Bound : Essays on Free Will and Responsibility.

Cover -- Bound: Essays on Free Will andResponsibility -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Introduction -- Two axes and three dimensions -- The descriptive project -- The substantive project -- The prescriptive project -- The plan -- PART I: Agency -- 1. The Folk Psychology of Agency -- 1.1 The lure of determinism -- 1.1.1 Causal inference in children -- 1.1.2 Determinism and the explanatory compulsion -- 1.1.3 The explanatory compulsion and folk psychology -- 1.2 Folk indeterminism -- 1.3 Summary -- 2. The Indeterminist Intuition: Source and Status -- 2.1 Extant explanations for the indeterminist intuition -- 2.1.1 Libertarian explanations for the belief in indeterminism -- 2.1.2 Hard determinist explanations for the belief in indeterminism -- 2.2 How to make inferences about determinism -- 2.3 Back to Buridan's ass -- 2.4 Philosophy recapitulates ontogeny -- 2.5 A statistical learning explanation of the belief in indeterminism -- 2.6 Debunking the belief in indeterminist choice -- 3. Free Will and Error -- 3.1 Eliminativism and reference -- 3.2 The geography of error -- 3.3 Reference conventions and ontology -- 3.4 Practical interests and illusions -- PART II: Moral Responsibility -- 4. Incompatibilism: Intuitive and Isolated -- 4.1 Folk incompatibilism -- 4.1.1 Natural incompatibilism -- 4.1.2 Challenging the interpretation -- 4.1.2.1 HOT VS. COLD COGNITION -- 4.1.2.2 ABSTRACT VS. CONCRETE -- 4.1.2.3 BYPASSING -- 4.2 Other aspects of folk responsibility -- 4.3 Manipulation -- 4.3.1 Manipulation arguments -- 4.3.2 Hard compatibilism -- 4.3.3 Puppeteer -- 4.3.4 Against the manipulation argument -- 4.3.5 Should manipulation be mitigating? -- 4.4 The explanatory limitations of folk incompatibilism -- 5. Debunking Arguments -- 5.1 Varieties of debunking -- 5.2 Process debunking -- 5.3 Metaethics and debunking.

5.3.1 Are people moral objectivists? -- 5.3.2 Why are people moral objectivists? -- 5.3.2.1 AFFECT, OBJECTIVITY, AND DEBUNKING -- 5.3.2.2 MOTIVATION, OBJECTIVITY, AND DEBUNKING -- 5.4 Interlude -- 5.5 Normative ethics and debunking -- 5.5.1 Folk moral relativism -- 5.5.2 Framework-external debunking -- 5.5.3 Framework-internal debunking -- 6. Brute Retributivism -- 6.1 A bare retributivist norm -- 6.2 The bare retributive norm and the folk -- 6.3 Retributivism and the emotions -- 6.4 Justification -- 6.5 Ethical conservatism -- 6.6 Competing considerations -- 6.7 Conclusion -- 7. After Incompatibilism -- 7.1 The descriptive question -- 7.2 The prescriptive question -- 7.2.1 Insulationism -- 7.2.1.1 ENSHRINEMENT -- 7.2.1.2 NARROW VS. WIDE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILES -- 7.2.1.3 MORAL ANGER -- 7.2.1.4 MORAL ANGER AND ENSHRINED INCOMPATIBILISM -- 7.2.2 Gains and losses to human life -- 7.2.2.1 BENEFITS OF MORAL ANGER -- 7.2.2.2 ANALOGUE FOR MORAL ANGER -- 7.2.2.3 MORAL CONSIDERATIONS -- 7.3 Discretion redux -- References -- Index.

Shaun Nichols offers a naturalistic, psychological account of the origins of the problem of free will. He argues that our belief in indeterminist choice is grounded in faulty inference and therefore unjustified, goes on to suggest that there is no single answer to whether free will exists, and promotes a pragmatic approach to prescriptive issues.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.