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.     

康德宗教哲学对我们的启示

在这个演讲里,笔者试图从康德的哲学与宗教观里发现西方文化的心理镜像结构,并以此来参照对比中国文化的心灵结构,结合个人的经验对二者都有所论衡。     

Moral responsibility for actions: epistemic and freedom conditions

I will argue that a desert-based justification for treating a person in a certain way is a justification that holds this treatment to be justified simply by what the person is like and what he or she has done, independent of (1) the fact that treating the person in this way will have good effects (or that treating people like him or her in this way will have such effects); (2) the fact that this treatment is called for by some (justified) institution or practice; or (3) the fact that the person could have avoided being subject to this treatment by choosing appropriately, and therefore cannot complain of it. I will explore the implications of this understanding of desert for the role of desert-based justifications of blame, punishment, and economic reward.     

Does dyslexia develop from learning the alphabet in the wrong hemisphere? A cognitive neuroscience analysis

A new perspective is described which views developmental dyslexia as the outcome of learning to write the alphabet in the nondominant (right) hemisphere. The letter-level and whole-word subtypes of dyslexia are seen as differing responses adopted to cope with this predicament. Striking similarities between dyslexics and callosotomy patients in the allocation of covert attention to lateralized stimuli provide direction for integrating a diversity of dyslexic research within this framework. This synthesis, together with information from pure alexia, brain activation, and reading research, lends insight into the neural circuitry of the compensatory strategies adopted by the two dyslexic subtypes.     

Freedom Beyond Practical Reason: Duns Scotus on Will-Dependent Relations

Most acts of the will have a complex structure, i.e. wanting A in relation to B (e.g. as a means for an end or as a good for another person or for oneself). Duns Scotus makes the innovative claim that the will itself is responsible for the order of this complex structure. It does this by causing its own will-dependent relations, which he construes as a kind of mind-dependent relations (relationes rationis). By means of these relations, the will can arrange the terms of its will-acts independently of any arrangement proposed by the intellect. This not only allows the structure of one's will-act to diverge from the structure proposed by the intellect's final practical judgement; the structure of the will-act need not even have been considered by the intellect at all. One could, therefore, even will an inconceivable state of affairs. I argue that this theory, which scholars have virtually ignored, is fundamental to Scotus's account of divine, angelic, and human freedom, and that it follows necessarily from his voluntarist understanding of freedom. For Scotus, if the will could not structure its acts independently of the intellect, it would not be free.¹¹Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (Leuven), the Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, and at UCLA. I am grateful for the discussion with those present on these occasions. Special thanks are due to Joshua Benson, Francis Feingold, Gloria Frost, Michael Gorman, Bonnie Kent, Calvin Normore, and Nick Kahm for helpful comments.     

Freedom of the Will in Plato and Augustine

There has been a recent surge of interest in ancient accounts of free will. It is surprising, then, that there have been virtually no attempts to discuss whether Plato had such an account. Those who have made an attempt quickly deny that such an account is present in the dialogues. I shall argue that if we draw a distinction between two notions of free will, it is plausible that some account of free will is, in fact, present in the dialogues, the Republic in particular. This is the first in depth search into the question and I demonstrate that the defender of a Platonic free will thesis has more resources than she first appears to. It also has the benefit of giving us an obvious source material for Augustine's discussion.     

Otto Rank: Pioneering Ideas for Social Work Theory and Practice

This article examines Otto Rank's psychology and its profound implications for social work knowledge-building and practice. The paper begins with a brief biographical portrait, highlighting the significance of Rank's relationship and eventual break with Freud, and contextualizing the ideas that became the basis for the Functional Approach. We discuss Rank's conception of human functioning in the social environment, his influence on later theories, and a contemporary critique of Rank's ideas. The paper concludes with a discussion of Rank's contributions to the Functional Approach and to social work practice in general.     

Focusing on Educational Outcomes

National education goals, content standards, and national tests are the hot topics of the day in educational reform. Special services personnel eventually will be faced with these issues, and can either be part of the discussion from the beginning, or wait and have to deal with someone else's decisions. In this article, we highlight some recent national and state educational reform activities and their probable implications for students with disabilities. We explain in brief the impetus behind the thrust toward an outcomesbased approach to education, and summarize the response of the National Center on Educational Outcomes for Students with Disabilities to this push. Possible ways in which special service providers can act to influence the focus on outcomes are described.     

Randomized Effectiveness Trial of an Internet,Pure Self-Help,Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Depressive Symptoms in Young Adults

This study evaluated an Internet-delivered, cognitive behavioral skills training program versus a treatment-as-usual (TAU) control condition targeting depression symptoms in young adults aged 18 to 24 years. Potential participants were mailed a recruitment brochure; if interested, they accessed the study website to complete an online consent and baseline assessment. Intervention participants could access the website at their own pace and at any time. Reminder postcards were mailed periodically to encourage return use of the intervention. The pure self-help intervention was delivered without contact with a live therapist. The primary depression outcome measure was the Patient Health Questionnaire, administered at 0, 5, 10, 16, and 32 weeks after enrollment. A small but significant between-group effect was found from Week 0 to Week 32 for the entire sample (N = 160, d = .20, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.00–0.50), with a moderate effect among women (n = 128, d .42, 95%C1 = 0.09–0.77). Greater depression reduction was associated with two measures of lower website usage, total minutes, and total number of page hits. Although intervention effects were modest, they were observed against a background of substantial TAU depression pharmacotherapy and psychosocial services. Highly disseminable, low-cost, and self-help interventions such as this have the potential to deliver a significant public health benefit.