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In this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether
or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is
as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live
forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently
being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be
able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to
wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as
individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and
accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and
against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on
examples from myth and literature as well as new thought
experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends
that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of
dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation
and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of
radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and
desirable. This book offers both students and experienced
philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial
importance. Key Features Gives a comprehensive overview of the main
arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from
myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible
- avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge - without
sacrificing intellectual rigor. Includes helpful pedagogical
features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a
glossary, and clear examples.
In this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether
or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is
as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live
forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently
being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be
able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to
wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as
individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and
accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and
against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on
examples from myth and literature as well as new thought
experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends
that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of
dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation
and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of
radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and
desirable. This book offers both students and experienced
philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial
importance. Key Features Gives a comprehensive overview of the main
arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from
myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible
- avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge - without
sacrificing intellectual rigor. Includes helpful pedagogical
features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a
glossary, and clear examples.
Over the last three decades there has been a tremendous amount of
philosophical work in the Anglo-American tradition on the cluster
of topics pertaining to Free Will. Of course, this work has in many
instances built on and extended the historical treatments of this
great area of philosophical interest. The issues range from fairly
abstract philosophical questions about the logic of arguments about
human freedom (and its relationship to prior predictability of our
choices and actions, or God's foreknowledge, or causal determinism
and scientific explanation) to more concrete practical questions
about legal and criminal accountability.
The contemporary work has in some instances been in the form of
lively debates between proponents of different viewpoints, and the
literature is characterized by a genuine vitality. Work has
appeared in a wide variety of different places: academic and (and
even trade) monographs, anthologies, philosophical and legal
academic journals, and conference proceedings. This collection
selects the very best of this material and presents it in a single,
accessible set of volumes.
This collection of seventeen essays deals with the metaphysical, as
opposed to the moral issues pertaining to death. For example, the
authors investigate (among other things) the issue of what makes
death a bad thing for an individual, if indeed death "is" a bad
thing. This issue is more basic and abstract than such moral
questions as the particular conditions under which euthanasia is
justified, if it "is" ever justified.
Though there are important connections between the more abstract
questions addressed in this book and many contemporary moral
issues, such as euthanasia, suicide, and abortion, the primary
focus of this book is on metaphysical issues concerning the nature
of death: What is the nature of the harm or bad involved in death?
(If it is not pain, wha is it, and how can it be bad?) Who is the
subject of the harm or bad? (if the person is no longer alive, how
can he be the subject of the bad? An if he is not the subject, who
is? Can one have harm with no subject?) When does the harm take
place? (Can a harm take place after its subject ceases to exist? If
death harms a person, can the harm take place before the death
occurs?) If death can be a bad thing, would immorality be a
desirable alternative? This family of questions helps to fram ethe
puzzle of why--and how--death is bad.
Other subjects addressed include the Epicurean view othat death is
not a misfortune (for the person who dies); the nature of
misfortune and benefit; the meaningulness and value of life; and
the distinction between the life of a person and the life of a
living creature who is not a person. There is an extensive
bibiography that includes science-fiction treatments of death and
immorality.
This collection of seventeen essays deals with the metaphysical, as
opposed to the moral issues pertaining to death. For example, the
authors investigate (among other things) the issue of what makes
death a bad thing for an individual, if indeed death "is" a bad
thing. This issue is more basic and abstract than such moral
questions as the particular conditions under which euthanasia is
justified, if it "is" ever justified.
Though there are important connections between the more abstract
questions addressed in this book and many contemporary moral
issues, such as euthanasia, suicide, and abortion, the primary
focus of this book is on metaphysical issues concerning the nature
of death: What is the nature of the harm or bad involved in death?
(If it is not pain, wha is it, and how can it be bad?) Who is the
subject of the harm or bad? (if the person is no longer alive, how
can he be the subject of the bad? An if he is not the subject, who
is? Can one have harm with no subject?) When does the harm take
place? (Can a harm take place after its subject ceases to exist? If
death harms a person, can the harm take place before the death
occurs?) If death can be a bad thing, would immorality be a
desirable alternative? This family of questions helps to fram ethe
puzzle of why--and how--death is bad.
Other subjects addressed include the Epicurean view othat death is
not a misfortune (for the person who dies); the nature of
misfortune and benefit; the meaningulness and value of life; and
the distinction between the life of a person and the life of a
living creature who is not a person. There is an extensive
bibiography that includes science-fiction treatments of death and
immorality.
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What's with Free Will? (Hardcover)
Philip Clayton, James W. Walters; Foreword by John Martin Fischer
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R1,260
R997
Discovery Miles 9 970
Save R263 (21%)
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What's with Free Will? (Paperback)
Philip Clayton, James W. Walters; Foreword by John Martin Fischer
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R754
R619
Discovery Miles 6 190
Save R135 (18%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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We typically think we have free will. But how could we have free
will, if for anything we do, it was already true in the distant
past that we would do that thing? Or how could we have free will,
if God already knows in advance all the details of our lives? Such
issues raise the specter of "fatalism". This book collects sixteen
previously published articles on fatalism, truths about the future,
and the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human
freedom, and includes a substantial introductory essay and
bibliography. Many of the pieces collected here build bridges
between discussions of human freedom and recent developments in
other areas of metaphysics, such as philosophy of time. Ideal for
courses in free will, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion,
Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge will encourage important new
directions in thinking about free will, time, and truth.
Near-death experiences offer a glimpse not only into the nature of
death but also into the meaning of life. They are not only useful
tools to aid in the human quest to understand death but are also
deeply meaningful, transformative experiences for the people who
have them. In a unique contribution to the growing and popular
literature on the subject, philosophers John Martin Fischer and
Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin examine prominent near-death experiences,
such as those of Pam Reynolds, Eben Alexander and Colton Burpo.
They combine their investigations with critiques of the narratives'
analysis by those who take them to show that our minds are
immaterial and heaven is for real. In contrast, the authors provide
a blueprint for a science-based explanation. Focusing on the
question of whether near-death experiences provide evidence that
consciousness is separable from our brains and bodies, Fischer and
Mitchell-Yellin give a naturalistic account of the profound meaning
and transformative effects that these experiences engender in many.
This book takes the reality of near-death experiences seriously.
But it also shows that understanding them through the tools of
science is completely compatible with acknowledging their profound
meaning.
Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death
bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal?
Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and
Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first
appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to
introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy
has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level
and even introductory courses. While many philosophers in the
"continental tradition"-those known as "existentialists"-have
engaged these issues at length and often with great popular appeal,
English-speaking philosophers have had relatively little to say on
these important questions. Yet, the methodology they bring to
philosophical questions can, and occasionally has, been applied
usefully to "existential" questions. This volume draws together a
representative sample of primarily English-speaking philosophers'
reflections on life's big questions, divided into six sections,
covering (1) the meaning of life, (2) creating people, (3) death,
(4) suicide, (5) immortality, and (6) optimism and pessimism. These
key readings are supplemented with helpful introductions, study
questions, and suggestions for further reading, making the material
accessible and interesting for students. In short, the book
provides a singular introduction to the way that philosophy has
dealt with the big questions of life that we are all tempted to
ask.
Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death
bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal?
Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and
Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first
appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to
introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy
has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level
and even introductory courses. While many philosophers in the
"continental tradition"-those known as "existentialists"-have
engaged these issues at length and often with great popular appeal,
English-speaking philosophers have had relatively little to say on
these important questions. Yet, the methodology they bring to
philosophical questions can, and occasionally has, been applied
usefully to "existential" questions. This volume draws together a
representative sample of primarily English-speaking philosophers'
reflections on life's big questions, divided into six sections,
covering (1) the meaning of life, (2) creating people, (3) death,
(4) suicide, (5) immortality, and (6) optimism and pessimism. These
key readings are supplemented with helpful introductions, study
questions, and suggestions for further reading, making the material
accessible and interesting for students. In short, the book
provides a singular introduction to the way that philosophy has
dealt with the big questions of life that we are all tempted to
ask.
Our Fate is a collection of John Martin Fischer's previously
published articles on the relationship between God's foreknowledge
and human freedom. The book contains a new introductory essay that
places all of the chapters in the book into a cohesive framework.
The introductory essay also provides some new views about the
issues treated in the book, including a bold and original account
of God's foreknowledge of free actions in a causally
indeterministic world. The focus of the book is a powerful
traditional argument for the incompatibility of God's foreknowledge
and human freedom to do otherwise. Fischer presents this argument
(in various forms) and defends it against some of the most salient
criticisms, especially Ockhamism. The incompatibilist's argument is
driven by the fixity of the past, and, in particular, the fixity of
God's prior beliefs about our current behavior. The author gives
special attention to Ockhamism, which contends that God's prior
beliefs are not "over-and-done-with" in the past, and are thus not
subject to the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past. In the
end, Fischer defends the argument for the incompatibility of God's
foreknowledge and human freedom to do otherwise, but he further
argues that this incompatibility need not entail the
incompatibility of God's foreknowledge and human moral
responsibility. Thus, through this collection of essays, Fischer
develops a "semicompatibilist" view - the belief that God's
foreknowledge is entirely compatible with human moral
responsibility, even if God's foreknowledge rules out freedom to do
otherwise.
In this collection of essays - a follow up to My Way and Our
Stories - John Martin Fischer defends the contention that moral
responsibility is associated with "deep control". Fischer defines
deep control as the middle ground between two untenable extreme
positions: "superficial control" and "total control". Our freedom
consists of the power to add to the given past, holding fixed the
laws of nature, and therefore, Fischer contends, we must be able to
interpret our actions as extensions of a line that represents the
actual past. In "connecting the dots", we engage in a distinctive
sort of self-expression. In the first group of essays in this
volume, Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to
alterative possibilities in order to be morally responsible. Thus,
the line need not branch off at crucial points (where the branches
represent genuine metaphysical possibilities). In the remaining
essays in the collection he demonstrates that deep control is the
freedom condition on moral responsibility. In so arguing, Fischer
contends that total control is too much to ask-it is a form of
"metaphysical megalomania". So we do not need to "trace back" all
the way to the beginning of the line (or even farther) in seeking
the relevant kind of freedom or control. Additionally, he contends
that various kinds of "superficial control"-such as versions of
"conditional freedom" and "judgment-sensitivity" are too shallow;
they don't trace back far enough along the line. In short, Fischer
argues that, in seeking the freedom that grounds moral
responsibility, we need to carve out a middle ground between
superficiality and excessive penetration. Deep Control is the
"middle way". Fischer presents a new argument that deep control is
compatible not just with causal determinism, but also causal
indeterminism. He thus tackles the luck problem and shows that the
solution to this problem is parallel in important ways to the
considerations in favor of the compatibility of causal determinism
and moral responsibility.
In this collection of essays on the metaphysical issues pertaining
to death, the meaning of life, and freedom of the will, John Martin
Fischer argues (against the Epicureans) that death can be a bad
thing for the individual who dies. He defends the claim that
something can be a bad thing--a misfortune--for an individual, even
if he never experiences it as bad (and even if he does not any
longer exist). Fischer also defends the commonsense asymmetry in
our attitudes toward death and prenatal nonexistence: we are
indifferent to the time before we are born, but we regret that we
do not live longer. Further, Fischer argues (against the
immortality curmudgeons, such as Heidegger and Bernard Williams),
that immortal life could be desirable, and shows how the defense of
the (possible) badness of death and the (possible) goodness of
immortality exhibit a similar structure; on Fischer's view, the
badness of death and the goodness of life can be represented on
spectra that display certain continuities.
Building on Fischer's previous book, My Way a major aim of this
volume is to show important connections between issues relating to
life and death and issues relating to free will. More specifically,
Fischer argues that we endow our lives with a certain distinctive
kind of meaning--an irreducible narrative dimension of value--by
exhibiting free will. Thus, in acting freely, we transform our
lives so that our stories matter.
This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that
represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall
approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The
collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and
shows how the various elements fit together to form a comprehensive
framework for analyzing free will and moral responsibility.
The topics include deliberation and practical reasoning, freedom
of the will, freedom of action, various notions of control, and
moral accountability. The essays seek to provide a foundation for
our practices of holding each other (and ourselves) morally and
legally accountable for our behavior. A crucial move is the
distinction between two kinds of control. According to Fischer,
"regulative control" involves freedom to choose and do otherwise
("alternative possibilities"), whereas "guidance control" does not.
Fischer contends that guidance control is all the freedom we need
to be morally responsible agents. Further, he contends that such
control is fully compatible with causal determinism. Additionally,
Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alternative
possibilities in order for there to be a legitimate point to
practical reasoning.
Fischer's overall framework contains an argument for the
contention that guidance control, and not regulative control, is
associated with moral responsibility, a sketch of a comprehensive
theory of moral responsibility (that ties together responsibility
for actions, omissions, consequences, and character), and an
account of the value of moral responsibility. On this account, the
value of exhibiting freedom (of the relevant sort) and thus being
morally responsiblefor one's behavior is a species of the value of
artistic self-expression.
Explores aspects of responsibility, including moral accountability;
hierarchy, rationality, and the real self; and ethical
responsibility and alternative possibilities.
In this collection of essays on the metaphysical issues pertaining
to death, the meaning of life, and freedom of the will, John Martin
Fischer argues (against the Epicureans) that death can be a bad
thing for the individual who dies. He defends the claim that
something can be a bad thing--a misfortune--for an individual, even
if he never experiences it as bad (and even if he does not any
longer exist). Fischer also defends the commonsense asymmetry in
our attitudes toward death and prenatal nonexistence: we are
indifferent to the time before we are born, but we regret that we
do not live longer. Further, Fischer argues (against the
immortality curmudgeons, such as Heidegger and Bernard Williams),
that immortal life could be desirable, and shows how the defense of
the (possible) badness of death and the (possible) goodness of
immortality exhibit a similar structure; on Fischer's view, the
badness of death and the goodness of life can be represented on
spectra that display certain continuities.
Building on Fischer's previous book, My Way a major aim of this
volume is to show important connections between issues relating to
life and death and issues relating to free will. More specifically,
Fischer argues that we endow our lives with a certain distinctive
kind of meaning--an irreducible narrative dimension of value--by
exhibiting free will. Thus, in acting freely, we transform our
lives so that our stories matter.
This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that
represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall
approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The
collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and
shows how the various elements fit together to form a comprehensive
framework for analyzing free will and moral responsibility.
The topics include deliberation and practical reasoning, freedom
of the will, freedom of action, various notions of control, and
moral accountability. The essays seek to provide a foundation for
our practices of holding each other (and ourselves) morally and
legally accountable for our behavior. A crucial move is the
distinction between two kinds of control. According to Fischer,
"regulative control" involves freedom to choose and do otherwise
("alternative possibilities"), whereas "guidance control" does not.
Fischer contends that guidance control is all the freedom we need
to be morally responsible agents. Further, he contends that such
control is fully compatible with causal determinism. Additionally,
Fischer argues that we do not need genuine access to alternative
possibilities in order for there to be a legitimate point to
practical reasoning.
Fischer's overall framework contains an argument for the
contention that guidance control, and not regulative control, is
associated with moral responsibility, a sketch of a comprehensive
theory of moral responsibility (that ties together responsibility
for actions, omissions, consequences, and character), and an
account of the value of moral responsibility. On this account, the
value of exhibiting freedom (of the relevant sort) and thus being
morally responsiblefor one's behavior is a species of the value of
artistic self-expression.
This book provides a comprehensive, systematic theory of moral
responsibility. The authors explore the conditions under which
individuals are morally responsible for actions, omissions,
consequences, and emotions. The leading idea in the book is that
moral responsibility is based on "guidance control." This control
has two components: the mechanism that issues in the relevant
behavior must be the agent's own mechanism, and it must be
appropriately responsive to reasons. The book develops an account
of both components. The authors go on to offer a sustained defense
of the thesis that moral responsibility is compatible with causal
determinism. This major study will interest moral philosophers,
legal theorists, and those in religious studies concerned with the
issue of moral responsibility.
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