Caring, Identification, and Agency

“…Therefore, if the only 33 Furthermore, this concept affords the agent a specific causal role-namely one of adjudicating between his various motivations for action and making a decision on the basis of this adjudication. What exactly this process of adjudication amounts to is controversial: perhaps this process requires agents to rationally reflect on these various motivations (Velleman 1992), or to form higher-order desires about which motivation they want to be effective in action (Frankfurt 1971), or to weigh carefully which course of action they most value (Watson 1975) or care most about (Shoemaker 2003), or what their self-governing policies direct concerning how to treat these various motivations (Bratman 2000). But whatever else this process of adjudication is, it is a process in which the agent considers his various motivations for action and selects which course of action to pursue.…”

Section: Putting the Self In Self-determinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But reductionists of this stripe have sophisticated responses. First, they contend that although the agent is not literally identical to his motivations, some of the agent's attitudes have authority to speak for the agent because the agent is identified with them (Frankfurt 1971(Frankfurt , 1987(Frankfurt , 1993(Frankfurt , 1994Watson 1975;Velleman 1992;Ekstrom 2000;Bratman 2000Bratman , 2005Shoemaker 2003;Jaworska 2007). When an agent is identified with any such attitude, the attitude can stand proxy for the agent and in this way the attitude's playing the agent's role counts as his playing his role.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The picture of identification as some kind of brute self-assertion seems totally unsatisfactory, but I have no idea what an illuminating account might be ' (1987, p. 169). For subsequent attempts to provide illuminating accounts of identification see Velleman 1992, Frankfurt 1993, 1994, Bratman 2000, 2005, Ekstrom 2000, Shoemaker 2003, and Jaworska 2007. I survey all these accounts and argue that they fail.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

If Anyone Should Be an Agent-Causalist, then Everyone Should Be an Agent-Causalist

Franklin¹

2016

Mind

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

forthcoming in MindNearly all defenses of the agent-causal theory of free will portray the theory as a distinctively libertarian one-a theory that only libertarians have reason to accept. According to what I call 'the standard argument for the agent-causal theory of free will', the reason to embrace agent-causal libertarianism is that libertarians can solve the problem of enhanced control only if they furnish agents with the agent-causal power. In this way it is assumed that there is only reason to accept the agent-causal theory if there is reason to accept libertarianism. I aim to refute this claim. I will argue that the reasons we have for endorsing the agent-causal theory of free will are nonpartisan. The real reason for going agent-causal has nothing to do with determinism or indeterminism, but rather with avoiding reductionism about agency and the self. As we will see, if there is reason for libertarians to accept the agent-causal theory, there is just as much reason for compatibilists. It is in this sense that I contend that if anyone should be an agent-causalist, then everyone should be an agent-causalist.

show abstract

“…These views differ amongst each other in what they claim the attributability-relevant capacity to befor example, on the broader version of Watson's view, it is the capacity to act on your values; on Frankfurt's view, it is the capacity to act on a desire with which you identify; and on Shoemaker's (2003) view, it is the capacity to act on your caresyet they all claim that you must exercise the attributability-relevant capacity in order to be attributionally responsible for an action. In other words, they all accept the following general principle:…”

Section: The Depth Of the Weakness Of Will Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attributability, weakness of will, and the importance of just having the capacity

Strabbing

2015

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A common objection to particular views of attributability is that they fail to account for weakness of will. In this paper, I show that the problem of weakness of will is much deeper than has been recognized, extending to all views of attributability on offer because of the general form that these views take. The fundamental problem is this: current views claim that being attributionally responsible is a matter of exercising whatever capacity that they take to be relevant to attributability; however, weakness of will cases show that we can be attributionally responsible for actions that result from failing to exercise that capacity. I propose a novel solution that any view of attributability can and must take on board in order to be viable. The solution is to recognize that being attributionally responsible is not fundamentally a matter of exercising the attributability-relevant capacity (whatever a particular view identifies that capacity to be) but is rather a matter of having that capacity, so long as that capacity figures in the explanation of the action.Keywords Attributability Á Moral responsibility Á Weakness of will Á Capacity A common objection to particular views of attributability is that they fail to account for weakness of will. In this paper, I show that the problem of weakness of will is much deeper than has been recognized, extending to all views of attributability on offer because of the general form that these views take. I then propose a novel solution that any view of attributability can and must adopt in order to be viable.

show abstract

Caring, Identification, and Agency

Cited by 63 publications

References 7 publications

Self-exposure and exposure of the self: informational privacy and the presentation of identity

Self-exposure and exposure of the self: informational privacy and the presentation of identity

If Anyone Should Be an Agent-Causalist, then Everyone Should Be an Agent-Causalist

Attributability, weakness of will, and the importance of just having the capacity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About