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.     

Moral responsibility and free will: A meta-analysis

Fundamental beliefs about free will and moral responsibility are often thought to shape our ability to have healthy relationships with others and ourselves. Emotional reactions have also been shown to have an important and pervasive impact on judgments and behaviors. Recent research suggests that emotional reactions play a prominent role in judgments about free will, influencing judgments about determinism’s relation to free will and moral responsibility. However, the extent to which affect influences these judgments is unclear. We conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the impact of affect. Our meta-analysis indicates that beliefs in free will are largely robust to emotional reactions.     

Responsibility, Passion, and Sin: A Reassessment of Abelard's Ethics

This article reassesses Peter Abelard's account of moral intention,or, better, consent, in light of recent work on his own thought and on the twelfth-century background of that thought. The author argues (1) that Abelard's focus on consent as the determining factor for morality does not rule out, but, on the contrary, presupposes objective criteria for moral judgment and (2) that Abelard's real innovation does not lie in hisdoctrine of consent as the sole source of merit or guilt, but, rather, in his exploration of the ways in which this doctrine affects our understanding of the objective criteria for moral judgment. In particular, Abelard is led by his doctrine of consent to a thoroughgoing reassessment of the moral significance of the passions, which, in turn, leads him to reject the view that actions should be evaluated in terms of the praiseworthy or vicious character of the passions they express.     

Extraversion and compatibilist intuitions: a ten-year retrospective and meta-analyses

ABSTRACT

The past ten years have seen multiple attempts to estimate the relation between the global personality trait extraversion and compatibilist free will judgments. Here, we contribute to that line of research by conducting a meta-analysis of 17 published and eight unpublished studies (N = 2,811) estimating that relation. Overall, the mean effect size was modest but remarkably robust across materials, locations, and labs (z = .19, 95% CI .15-.24, p < .001). No significant publication bias was detected in the studies (t (23) = 1.88, p = .07). While there was no significant heterogeneity in the studies (Q (24) = 34.42, p = .08, I² = 26.05), a moderator analysis suggested that the effect is strongest in cases that contain highly affective actions (e.g., murder) (z = .22, 95% CI .17-.28, p < .001) and weakest in cases that contain actions with low affect (e.g., asking whether free will is compatible with determinism) (z = .09, 95% CI -.05-.23, p = .22). The meta-analysis provides additional evidence that extraversion is related to compatibilist free will judgments and helps to identify opportunities to discover boundary conditions and more proximal causal mechanisms for the relation. The results of the meta-analysis also have implications for informed decision making.     

Ten Principles for Interpreting Neuroscientific Pronouncements Regarding Human Nature

As the field of brain research continues to advance, much is being discovered about the various aspects of the brain that are associated with certain feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. However, certain studies, or popularized accounts thereof, overreach in their pronouncements, drawing unwarranted conclusions regarding human nature. There are ten principles that will assist the non‐specialist in critically assessing both now and future discoveries reported from the neurosciences, with a focus on helping theologians using neuroscientific data in multidisciplinary work regarding human nature.     

Beyond free will: The embodied emergence of conscious agency

Is it possible to reconcile the concept of conscious agency with the view that humans are biological creatures subject to material causality? The problem of conscious agency is complicated by the tendency to attribute autonomous powers of control to conscious processes. In this paper, we offer an embodied process model of conscious agency. We begin with the concept of embodied emergence – the idea that psychological processes are higher-order biological processes, albeit ones that exhibit emergent properties. Although consciousness, experience, and representation are emergent properties of higher-order biological organisms, the capacity for hierarchical regulation is a property of all living systems. Thus, while the capacity for consciousness transforms the process of hierarchical regulation, consciousness is not an autonomous center of control. Instead, consciousness functions as a system for coordinating novel representations of the most pressing demands placed on the organism at any given time. While it does not regulate action directly, consciousness orients and activates preconscious control systems that mediate the construction of genuinely novel action. Far from being an epiphenomenon, consciousness plays a central albeit non-autonomous role in psychological functioning.     

Kierkegaard on the Problems of Pure Irony

Søren Kierkegaard's thesis, The Concept of Irony, contains an interesting critique of pure irony. Kierkegaard's critique turns on two main claims: (a) pure irony is an incoherent and thus, unrealizable stance; (b) the pursuit of pure irony is morally enervating, psychologically destructive, and culminates in bondage to moods. In this essay, first I attempt to clarify Kierkegaard's understanding of pure irony as “infinite absolute negativity.” Then I set forth his multilayered critique of pure irony. Finally, I consider briefly a distinctly theological component in Kierkegaard's critique. I argue that this feature of Kierkegaard's account can and should be distinguished from the broadly ethical critique of pure irony that I sketch in the second section, even if these components of Kierkegaard's position are found together as a unified whole in The Concept of Irony. My overall goal in this essay is to reveal the subtlety and plausibility of Kierkegaard's critique of pure irony. I also attempt to disclose the richness of the Hegelian account of ethical life to which Kierkegaard recurs in his thesis.     

Schopenhauer on Christ,Suffering and the Negation of the Will

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to illuminate Schopenhauer’s notion of the negation or denial of the will by investigating the figure of the saint within his philosophy. We argue that various discussions in Schopenhauer’s works of the possible role of Christ as exemplar reveals an underlying Christological understanding of self-denial as a model for the saint. The connection between Schopenhauer’s approach to Christ and Kant’s Christology in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason is also explored. We note how Schopenhauer builds on the Kantian demythologization of the Incarnated Christ in order to uncover the moral and existential spirit that underlies Christianity. In addition, we outline how a recognition of the symbolic importance of Christ for Schopenhauer suggests features of the denial of the will that have been overlooked in the literature, involving the intellectual transcendence of suffering through the cultivation of a state of emotional unresponsiveness. It is argued that this reflects a deeper connection between Schopenhauer’s philosophy and Christian thought than is often recognised.     

Some considerations on risk management in the service Economy

Abstract

Management of uncertainty and vulnerability is becoming more essential in the coming service economy than ever before. Management of risks need a new approach which must be based on a recognition of the special features of the service economy.     

‘Doctrina Deo vivendi’: William Ames,the Nature and Sources of His Voluntarism

ABSTRACT

To establish his vision of theology as the doctrine of ‘living to God,’ William Ames, the English puritan theologian exiled in The Netherlands, strongly emphasized the will as the seat of faith. This prominence has often been interpreted as an extreme version of voluntarism eliminating the intellective elements altogether and regarded as something outside mainstream, Reformed orthodoxy. However, when analysed through the distinction between habit and action, it will be clear that Ames’s emphatic statements on the will reflect his concern for the singularity of virtue, and that he did assign some roles to the intellect in terms of the action of faith. Therefore, the difference over the question of the seat of faith is highly technical in nature and should not be exaggerated. Ames argued for the priority of the will over the intellect by drawing from Scotist sources, which was compatible with the Thomistic idea of premotion.