Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility-and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Given the profound importance that the concepts of free will and moral responsibility hold in our lives-in understanding ourselves, society, and the law-it is important that we explore what is behind this new wave of skepticism. It is also important that we explore the potential consequences of skepticism for ourselves and society. Edited by Gregg D. Caruso, this collection of new essays brings together an internationally recognized line-up of contributors, most of whom hold skeptical positions of some sort, to display and explore the leading arguments for free will skepticism and to debate their implications.

The first comprehensive philosophical introduction and assessment to the problem of self-control, an increasingly popular topic in philosophy Self-control is one of the most fascinating problems in philosophy, studied in core subjects such as free will and ethics, yet there is no book available explaining in clear language what it is Plenty of examples from psychology and philosophy including self-deception in mental disorder, addiction and everyday examples such as loss of willpower and even mind-wandering Includes helpful additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and glossary Very strong author team led by Neil Levy, well-known for his work on addiction, consciousness and free will.

The first comprehensive philosophical introduction and assessment to the problem of self-control, an increasingly popular topic in philosophy Self-control is one of the most fascinating problems in philosophy, studied in core subjects such as free will and ethics, yet there is no book available explaining in clear language what it is Plenty of examples from psychology and philosophy including self-deception in mental disorder, addiction and everyday examples such as loss of willpower and even mind-wandering Includes helpful additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and glossary Very strong author team led by Neil Levy, well-known for his work on addiction, consciousness and free will.

The concept of luck has played an important role in debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, yet participants in these debates have relied upon an intuitive notion of what luck is. Neil Levy develops an account of luck, which is then applied to the free will debate. He argues that the standard luck objection succeeds against common accounts of libertarian free will, but that it is possible to amend libertarian accounts so that they are no more vulnerable to luck than is compatibilism. But compatibilist accounts of luck are themselves vulnerable to a powerful luck objection: historical compatibilisms cannot satisfactorily explain how agents can take responsibility for their constitutive luck; non-historical compatibilisms run into insurmountable difficulties with the epistemic condition on control over action. Levy argues that because epistemic conditions on control are so demanding that they are rarely satisfied, agents are not blameworthy for performing actions that they take to be best in a given situation. It follows that if there are any actions for which agents are responsible, they are akratic actions; but even these are unacceptably subject to luck. Levy goes on to discuss recent non-historical compatibilisms, and argues that they do not offer a viable alternative to control-based compatibilisms. He suggests that luck undermines our freedom and moral responsibility no matter whether determinism is true or not.

Questions concerning free will are intertwined with issues in almost every area of philosophy, from metaphysics to philosophy of mind to moral philosophy, and are also informed by work in different areas of science (principally physics, neuroscience and social psychology). Free will is also a perennial concern of serious thinkers in theology and in non-western traditions. Because free will can be approached from so many different perspectives and has implications for so many debates, a comprehensive survey needs to encompass an enormous range of approaches. This book is the first to draw together leading experts on every aspect of free will, from those who are central to the current philosophical debates, to non-western perspectives, to scientific contributions and to those who know the rich history of the subject. Chapter 37 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138795815_oachapter37.pdf

Might human morality be a product of evolution? An increasing number of philosophers and scientists believe that moral judgment and behaviour emerged because it enhanced the fitness of our distant ancestors. This volume collects some recent explorations of the evidence for this claim, as well as papers examining its implications. Is an evolved morality a genuine morality? Does an evolutionary origin deflate the pretensions of morality, or strip it of its force in guiding behaviour? Is an evolutionary approach compatible with realism about morality? All sides of these debates are represented in this volume.

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility-and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Given the profound importance that the concepts of free will and moral responsibility hold in our lives-in understanding ourselves, society, and the law-it is important that we explore what is behind this new wave of skepticism. It is also important that we explore the potential consequences of skepticism for ourselves and society. Edited by Gregg D. Caruso, this collection of new essays brings together an internationally recognized line-up of contributors, most of whom hold skeptical positions of some sort, to display and explore the leading arguments for free will skepticism and to debate their implications.

In The Kindness of Strangers, Deni Elliott examines ethically questionable situations that have arisen in response to institutional dependency on external benefactors. Major concerns analyzed include: The increased professionalism of fundraising and of donating, an increased willingness of institutions to cater to the demands of donors, creation of dual roles for faculty, students and staff when they are fundraisers and donors in addition to playing their primary roles in higher education, business-university research partnerships that put business values in conflict of academic values and mission, commercialization of student athletics, and endowment use and investment. Supplemented by a series of carefully selected articles, The Kindness of Strangers needs to be read by anyone who is concerned by higher education's increasing dependency on corporate and individual donors.

Evolutionary approaches to the study of human beings have been able to explain the origin and maintenance of many of the features of our bodies. Many thinkers believe that an evolutionary approach will be equally fruitful when it comes to explaining the features of our minds. Since our behaviour is driven by our minds, our cognitive dispositions and processes are likely to have been a target of selection and adaptation. This volume collects recent prominent explorations of this theme, as well as the voices of dissenters who argue that our minds are far more significantly the product of culture than of evolution.

Might human morality be a product of evolution? An increasing number of philosophers and scientists believe that moral judgment and behaviour emerged because it enhanced the fitness of our distant ancestors. This volume collects some recent explorations of the evidence for this claim, as well as papers examining its implications. Is an evolved morality a genuine morality? Does an evolutionary origin deflate the pretensions of morality, or strip it of its force in guiding behaviour? Is an evolutionary approach compatible with realism about morality? All sides of these debates are represented in this volume.

Why were modernist works of art, literature, and music that were neither by nor about Jews nevertheless interpreted as Jewish? In this book, Neil Levi explores how the antisemitic fantasy of a mobile, dangerous, contagious Jewish spirit unfolds in the antimodernist polemics of Richard Wagner, Max Nordau, Wyndham Lewis, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine, reaching its apotheosis in the notorious 1937 Nazi exhibition "Degenerate Art." Levi then turns to James Joyce, Theodor W. Adorno, and Samuel Beckett, offering radical new interpretations of these modernist authors to show how each presents his own poetics as a self-conscious departure from the modern antisemitic imaginary.
Levi claims that, just as antisemites once feared their own contamination by a mobile, polluting Jewish spirit, so too much of postwar thought remains governed by the fear that it might be contaminated by the spirit of antisemitism. Thus he argues for the need to confront and work through our own fantasies and projections not only about the figure of the Jew but also about that of the antisemite.

Questions concerning free will are intertwined with issues in almost every area of philosophy, from metaphysics to philosophy of mind to moral philosophy, and are also informed by work in different areas of science (principally physics, neuroscience and social psychology). Free will is also a perennial concern of serious thinkers in theology and in non-western traditions. Because free will can be approached from so many different perspectives and has implications for so many debates, a comprehensive survey needs to encompass an enormous range of approaches. This book is the first to draw together leading experts on every aspect of free will, from those who are central to the current philosophical debates, to non-western perspectives, to scientific contributions and to those who know the rich history of the subject. Chapter 37 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138795815_oachapter37.pdf

Neuroscience has dramatically increased understanding of how mental states and processes are realized by the brain, thus opening doors for treating the multitude of ways in which minds become dysfunctional. This book explores questions such as when is it permissible to alter a person's memories, influence personality traits or read minds? What can neuroscience tell us about free will, self-control, self-deception and the foundations of morality? The view of neuroethics offered here argues that many of our new powers to read, alter and control minds are not entirely unparalleled with older ones. They have, however, expanded to include almost all our social, political and ethical decisions. Written primarily for graduate students, this book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the more philosophical and ethical aspects of the neurosciences.

The very name Alzheimer is sure to bring a shudder. Thirty to forty million people are now afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative brain disorder that strips its victims of their identity and leaves families bereft and social services strained. Despite considerable research, the underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease remain shrouded in mystery. So, too, does the man after whom it was named. Alois Alzheimer (1864--1915) was practicing medicine at the Frankfurt Asylum in 1901 when he met a patient, who would become known as "Auguste D.," whose condition perplexed and intrigued him. "Alzheimer" is more than a biography; it is a story of scientific discovery at a crucial stage in the history of medical psychiatry.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Bad beliefs - beliefs that blatantly conflict with easily available evidence - are common. Large minorities of people hold that vaccines are dangerous or accept bizarre conspiracy theories, for instance. The prevalence of bad beliefs may be politically and socially important, for instance blocking effective action on climate change. Explaining why people accept bad beliefs and what can be done to make them more responsive to evidence is therefore an important project. A common view is that bad beliefs are largely explained by widespread irrationality. This book argues that ordinary people are rational agents, and their beliefs are the result of their rational response to the evidence they're presented with. We thought they were responding badly to evidence, because we focused on the first-order evidence alone: the evidence that directly bears on the truth of claims. We neglected the higher-order evidence, in particular evidence about who can be trusted and what sources are reliable. Once we recognize how ubiquitous higher-order evidence is, we can see that belief formation is by and large rational. The book argues that we should tackle bad belief by focusing as much on the higher-order evidence as the first-order evidence. The epistemic environment gives us higher-order evidence for beliefs, and we need to carefully manage that environment. The book argues that such management need not be paternalistic: once we recognize that managing the epistemic environment consists in management of evidence, we should recognize that such management is respectful of epistemic autonomy.

Neil Levy presents an original theory of freedom and responsibility. Cognitive neuroscience and psychology provide a great deal of evidence that our actions are often shaped by information of which we are not conscious; some psychologists have concluded that we are actually conscious of very few of the facts we respond to. But most people seem to assume that we need to be conscious of the facts we respond to in order to be responsible for what we do. Some thinkers have argued that this naive assumption is wrong, and we need not be conscious of these facts to be responsible, while others think it is correct and therefore we are never responsible. Levy argues that both views are wrong. He sets out and defends a particular account of consciousness-the global workspace view-and argues this account entails that consciousness plays an especially important role in action. We exercise sufficient control over the moral significance of our acts to be responsible for them only when we are conscious of the facts that give to our actions their moral character. Further, our actions are expressive of who we are as moral agents only when we are conscious of these same facts. There are therefore good reasons to think that the naive assumption, that consciousness is needed for moral responsibility, is in fact true. Levy suggests that this entails that people are responsible less often than we might have thought, but the consciousness condition does not entail that we are never morally responsible.

The first anthology to address the relationship between the events of the Nazi genocide and the intellectual concerns of contemporary literary and cultural theory in one substantial and indispensable volume. This agenda-setting reader brings together both classic and new theoretical writings. Wide in its thematic scope, it covers such vital questions as: * Authenticity and experience * Memory and trauma * Historiography and the philosophy of history * Fascism and Nazi antisemitism * Representation and identity formation * Race, gender and genocide * The implications of the Holocaust for theories of the unconscious, ethics, politics and aesthetics The readings, which are fully contextualised by a general introduction, section introductions and bibliographical notes, represent the work of many influential writers and theorists, including Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Cathy Caruth, Saul Friedlander, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Theodor Adorno, Zygmunt Bauman, Paul Gilroy, Jacques Derrida, Hayden White and Shoshana Felman.