary volumes on the topic feature essays by biologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, and psychologists (Lockard & Paulhus 1988, Martin 1985). Self-deception's location at the intersection of these disciplines is explained by its significance for questions of abiding interdisciplinary interest. To what extent is our mental life present--or even accessible--to consciousness? How rational are we? How is motivated irrationality to be explained? To what extent are our beliefs subject to (...) our control? What are the determinants of belief, and how does motivation bear upon belief? In what measure are widely shared psychological propensities products of evolution? (shrink)

This paper raises a pair of objections to the novel libertarian position advanced in Robert Kane's recent book, The Significance of Free Will.The first objection's target is a central element in Kane's intriguing response to what he calls the "Intelligibility" and "Existence" questions about free will. It is argued that this response is undermined by considerations of luck.The second objection is directed at a portion of Kane's answer to what he calls "The Significance Question" about free will: "Why do we, (...) or should we, want to possess a free will that is incompatible with determinism? Is it a kind of freedom 'worth wanting'... and, if so, why?" A desire for "objective worth" has a featured role in his answer. However, a compatibilist can have that desire. (shrink)

This paper attempts to construct a systematic and plausible account of the necessity of the past. The account proposed is meant to explicate the central ockhamistic thesis of the primacy of the pure present and to vindicate Ockham's own non-Aristotelian response to the challenge of logical determinism.

In instances of "twisted" self-deception, people deceive themselves into believing things that they do not want to be true. In this, twisted self-deception differs markedly from the "straight" variety that has dominated the philosophical and psychological literature on self-deception. Drawing partly upon empirical literature, I develop a trio of approaches to explaining twisted self-deception: a motivation-centered approach; an emotion-centered approach; and a hybrid approach featuring both motivation and emotion. My aim is to display our resources for exploring and explaining twisted (...) self-deception and to show that promising approaches are consistent with a plausible position on straight self-deception. (shrink)

One popular style of argument for the thesis that determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility features manipulation. Its thrust is that regarding moral responsibility, there is no important difference between various cases of manipulation in which agents who A are not morally responsible for A-ing and ordinary cases of A-ing in deterministic worlds. There is a detailed argument of this kind in Derk Pereboom’s recent book (2001: 112–26). His strategy in what he calls his ‘four-case argument’ (117) is to describe (...) three cases of progressively weaker manipulation in which, he contends, the agent, Plum, is not morally responsible for killing his victim and to compare them to a related deterministic case that involves no manipulation. Pereboom argues that what blocks Plum’s moral responsibility for the killing in the first three cases is the fact that ‘his action results from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond his control’ and that, because this fact also obtains in the fourth case, Plum is not morally responsible for that killing either (116). My thesis is that Pereboom’s argument fails. (shrink)

I start, in Section I, with the case for skepticism about the possibility of self-deception. In Sections II and III, I review attempts to explain how self-deception, conceived on a strict interpersonal model, is possible. Section IV addresses a variety of analyses of self-deception that involve modest departures from these strict models and canvasses associated attacks on the standard paradoxes. The emphasis there is on the static paradoxes, discussion of their dynamic coun terparts being reserved largely for Section V. Section (...) VI takes up Herbert Fingarette's apparently radical departure from the interpersonal models of deception, while Section VII distinguishes among three approaches to the philosophical investigation of self-deception. I conclude, in Section VIII, with a comment on a promising direction for future work on the topic. (shrink)

Originally published in 1928 this book was an attempt to acquaint the general public with the fundamentals of Individual Psychology. At the same time it is a demonstration of the practical application of these principles to the conduct of everyday relationships, and the organization of our personal life. Based upon a years’ lectures to audiences at the People’s Institute in Vienna, the purpose of the book was to point out how the mistaken behaviour of the individual affects harmony of our (...) social and communal life; to teach the individual to recognize their own mistakes; and finally, to show them how they may effect a harmonious adjustment to the communal life. Adler felt that mistakes in business or in science were costly and deplorable, but mistakes in the conduct of life are usually dangerous to life itself. This book is dedicated by the author in his preface ‘to the task of illuminating man’s progress toward a better understanding of human nature.’. (shrink)

Self-Deception, Properly understood, Is not paradoxical. Although self-Deception involves motivated false belief, It is not properly modeled after "intentional" interpersonal deception. Thus, The major source of paradox is dissolved. Moreover, Even intentional self-Deception need not be paradoxical and there is good reason to believe that a kind of self-Deception which "would" be paradoxical never occurs. Finally, In cases of self-Deception, As in instances of akratic action, There is scope for blame.

According to a traditional view of self-deception, the phenomenon is an intrapersonal analogue of stereotypical interpersonal deception. In the latter case, deceivers intentionally deceive others into believing something, p , and there is a time at which the deceivers believe that p is false while their victims falsely believe that p is true. If self-deception is properly understood on this model, self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves into believing something, p , and there is a time at which they believe that p (...) is false while also believing that p is true. (shrink)

I will argue that close attention to deciding casts doubt on the simple view and the single phenomena view of intentional action. That is my thesis. My aim is much broader—to improve our understanding of deciding and of the bearing of the phenomenon of deciding on free will and moral responsibility.

This article defends a nonstandard position on free will that is based on three topics linked to contemporary debates about free will: autonomy, self-control, and weakness of will. It argues that autonomy, and hence also free will, requires more than self-control, including ideal self-control. It considers the additional conditions required, showing how contemporary discussions of autonomy are intertwined with debates about free will. These additional conditions for genuine autonomy do not require us to choose between compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts of (...) autonomy, because one can give a “robust, satisfiable” set of adequate conditions for both compatibilist autonomy and incompatibilist autonomy. One can thus remain agnostic on the Compatibility Question regarding autonomy and free will without giving up the belief that there are autonomous human beings. This view is called “agnostic autonomism”. (shrink)

Drawing on recent empirical work, this philosophical paper explores some possible contributions of emotion to self-deception. Three hypotheses are considered: (1) the anxiety reduction hypothesis: the function of self-deception is to reduce present anxiety; (2) the solo emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute to instances of self-deception that have no desires among their significant causes; (3) the direct emotion hypothesis: emotions sometimes contribute directly to self-deception, in the sense that they make contributions that, at the time, are neither made by desires (...) nor causally mediated by desires. It is argued that (1) is false and that (3) is defensible and more defensible than (2). (shrink)

Originally published in 1928 this book was an attempt to acquaint the general public with the fundamentals of Individual Psychology. At the same time it is a demonstration of the practical application of these principles to the conduct of everyday relationships, and the organization of our personal life. Based upon a years’ lectures to audiences at the People’s Institute in Vienna, the purpose of the book was to point out how the mistaken behaviour of the individual affects harmony of our (...) social and communal life; to teach the individual to recognize their own mistakes; and finally, to show them how they may effect a harmonious adjustment to the communal life. Adler felt that mistakes in business or in science were costly and deplorable, but mistakes in the conduct of life are usually dangerous to life itself. This book is dedicated by the author in his preface ‘to the task of illuminating man’s progress toward a better understanding of human nature.’. (shrink)

In this commentary, I discuss the three main articles in this volume that present survey data relevant to a search for something that might merit the label “the folk concept of intentional action” – the articles by Joshua Knobe and Arudra Burra, Bertram Malle, and Thomas Nadelhoffer. My guiding question is this: What shape might we find in an analysis of intentional action that takes at face value the results of all of the relevant surveys about vignettes discussed in these (...) three articles?1 To simplify exposition, I assume that there is something that merits the label I mentioned. (shrink)

This article explores fundamental differences between Robert Audi’s position on self-deception and mine. Although we both depart from a model of self-deception that is straightforwardly based on stereotypical interpersonal deception, we differ in how we do that. An important difference between us might be partly explained by a difference in how we understand the kind of deceiving that is most relevant to self-deception.

Globalization is a part of modern life. Sharing a common set of professional nursing values is critical in this global environment. The purpose of this research was to examine the professional values of nursing students from two distinct cultural perspectives. Nurse educators in Taiwan partnered with nurse educators in the United States to compare professional values of their respective graduating nursing students. The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics served as the philosophical framework for this examination. The convenience sample comprised (...) 94 Taiwanese students and 168 US students. Both groups reported high scores on an overall measure of values. They did differ substantially on the relative importance of individual items related to advocacy, competence, education, self-evaluation, professional advancement, and professional associations. Global implications for the collaborative practice of nurses from different cultures working together can be improved by first recognizing and then attending to these differences in value priorities. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that if, whenever we act intentionally, we do, or try to do, what we are most strongly motivated to do at the time, then we are at the mercy of whatever desire happens to be strongest at the time. I have argued elsewhere that this is false (Mele 1987, ch. 5; 1992, ch. 4; 1995, ch. 3; 1996). This essay provides another route to that conclusion, but that is not my primary aim. The goal of this (...) paper is to display the bearing of some well-known experiments by physiologist Benjamin Libet on this issue. Philosophical discussion of these experiments has focused on Libet's claims about consciousness. The significance of these experiments for the topics of motivation and agential control also merits serious attention. (shrink)

In the Logica Ingredientibus Abailard attacks the theory according to which universals are collections of individuals. This paper argues that Abailard's principal objection to this 'collective realism', viz, that it conflates universals with integral wholes, is actually quite strong, though it is generally overlooked by recent commentators. For implicit in this objection is the claim that the collective realist cannot provide a satisfactory account of predication. The reason for this is that integral wholes are not uniquely decomposable. In support of (...) thesis the author first explicates the medieval distinction between integral and subjective parts and then discusses its application to collective realism. (shrink)

The literature on motivated irrationality has two primary foci: action and belief. This article explores two of the central topics falling under this rubric: akratic action (action exhibiting so-called weakness of will or deficient self-control) and motivationally biased belief (including self-deception). Among other matters, this article offers a resolution of Donald Davidson's worry about the explanation of irrationality. When agents act akratically, they act for reasons, and in central cases, they make rational judgments about what it is best to do. (...) The rationality required for that is in place. However, to the extent to which their actions are at odds with these judgments, they act irrationally. Motivationally biased believers test hypotheses and believe on the basis of evidence. Again there is a background of rationality. But owing to the influence of motivation, they violate general standards of epistemic rationality. (shrink)

This edition first published in 1960. The revival of interest in the thought of Burke was one of the justifications for the publication of a second edition of Professor Cobban's study of the political and social ideas of Burke and his closest disciples, the Lake Poets. Burke's thought has both historical and permanent significance: fundamentally his works are as relevant today as when they were first written. In this book Burke's ideas are discussed without the uncritical adulation they receive in (...) some quarters, and those of the Lake Poets without the undue depreciation from which they used to suffer. This title will be of great interest to students of politics, philosophy and history. (shrink)

Contemporary American medical ethics was born during a period of social ferment, a key theme of which was the espousal of individual rights. Driven by complex cultural forces united in the effort to protect individuality and self-determined choices, an extrapolation from case law to rights of patients was accomplished under the philosophical auspices of ‘autonomy’. Autonomy has a complex history; arising in the modern period as the idea of self-governance, it received its most ambitious philosophical elaboration in Kant's moral philosophy. (...) In examining the Kantian construction, it is evident that neither his universal moral imperative nor his rigorous application of self-legislated ethical action can sustain our own notions of moral agency in a pragmatic, pluralistic society. But the Kantian position is useful in highlighting that self-governance is not equivalent to ‘autonomy’, and this distinction defines the limits of autonomy in the clinical setting. A critique of Engelhardt's idea of ‘principle of permission’ is used to illustrate autonomy's eclipse as a governing principle for medical ethics. (shrink)

From a discussion of Einstein’s theories to an analysis of meaning, the philosopher offers a fascinating collection of essays on a wide range of topics. This is a collection of many of Whitehead’s papers that are scattered elsewhere. It was the penultimate book he published, and represents his mature thoughts on many topics. Philosophical Library has done a great service by publishing a representative collection of his writings on the subjects of Philosophy, Education and Science. The portion on Philosophy includes (...) five papers: “Immortality”, “Mathematics and the Good”, “Process and Reality”, “John Dewey and His Influence” and the “Analysis of Meaning.” The first three chapters consist of Whitehead’s personal reflections illumined by flashes of his lively humor. They are picturesque and amusing. The remainder of the book consists of chapters on Philosophy, Education, and Science. They cover in depth his positions on many scientific and philosophical matters in an extraordinarily unified way. The final section of the book is devoted to excellent surveys of Geometry and Mathematics as well as a paper on Einstein’s theories. (shrink)

My primary aim in Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control (1987) is to show that and how akratic action and self-deception are possible. The control that normal agents have over their actions and beliefs figures in the analysis and explanation of both phenomena. For that reason, an examination of self-control plays a central role in the book. In addition, I devote a chapter each to akratic belief and the explanation of intentional action. A precis of the book will (...) provide a useful context for the three essays that follow. (shrink)

Whereas some philosophers view all reasons for action as psychological states of agents, others—objective favourers theorists—locate the overwhelming majority of reasons for action outside the agent, in items that objectively favour courses of action. (The latter may count such psychological states as a person's belief that demons dance in his kitchen as a reason for him to seek psychiatric help.) This article explores options that objective favourers theorists have regarding cases in which, owing significantly to a false belief, an agent (...) performs an action for which there is no objective favourer. Topics addressed include whether such theorists, including Jonathan Dancy himself, should accept Dancy's thesis that 'intentional, deliberate, purposeful action is always done for a reason' and whether there are two different concepts of reasons for action, one geared to action-evaluation and the other to action-explanation. (shrink)

Autonomy, as I understand it, is associated with a family of freedom concepts: free will, free choice, free action, and the like. In much of the philosophical literature discussed in this chapter, issues are framed in terms of freedom rather than autonomy, but we are talking about (aspects of) the same thing. Libertarians argue that determinism precludes autonomy by, for example, precluding an agent's being ultimately responsible for anything. Some compatibilist believers in autonomy argue that libertarians rely on indeterminism in (...) a way that deprives us of autonomy-level control over our decisions. Theorists who contend that no human being is autonomous can benefit from arguments on both sides, alleging that libertarians decisively reveal the ordinary person's notion of autonomy, an incompatibilist notion, and that compatibilist critics of libertarianism show that the notion is incoherent or unsatis-fiable. Is there a way to use the resources both of libertarianism and of compatibilism in defending the following thesis: The claim that there are autonomous human beings is more credible than the claim that there are none? -/- I believe that the answer is “yes.” I defended that answer in Autonomous Agents. Part of my strategy was to develop an account of an ideally self-controlled agent (where self-control is understood as the contrary of akrasia [roughly, weakness of will]), to argue that even such an agent may fall short of autonomy, and to ask what may be added to ideal self-control to yield autonomy. I offered two answers, one for compatibilists and another for libertarians. I then argued that a certain disjunctive thesis involving both answers (identified in Section 4 below) is more credible than the thesis that there are no autonomous human beings. (shrink)

Modern science, based on the laws of physics, claims validity for all events in space and time. However, it also reveals its own limitations, such as the indeterminacy of quantum physics, the limits of decidability, and, presumably, limits of decodability of the mind-brain relationship. At the philosophical level, these intrinsic limitations allow for different interpretations of the relation between human cognition and the natural order. In particular, modern science may be logically consistent with religious as well as agnostic views of (...) humans and the universe. These points are exemplified through the transcript of a discussion between Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap that took place in 1940. Gödel, discoverer of mathematical undecidability, took a proreligious view; Carnap, one of the founders of analytical philosophy, an antireligious view. By the time of the discussion, Carnap had liberalized his ideas on theoretical concepts of science: he believed that observational terms do not suffice for an exhaustive definition of theoretical concepts. Then, responded Gödel, one should formulate a theory or metatheory that is consistent with scientific rationality, yet also encompasses theology. Carnap considered such theories unproductive. The controversy remained unresolved, but its emphasis shifted from rationality to wisdom, not only in the Gödel-Carnap discussion but also in our time. -/- . (shrink)

Technological development plays a critical role in society’s ability to address environmental issues. Building on Teece’s profiting from innovation framework, we articulate how a double-externality problem weakens the appropriability regime surrounding pollution reduction technology (PRT). We then develop a theoretical framework articulating how weak appropriability induces firms to modify their innovation strategies for PRT development by increasing the extent to which they engage in organizational exploration (rather than exploitation) and emphasizing incremental (rather than radical) technologies. Noting that the effects of (...) weak appropriability are unlikely to be static, we detail how the accumulation of organizational capabilities for reducing pollution diminishes the extent to which firms modify their innovation strategies for PRT. That is, firms become less exploratory and less focused on incremental technology as they gain experience with pollution reduction. Results of broad-sample empirical analyses of 206,277 patents held by 203 U.S. manufacturing firms over a 20-year period provide support for our framework. (shrink)