{"title":"Agency: Let's mind what's fundamental1","authors":"R. Wallace","doi":"10.1111/phis.12258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12258","url":null,"abstract":"The standard event‐causal theory of action says that an intentional action is caused in the right way by the right mental states. This view requires reductionism about agency. The causal role of the agent must be nothing over and above the causal contribution of the relevant mental event‐causal processes. But commonsense finds this reductive solution to the “agent‐mind problem”, the problem of explaining the relationship between agents and the mind, incredible. Where did the agent go? This paper suggests that this challenge against event‐causal reductionism is importantly related to debates about fundamentality. It also suggests that extant event‐causal answers to the agent‐mind problem, ones that suggest that part of an agent's mind can stand proxy for the agent herself, fail against the challenge. It sketches an alternative reductive view that appeals to entity grounding. This view resolves the commonsense challenge and promises to be theoretically fruitful with respect to other longstanding problems with the event‐casual view. The paper concludes with a burden‐shifting argument against emergentist agent‐causal theories and non‐reductive event‐causal theories of agency.","PeriodicalId":46360,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Issues","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49299799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Higher‐order omissions and the stacked view of agency","authors":"Joseph Metz","doi":"10.1111/phis.12251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12251","url":null,"abstract":"Omissions are puzzling, and theyraise myriad questions for many areas of philosophy. In contrast, omissions ofomissions are not usually taken to be very puzzling since they are oftenthought to just be a fancy way of describing ordinary “positive” events, statesof affairs, or actions. This paper contends that – as far as agency isconcerned – at least some omissions of omissions are omissions, not actions. First,this paper highlights how our actions are accompanied by many first‐orderomissions ‐ i.e., omissions to act – and that there already are many strongreasons to think that at least some of these first‐order omissions are agentiallydistinct from simultaneous actions and from other first‐order omissions. Itthen argues that our actions and first‐order omissions are also accompanied byhigher‐order omissions – i.e., omissions to omit to act – and that higher‐orderomissions are distinct from actions and first‐order omissions for similarreasons. Higher‐order omissions also illuminate a more holistic picture of agency,which involves recognizing that our exercises of agency at a moment in timeinclude all of our overlapping behaviors – our actions, first‐order omissions,and higher‐order omissions. This paper concludes by exploring the impacts ofhigher‐order omissions.","PeriodicalId":46360,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Issues","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48408558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why history matters for moral responsibility: Evaluating history‐sensitive structuralism","authors":"Taylor W. Cyr","doi":"10.1111/phis.12242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12242","url":null,"abstract":"Is moral responsibility essentially historical, or does an agent's moral responsibility for an action depend only on their psychological structure at that time? In previous work, I have argued that the two main (non‐skeptical) views on moral responsibility and agents’ histories—historicism and standard structuralism—are vulnerable to objections that are avoided by a third option, namely history‐sensitive structuralism. In this paper, I develop this view in greater detail and evaluate the view by comparing it with its three dialectical rivals: skepticism about moral responsibility, historicism, and standard structuralism. Each comparison includes discussion of new work on moral responsibility and agents’ histories, and along the way I offer new arguments for preferring history‐sensitive structuralism, paying special attention to the view's explanatory power.","PeriodicalId":46360,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Issues","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42983431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flickering the W‐Defense","authors":"Michael Robinson","doi":"10.1111/phis.12253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12253","url":null,"abstract":"One way to defend the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) against Frankfurt‐style cases is to challenge the claim that agents in these scenarios are genuinely morally responsible for what they do. Alternatively, one can grant that agents are morally responsible for what they do in these cases but resist the idea that they could not have done otherwise. This latter strategy is known as the flicker defense of PAP. In an argument he calls the W‐Defense, David Widerker adopts the former approach. I argue that, while Widerker's argument does a poor job showing that these agents are not morally responsible for what they do, it does a very good job highlighting the alternative possibilities that remain open to agents in these cases and illustrating their moral significance (or robustness). In doing so, my aim is to co‐opt Widerker's argument to bolster the most promising versions of the flicker defense.","PeriodicalId":46360,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Issues","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48860536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public artifacts and the epistemology of collective material testimony","authors":"Quill R Kukla","doi":"10.1111/phis.12224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12224","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46360,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Issues","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48800489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}