对个人生命权的辩护——从自由意志出发

现代医学面临的问题,诸如安乐死、生前预嘱、器官捐献等都可以归结为对生命权的支配问题,而生命权的支配又面临着个人的自由意志与伦理价值的双重考量。但二者并不是不可通约的,个人作为生命个体,自由意志是规定自身、以区别于动物的本质要素,是个人人格和尊严的体现;但人并不仅作为一个个体存在,还要通过否定自身而进入一个伦理实体,受伦理实体的制约。伦理实体并不是对自由意志的简单否定,两者是既对立又统一的关系。     

Evolution and Free Will: A Defense of Darwinian Non–naturalism

In his recent book The Natural Selection of Autonomy , Bruce Waller defends a view that he calls "natural autonomy." This view holds that human beings possess a kind of autonomy that we share with nonhuman animals, a capacity to explore alternative courses of action, but an autonomy that cannot support moral responsibility. He also argues that this natural autonomy can provide support for the ethical principle of noninterference. I argue that to support the ethical principle of noninterference Waller needs either a libertarian or a compatibilist theory of autonomy. I then go on to argue that, contra Waller, the libertarian view is both compatible with Darwinism and able to make sense of how autonomous acts belong to the agents who perform them. Thus, I conclude that the libertarian position is a live option for Darwinians. If however, naturalism is taken to include a deterministic view of the universe (at least at the nonquantum level), as is often the case, then my article takes some strides in defending "Darwinian non–naturalism."     

从理性到信仰:西方自由观的转向——对奥古斯丁信仰自由观的一种解读

在古希腊理性精神与基督教信仰文化交汇的大背景下,奥古斯丁扬弃柏拉图和亚里士多德等思想家的理性自由观,提出了以基督教信仰为基础的信仰自由观。这种自由观展示了信仰、自由意志和理性三者之间富有张力的依存关系,实现了西方自由观的转向,对后来的西方哲学与文化发生了深远影响。这种自由观在德国古典哲学尤其是黑格尔的哲学中得到复兴,但由于从根本上并没有克服自由与决定论之间的困境,现实的人的自由、理性与信仰在黑格尔哲学中都被消解了。即便如此,在当代一些重要的思想家那里,奥古斯丁确立的思维范式依然具有实质性影响。     

斐洛论自由意志和罪

自由意志和罪的关联是西方思想史所要处理的一个核心问题。关于这个主题学者们多只追溯到奥古斯丁的著名论述,然而这无法真正地揭示其演变脉络。该文分析了希腊化犹太教思想家斐洛对自由意志和罪的阐释,着重论述了自由意志作为神圣性的存在原理何以成为罪的自明性自欺的根源,进而指出了希伯来和希腊传统在这个理论上的各自贡献。     

Free Will and Contextualism

This paper proposes a contextualist solution to the puzzle about free will. It argues that the context-sensitivity of statements about freedom of the will follows from the correct analysis of these statements. Because the analysis is independently plausible, the contextualism is warranted not merely in virtue of its capacity to solve the puzzle.     

Luck and Free Will

This essay sketches a problem about luck for typical incompatibilist views of free will posed in Alfred Mele, Free Will and Luck (2006), and examines recent reactions to that problem. Reactions featuring appeals to agent causation receive special attention. Because the problem is focused on decision making, the control that agents have over what they decide is a central topic. Other topics discussed include the nature of lucky action and differences between directly and indirectly free actions.     

Free Will and Scientiphicalism

John McDowell, Richard Rorty, and Robert Brandom invoke Sellars's arguments against the Myth of the Given as having shown that the Given is nothing more than a myth. But most of Sellars's arguments attack logical atomism, not the framework of givenness as such. Moreover, they do not succeed. At crucial points the arguments confuse the perspectives of a knower and those attributing knowledge to a knower. Only one argument—the “inconsistent triad” argument—addresses the Myth of the Given as such, and there are several ways of escaping its conclusion. Invocations of Sellars's refutation of the Myth of the Given are empty.     

罪恶与自由意志——奥古斯丁“原罪”理论辨析

奥古斯丁是基督教“原罪”理论的重要奠基人,他明确地提出了自由意志是罪恶的原因。本文探讨了奥古斯丁“原罪”理论的基本内容,分析了奥古斯丁在自由意志问题上的思想变化和内在矛盾,并简要地说明了奥古斯丁的自由意志理论对于后世的影响。     

Free Will and Therapeutic Change

Much of psychology has minimized, or disregarded, the notion of free will. However, it remains a critical construct in most theories of behavioral and religious change. This paper briefly examines the free will/determinism debate and the construct of free will from the perspective of postmodern/narrative psychology, as well as integrating recent developments in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Finally, the implications of this analysis on personal responsibility in pastoral psychology are discussed.     

Free Will and Mental Powers

In this paper, we investigate how contemporary metaphysics of powers can further an understanding of agent-causal theories of free will. The recent upsurge of such ontologies of powers and the understanding of causation it affords promises to demystify the notion of an agent-causal power. However, as we argue pace (Mumford and Anjum in Analysis 74:20–25, 2013; Am Philos Q 52:1–12, 2015a), the very ubiquity of powers also poses a challenge to understanding in what sense exercises of an agent’s power to act could still be free—neither determined by external circumstances, nor random, but self-determined. To overcome this challenge, we must understand what distinguishes the power to act from ordinary powers. We suggest this difference lies in its rational nature, and argue that existing agent-causal accounts (e.g., O’Connor in Libertarian views: dualist and agent-causal theories, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002; Lowe in Personal agency: the metaphysics of mind and action, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) fail to capture the sense in which the power to act is rational. A proper understanding, we argue, requires us to combine the recent idea that the power to act is a ‘two-way power’ (e.g., Steward in A metaphysics for freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012b; Lowe (in: Groff, Greco (eds) Powers and capacities in philosophy: the new aristotelianism, Routledge, New York, 2013) with the idea that it is intrinsically rational. We sketch the outlines of an original account that promises to do this. On this picture, what distinguishes the power to act is its special generality—the power to act, unlike ordinary powers, does not come with any one typical manifestation. We argue that this special generality can be understood to be a feature of the capacity to reason. Thus, we argue, an account of agent-causation that can further our understanding of free will requires us to recognize a specifically rational or mental variety of power.