This paper is based on the comments I gave to Alfred Mele regarding his original Zygote Argument during my presentation at a small workshop on manipulation arguments in Budapest back in 2012. After those comments, Mele changed the conclusion of his original Zygote Argument and redefined 'incompatibilism' so that it would refer to the conclusion of his new Zygote Argument (Mele 2013+). Yet, over the last decade, Mele has made no comment in print about (...) the changes he made nor the invalidity objection that led to them. To my knowledge, Mele has only mentioned this 2015 paper once: in the context of defending his non-explanatory definition of 'incompatibilism' at the opening of Aspects of Agency (p. 6, n. 4), Mele draws his readers' attention to just *just this paper* as a place where they'll find the type of nonstandard/nontraditional definition of 'incompatibilism' that he rejects. If Mele had a general concern about unusual definitions of 'incompatibilism', he could have just as easily named almost any leading figure in free will for this purpose (since most reject the non-explanatory definition he now endorses). But for some reason, Mele thought an unemployed junior researcher should be singled out as an example. Moreover, if Mele were genuinely interested in helping his readers understand the ambiguity of terms like 'compatibilism' and 'incompatibilism' it is a mystery that he referenced a paper in which nothing of substance hung on the definitions given to these terms when he might have instead pointed them to my OTHER 2015 paper in which the MAIN AIM of the paper is to expose the difficulties facing anyone who wants to define the terms 'compatibilism' and 'incompatibilism' in a way that everyone will accept (including a critique of the definitions that Mele has adopted). By all appearances, Mele's aim was to give readers the false impression that my working definition of 'incompatibilism' played some role in my charge that his argument is invalid (which it doesn't, given that the term doesn't appear in either the premises or conclusion of that argument). In this paper, I simply use the invalidity of the simple 2-premise Zygote Argument to make a series of more philosophically significant points (e.g. regarding the dialectical structure of the free-will debate, the role of best-explanation reasoning, and to develop the first-ever "master manipulation argument"). Mele pays no attention to my answer to the "Now What?" question in this paper, even though that answer was the paper's main point. For those interested in a more recent discussion of how the logical and metaphilosophical observations made in this paper have helped to move the free-will debate forward, I suggest my contributions to the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Free Will (Intro and Chapter 4, 2023) and my paper "Free Will, Self-Creation, and the Paradox of Moral Luck" (2019). (shrink)

In “The Zygote Argument is Invalid: Now What?” (2015), Kristin Mickelson published an objection to the Zygote Argument that she first presented in 2012 as workshop comments on a draft of Mele's "Manipulation, Moral Responsibility, and Bullet-Biting" (2013). Assuming that the phrase "determinism precludes free will" means something like determinism-related causal factors are what prevent people from acting freely when determinism is true, Mele's original Zygote Argument was invalid. At the workshop, Mickelson presented Mele (...) with two options to address the problem, a premise-preserving option and a conclusion-preserving option. That is, Mele could change the conclusion of the original argument to the negative, non-explanatory thesis entailed by its original two premises, or find a way to add premises that would support the positive, explanatory conclusion of the original argument (which, notably, is the conclusion that Pereboom supports using best-explanation reasoning in his Four-Case Argument). Mickelson used this as an opportunity to explain the key contribution that best-explanation reasoning makes to manipulation arguments -- and why the best variant of the manipulation argument might conclude that incompatibilism is FALSE. In response to Mickelson's objection, Mele changed the conclusion of the argument before "Manipulation, Moral Responsibility, and Bullet-Biting" went to print, choosing Mickelson's proposal to change its conclusion over the suggestion to change its premises. However, Mele failed to mention Mickelson's invalidity objection in print and that he changed the conclusion of his argument as a direct response to it; nor did Mele mention the costs that Mickelson outlined for the premise-preserving solution that he adopted or the benefits of a conclusion-preserving solution. At the same time, Mele began using the term 'incompatibilism' to pick out the negative, non-explanatory claim supported by the newly revised Zygote Argument--and also started to claim (without providing evidence) that those who use the term 'incompatibilism' to denote the explanatory claim deterministic causal factors *make it the case* that no one acts freely when determinism is true" is guilty of using the term in a nonstandard and nontraditional way that he had "never had any use for"--failing to mention that he clearly used the term in this explanatory sense in his 2005 critique of the Four-Case Argument, which is to be expected give that Derk Pereboom uses the explanatory definition (as do Kadri Vihvelin, Carolina Sartorio, and *most* other contributors to the free-will literature). In THIS reply essay, Mickelson responds to an attempt by Gabriel De Marco (FSU, advisor Alfred Mele) to defend the original Zygote Argument from Mickelson's 2012/2015 critique. Unfortunately, both of De Marco's proposed "solutions" are non-starters. The first is a non-starter because De Marco merely repeats the premise-preserving solution that Mickelson offered to Mele in 2012 and that Mele adopted in print in 2013. In other words, De Marco took credit for the premise-preserving solution to the invalidity objection that Mickelson developed (although he does *redescribe* Mickelson's solution in his own idiosyncratic jargon) and Mele had already adopted in print. De Marco's second solution is a non-starter because it is constituted by a patently invalid argument. Contrary to De Marco's proposal, it's not true that the conjunction of possibilism and incompossibilism deductively entails the positive, diagnostic claim that deterministic causal factors beyond one's control preclude (destroy, undermine, is antagonistically relevant to) free will when determinism is true. *My thanks to the editors of Philosophia for publishing this reply when PhilStudies would not. (shrink)

Alfred Mele’s zygote argument is widely considered to be the strongest version of the manipulation argument against compatibilism (about free will and determinism). Opponents have focused largely on the first of its two premises and on the overall dialectic. My focus here will be on the underlying thought experiment—the Diana scenario—and on the second premise of the argument. I will argue that reflection on the Diana scenario shows that the second premise does not hold, and we (...) will see that my objection to the second premise helps to defend the claim that manipulation arguments face, in general, a dilemma. (shrink)

John and Mary have fully consensual sex, but they do not want to have a child, so they use contraception with the intention of avoiding pregnancy. Unfortunately, although they used the contraception in the way in which it is supposed to be used, Mary has become pregnant. The couple decides to have the baby, whom they name ‘Ernie’. Now we fill in the story a bit. The universe is causally deterministic, and 30 years later Ernie performs some action A and (...) thereby brings about event E. We also stipulate that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely . That is, we suppose that there are no uncontroversially freedom- and responsibility-undermining conditions present in the context in which Ernie performs A, and, further, that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely. Let us say, for example, that one adopts the theory according to which the freedom-relevant condition on moral responsibility is that the agent exhibits ‘guidance control’ of his action and . On this approach, one acts freely in so far as one acts from one's own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism. We can then simply stipulate that, in the relevant context, Ernie acts from his own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism . If one prefers a different set of compatiblist-friendly conditions for acting freely, one can simply stipulate that Ernie meets them; indeed, the plausible compatibilist-friendly conditions seem to be compatible with each other, and thus Ernie could presumably meet all of them in the relevant context. In such a case, and given that the epistemic condition on acting freely and moral responsibility is met, I am inclined to say that Ernie …. (shrink)

Alfred Mele’s zygote argument for incompatibilism is based on a case involving an agent in a deterministic world whose entire life is planned by someone else. Mele’s contention is that Ernie (the agent) is unfree and that normal determined agents are relevantly similar to him with regards to free will. In this paper, I examine four different ways of understanding this argument and then criticize each interpretation. I then extend my criticism to manipulation arguments in general. I (...) conclude that the zygote argument is no threat to compatibilism. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Kristin Mickelson argues that Alfred Mele’s Zygote Argument, a popular argument for the claim that the truth of determinism would preclude free action or moral responsibility, is not valid. This sort of objection is meant to generalize to various manipulation arguments. According to Mickelson, the only way to make such arguments valid is to supplement them with an argument that is an inference to the best explanation. In this paper, I argue that (...) there are two other ways in which the proponent of such manipulation arguments can modify their argument, neither of which requires an inference to the best explanation. I then briefly consider and respond to a worry with one of these proposed solutions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the distinction between moral responsibility and autonomy can illuminate various debates about the Zygote Argument. Having made this distinction, one can see how these manipulation arguments are unsuccessful. Building on previous work, I also argue that this distinction can provide a framework for understanding other important work in agency theory, including that of Harry Frankfurt and Gary Watson.

Think of the last thing someone did to you to seriously harm or offend you. And now imagine, so far as you can, becoming fully aware of the fact that his or her action was the causally inevitable result of a plan set into motion before he or she was ever even born, a plan that had no chance of failing. Should you continue to regard him or her as being morally responsible—blameworthy, in this case—for what he or she did? (...) Many have thought that, intuitively, you should not. Recently, Alfred Mele has employed this line of thought to mount what many have taken to be a powerful argument for incompatibilism: the “Zygote Argument”. However, in interesting new papers, John Martin Fischer and Stephen Kearns have each independently argued that the Zygote Argument fails. As I see it, the criticisms of Fischer and Kearns reveal some important questions about how the argument is meant to be—or how it would best be—understood. Once we make a slight (but important) modification to the argument, however, I think we will be able to see that the criticisms of Fischer and Kearns do not detract from its substantial force. (shrink)

Manipulation arguments that start from the intuition that manipulated agents are neither free nor morally responsible then conclude to that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. The Zygote argument is a special case of Manipulation argument in which the manipulation intervenes at the very conception of the agent. In this paper, I argue that the Zygote argument fails because (i) very few people share the basic intuitions the argument rests on, and (...) (ii) even those who share this intuition do so for reasons that are unrelated to determinism. Rather, I argue that intuitions about the Zygote argument (and Manipulation arguments in general) are driven by people's intuitions about the deep self, as shown by the fact that intuitions about manipulated agents depend on the moral value of the agent's behavior. (shrink)

In Free Will and Luck, Mele presents a case of an agent Ernie, whose zygote was intentionally designed so that Ernie A-s in 30 years, bringing about a certain event E. Mele uses this case of original design to outline the zygote argument against compatibilism. In this paper I criticize the zygote argument. Unlike other compatibilists who have responded to the zygote argument, I contend that it is open to the compatibilist to accept (...) premise one, that Ernie does not act freely and is not morally responsible for anything he does. I argue that compatibilists should deny premise two. Diana’s effective intention to create Ernie’s zygote such that Ernie A-s in 30 years and her intervention to bring about his A-ing mark a significant difference between Ernie and normal agents in a deterministic universe with regard to how their zygotes were created that affects whether those agents act freely and are morally responsible for so acting. (shrink)

Patrick Todd has recently fashioned a novel argument for incompatibilism, the Moral-Standing Zygote Argument. Todd considers much-discussed cases in which a manipulator causes an agent in a deterministic scenario to act morally wrongly from compatibilist-friendly conditions for freedom and moral responsibility. The manipulator, Todd contends, does not have the standing to blame the manipulated agent, and the best explanation for this is that incompatibilism is true. This is why the manipulated agent is not blameworthy. In this paper, (...) I counter Todd on behalf of the compatibilist, arguing that the best explanation for the manipulator's lack of moral standing to blame is due to the manipulator's intending to cause the manipulated agent to do wrong. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the view that a zygote is a human from the fission objection that is widely thought to be decisive against the view. I do so, drawing upon a recent discussion of this issue by John Burgess, by explaining in detail the metaphysical position the proponent of the view should adopt in order to rebut the objection.

I consider the argument, thought to clinch the moral case for use of a human embryo solely as a means, that only a human individual can be a person, because it can happen at any time before formation of the primitive streak that an embryo splits into monozygotic twins, no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a human individual, and therefore no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a person. I explore (...) the following proffered arguments for : indivisibility is a necessary condition of individuality, nonidentity of an embryo with successor twins impugns the embryo’s individuality, and totipotency of an embryo’s constituents is inconsistent with the embryo’s being a human individual. These arguments are tested and found wanting; so too is an alternative to , the argument that indivisibility is intrinsic to personhood. Whereupon is unsustained. In search of ways to rehabilitate the nonindividuation argument, I canvass alternative metaphysical views and inquire further into biological individuality, but find that the argument cannot be saved. I conclude by analyzing where this leaves matters concerning the morality of embryo use. (shrink)

I consider the argument, thought to clinch the moral case for use of a human embryo solely as a means, that only a human individual can be a person, because it can happen at any time before formation of the primitive streak that an embryo splits into monozygotic twins, no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a human individual, and therefore no embryo in which the primitive streak has not formed is a person. I explore (...) the following proffered arguments for : indivisibility is a necessary condition of individuality, nonidentity of an embryo with successor twins impugns the embryo’s individuality, and totipotency of an embryo’s constituents is inconsistent with the embryo’s being a human individual. These arguments are tested and found wanting; so too is an alternative to, the argument that indivisibility is intrinsic to personhood. Whereupon is unsustained. In search of ways to rehabilitate the nonindividuation argument, I canvass alternative metaphysical views and inquire further into biological individuality, but find that the argument cannot be saved. I conclude by analyzing where this leaves matters concerning the morality of embryo use. (shrink)

In some quarters, it is held that Anscombe proved that a zygote is not a human being on the basis of an argument involving the possibility of identical twins, but there is surprisingly little agreement on what her argument is supposed to be. I criticize several extant interpretations, both as interpretations of Anscombe and as self-standing arguments, and offer a different understanding of her conclusion on which the non-specificity of creation processes and their goals is at issue.

"The Manipulation Argument has recently taken center stage in the free-will debate, yet little else can be said of this newcomer that is uncontroversial. At present, even the most fundamental elements of the Manipulation Argument--its structure, conclusion, and target audience--are a matter of dispute. As such, we cannot begin, as we ideally would, with a simple and relatively uncontroversial overview of the argument. Instead, clarifying the debate over the basic structure and general conclusion of the Manipulation (...) class='Hi'>Argument will be our goal." -/- UPDATE: I now refer to an isolated objection to the counterexample step as a hardline reply, an isolated attack on the generalization step a softline reply, and an isolated response to the explanation step as an "al dente" reply. Al dente replies have been given in Mele's 2005 critique of the Four-Case Argument and my 2015 (2012) critique of Mele's Zygote Argument. I also now refer to a manipulation argument which has a generalization step that concludes to impossibilism and an explanation step which proposes an explanation for the impossibility of free will as a "Master Manipulation Argument" (examples of master manipulation arguments include Mickelson 2015 and 2019). (shrink)

This article is a response by the author of Defending Life, Francis Beckwith, to Kevin Corcoran’s critical review of that book. In his review Corcoran maintains that Beckwith provides only a “typical” genetic code argument for the zygote’s individual humanity, and that Beckwith fails to show that there exists an individual human organism that subsists from conception and develops into a mature version of itself. Beckwith argues that Corcoran is mistaken on both counts.

W Deklaracji o przerywaniu ciąży z 1974, Kościół Katolicki argumentuje, że zygota jest człowiekiem ponieważ posiada ludzki genotyp. Artykuł przedstawia logiczną analizę tej argumentacji. Pokazuje, że argumentacja ta jest w dużym stopniu wadliwa. Tomizm pełni tu funkcję uprawo-mocnienia. Entymematyczne założenia tomistyczne są niezbędne, by w ogóle możliwe było przejście od przesłanek do wniosku. Okazuje się ponadto, że argumentacja ta zakłada tomistyczną interpretację pojęć biologicznych, która jest niezgodna ze współczesną wiedzą biologiczną. Twierdzenie zawarte w Deklaracji nie zostało więc skutecznie uargumentowane na (...) gruncie biologii, a wręcz wydaje się, że biologia je wyklucza. Jest ono możliwe jedynie jako twierdzenie metafizyczne i wyłącznie na gruncie pewnych metafizyk. (shrink)

Agents have no control over the formation of their own zygote. Others may do. According to a well-known argument, the so-called Zygote Argument for incompatibilism, these facts, together with a prima facie plausible further assumption, are sufficient to prove that human agents cannot be responsible for their actions if they live in a deterministic universe. This paper argues that the lack of agents’ control over the constitution of their own zygote can undermine their responsibility only (...) in exceptional conditions and that the occurrence or non-occurrence of those conditions has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of determinism. What undermines agents’ responsibility in the situations described by the Zygote Argument is the occurrence of some specific initial conditions which may render the manipulation of agents’ behaviour possible, and not the truth of determinism. (shrink)

Many people believe that human beings begin to exist with the emergence of the 1-cell zygote at fertilization. I present a novel argument against this belief, one based on recently discovered facts about human embryo development. I first argue that a human zygote is developmentally plastic: A zygote that naturally develops into a singleton (i.e., develops into exactly one infant/adult without twinning) might have naturally developed into a numerically different singleton. From this, I derive the conclusion (...) that a human infant or adult is numerically distinct from the zygote she came from and so did not begin to exist at fertilization. This implies that a zygote does not have a “future like ours” and strongly suggests that it is not a human being. (shrink)

Alfred Mele has presented the Zygote Argument as a challenge to compatibilism. In previous work I have offered a critique of Mele’s first premise. Patrick Todd, Neal Tognazzini, and Derk Pereboom have offered an alternative interpretation of the argument, substituting for. Here I offer a critical evaluation of this strategy, and in the process I seek to understand the deep structure of the Zygote Argument.

Don Marquis has argued that abortion is immoral because it deprives the fetus of a "future like ours." But Marquis's argument fails by incorrectly assuming that a zygote and the late-term fetus with which it is physically continuous are numerically identical. In fact, the identity of a prebirth human (PBH) across gestation is indeterminate, such that it is determinately morally permissible to destroy an early-term PBH and determinately immoral to destroy a late-term PBH. Beginning at some indeterminate point (...) during gestation and ending at some indeterminate point later in gestation, destroying a PBH is neither determinately morally permissible nor determinately immoral. (shrink)

A number of philosophers maintain that the destruction of an embryo in the first 2 weeks after fertilization is not morally problematic as it is metaphysically impossible for any human organism to then have existed. We contend that the typical adult human organism was once a zygote so there is no metaphysical shortcut to justify early abortion. We show that five arguments against human organisms ever having been zygotes fail. All of the arguments have to do with one variant (...) or another of the zygote or early embryo dividing. They do not provide any reason to believe that since some adult organisms are not identical to zygotes due to earlier divisions, none could have been. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the main reason it is wrong to kill people is that killing them deprives them of all the experiences and activities that would otherwise have constituted their futures. Some of these philosophers have also argued that killing potential people is wrong for the same reason, and have used this as support for a conservative position on abortion. Critics have countered by arguing that if zygotes are potential people so too are gamete pairs, and that the potentialist (...) is therefore committed to saying that contraception is very seriously wrong.The first part of this paper examines critically three potentia!ist lines of defense against the (above) contraception reductio and argues that they all fail. The second part of the paper discusses three attempts to finger the flaw in the (above) deprivation argument that is used by the potentialist, and points to significant problems facing each attempt. It concludes that while there is good reason to believe the potentialist’s deprivation argument is unsound, the flaw in the argument has not yet been convincingly identified. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the main reason it is wrong to kill people is that killing them deprives them of all the experiences and activities that would otherwise have constituted their futures. Some of these philosophers have also argued that killing potential people is wrong for the same reason, and have used this as support for a conservative position on abortion. Critics have countered by arguing that if zygotes are potential people so too are gamete pairs, and that the potentialist (...) is therefore committed to saying that contraception is very seriously wrong.The first part of this paper examines critically three potentia!ist lines of defense against the (above) contraception reductio and argues that they all fail. The second part of the paper discusses three attempts to finger the flaw in the (above) deprivation argument that is used by the potentialist, and points to significant problems facing each attempt. It concludes that while there is good reason to believe the potentialist’s deprivation argument is unsound, the flaw in the argument has not yet been convincingly identified. (shrink)

The view that human beings begin to exist at fertilization (namely conceptionism) faces a serious challenge from the twinning argument, that identical twins coming from the same zygote must be numerically distinct from the zygote and so did not exist at fertilization. Recently, some philosophers have claimed that the twinning argument rests on a particular metaphysical theory of persistence, namely endurantism, on which a human being, for example, is wholly present at every moment of her existence. (...) And we can easily refute the argument, they claim, by employing perdurantism or exdurantism, according to which a human being is a temporally extended entity with temporal parts or a momentarily existing stage who has other momentarily existing stages as counterparts. I argue that such claims are mistaken. The twinning argument does not rest on endurantism and can be formulated in terms of perdurantism to provide a good reason for perdurantists to reject conceptionism. And exdurantism does not have any advantage in defending conceptionism either, for it already concedes more than what the twinning argument aims to show. (shrink)

Để xem bóng đá và phát sóng video trực tiếp tốc độ cao, Xoilac là trang web lý tưởng. Đặc biệt, Xoilac không có bất cứ quảng cáo nào, vì vậy người xem vẫn thoải mái thưởng thức trận bóng đá mà không lo bị phân tâm vì bất cứ vấn đề gì. Ngoài ra, Xoilac có đội ngũ dày dặn chuyên môn, luôn đưa ra những nhận định chuẩn xác cho từng trận đấu bóng đá. Với đồ hoạ sinh (...) động, âm thanh lôi cuốn và sống động, Xoilac sẽ lưu lại dấu ấn sâu đậm trong tâm trí người xem bóng đá. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up the conciliatory-steadfast debate occurring within social epistemology in regards to the phenomenon of peer disagreement. I will argue, because the conciliatory perspective al-lows us to understand argumentation pragmatically—as a method of problem-solving within a community rather than as a method for obtaining the truth—that in most cases, we should not simply agree to disagree.