9 found
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  1.  62
    God and Human Freedom.Leigh C. Vicens & Simon Kittle - 2019 - Cambridge University Press.
    This Element considers the relationship between the traditional view of God as all-powerful, all-knowing and wholly good on the one hand, and the idea of human free will on the other. It focuses on the potential threats to human free will arising from two divine attributes: God's exhaustive foreknowledge and God's providential control of creation.
  2. Objective Probabilities of Free Choice.Leigh C. Vicens - 2016 - Res Philosophica 93 (1):125-135.
    Many proponents of libertarian freedom assume that the free choices we might make have particular objective probabilities of occurring. In this paper, I examine two common motivations for positing such probabilities: first, to account for the phenomenal character of decision-making, in which our reasons seem to have particular strengths to incline us to act, and second, to naturalize the role of reasons in influencing our decisions, such that they have a place in the causal order as we know it. I (...)
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  3. Divine determinism, human freedom, and the consequence argument.Leigh C. Vicens - 2012 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 71 (2):145-155.
    In this paper I consider the view, held by some Thomistic thinkers, that divine determinism is compatible with human freedom, even though natural determinism is not. After examining the purported differences between divine and natural determinism, I discuss the Consequence Argument, which has been put forward to establish the incompatibility of natural determinism and human freedom. The Consequence Argument, I note, hinges on the premise that an action ultimately determined by factors outside of the actor’s control is not free. Since, (...)
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  4.  73
    Sin and Implicit Bias.Leigh C. Vicens - 2018 - Journal of Analytic Theology 6:100-111.
    This paper argues that implicit bias is a form of sin, characterized most fundamentally as an orientation that we may not have direct access to or control over, but that can lead us to act in violation of God’s command. After noting similarities between certain strategies proposed by experimental psychologists for overcoming implicit biases and certain disciplines developed by Christians on the path to sanctification, I suggest some ways in which the Church might offer its resources to a society struggling (...)
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  5.  83
    Agentive Phenomenology and Moral Responsibility Agnosticism.Leigh C. Vicens - 2019 - Southwest Philosophy Review 35 (1):181-190.
    Most incompatibilist theories of free will and moral responsibility require, for a person to count as morally responsible for an action, that specific events leading up to the action be undetermined. One might think, then, that incompatibilists should remain agnostic about whether anyone is ever free or morally responsible, since whether there are such undetermined events would seem to be an empirical question unsettled by scientific research. Yet, a number of incompatibilists have suggested that the phenomenological character of our experiences (...)
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  6.  37
    On the natural law defense and the disvalue of ubiquitous miracles.Leigh C. Vicens - 2016 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 80 (1):33-42.
    In this paper I explore Peter van Inwagen’s conception of miracles and the implications of this conception for the viability of his version of the natural law defense. I argue that given his account of miraculous divine action and its parallel to free human action, it is implausible to think that God did not prevent natural evil in our world for the reasons van Inwagen proposes. I conclude by suggesting that on the grounds he provides for “epistemic humility” about modal (...)
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  7.  90
    On the possibility of special divine action in a deterministic world.Leigh C. Vicens - 2012 - Religious Studies 48 (3):315 - 336.
    Is it possible for God both to create a deterministic world and to act specially, to realize his particular purposes within it? And if there can be such 'particular providence' or 'special divine action' (SDA) in a deterministic world, what form can it take? In this article I consider these questions, exploring a number of different models of SDA and discussing their consistency with the proposition that the world is deterministic; I also consider how the various consequences of each model (...)
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  8.  98
    Physical Causal Closure and Non-Coincidental Mental Causation.Leigh C. Vicens - 2014 - Philosophia 42 (1):201-207.
    In his book Personal Agency, E. J. Lowe has argued that a dualist theory of mental causation is consistent with “a fairly strong principle of physical causal closure” and, moreover, that it “has the potential to strengthen our causal explanations of certain physical events.” If Lowe’s reasoning were sound, it would undermine the most common arguments for reductive physicalism or epiphenomenalism of the mental. For it would show not only that a dualist theory of mental causation is consistent with a (...)
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  9.  64
    Self-Forming Acts and Conflicts of Intention.Leigh C. Vicens - 2015 - Southwest Philosophy Review 31 (1):93-100.
    In this paper I examine Robert Kane’s account of a self-forming action (SFA), in which an agent makes dual efforts of will to form two incompatible intentions. In addition to the frequently raised objection to this account, that such dual efforts would be irrational, I discuss a further conceptual problem, that it does not make sense to speak of efforts to form particular intentions. I then propose an alternative model of an SFA, in which an agent deliberates and selects between (...)
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