Hi Bruce, I tried to comment previously but my comment seems to have disappeared. Trying again. I was actually going to blog about this issue next month: now I'll have to try to think of something else... I've been thinking about this issue ever since I read your book. The move you make there, distinguishing between free will and moral responsibility and reserving scepticism for the latter alone is quite attractive (not least because if I adopted the view my life would be simplified, insofar as I could defend compatibilism without all the hedging I now have to do). Here's why I continue to resist. In a recent paper, David Chalmers gives the free will debate as an example of a dispute that is merely verbal. Once we produce appropriate subscripts, there is not a lot more to say. Do we have free will (subscript libertarian)? Well that's an empirical question (as Mark Balaguer has pointed out): is the brain indeterministic in the right kind of way? Do we have free will (subscript Fischer)? Well, yes, we do. Debate over; at least for philosophers. If the dispute is not to be merely verbal, there had better be some substantive question remaining, The obvious one is: is free will (subscript Fischer, or subscript Frankfurt, or..) sufficient for moral responsibility (in the post I was going to write, I was going to ask whether there are other candidates besides MR to make the issue substantive). Of course we can ask that question while distinguishing fw and mr, but at the cost of making the latter question merely verbal. By the way, a similar kind of issue arises wrt theorists who make mr very insubstantive. I need not be a skeptic about responsibility (subscript Scanlon) but that's because nothing hangs on that kind of responsibility.

I'm having trouble understanding the supposition. Is a "motivated biasing mechanism" a mechanism that has function of biasing reasoning? Why would we have such a mechanism? How would it evolve? It seems more likely that motivated reasoning is the product of an interplay of mechanisms: independent signals of costs alter the workings of whatever mechanism is involved. Neuropsychologically, almost all reasoning is the product of interacting mechanisms. It is open to Fischer to identify the relevant mechanism with the set of (neuropsychological) mechanisms that are involved in a token piece of reasoning, though I suspect that would entail that no mechanism is actually moderately reasons-responsive (because if we hold fixed that mechanism, we will see some weird reasoning).

Chandra, I think you may be right that there are epistemic conditions that are not control conditions; that's what Philip's case establishes. But there are also epistemic conditions of control, I contend. The mom knows that she is exposing her child to vaccines, and thereby satisfies the control relevant epistemic condition. I certainly lack surgical know how, and that may excuse me. But I also lack surgical knowing that; just where is the gall bladder anyway? If I had the first but not the second - quite possible, so far as I can see - I would lack control over the fact that the gall bladder is removed.

Damn you autocorrect: I do know your name, Clayton.

Clapton, we normally think that non-culpable ignorance excuses. Why should NCI of moral facts be any different? Suppose it turns out that grass experiences pain: are you to blame for your wanton walking? Chandra, issuing from a reasons-responsive mechanism can't be sufficient for control; at least not control over particular facts (perhaps it is sufficient for general control). So far as I can tell, the best explanation for why I'm not responsible for running over the kitten is that though I control what I do, I don't have control over the fact that the kitten is run over. This must be right; here's a case to demonstrate it. I am in the operating theatre, facing a patient who needs an operation. But unlike you, I have no medical training. For all I know, I am more dexterous than you are (actually I doubt it, but never mind). But isn't it obvious that I don't have the control I need to perform the operation? By the way, your final demand seems unfair: why ask that I do something that no one has been able to do?

Here's the requested example. Suppose Zamir, an immigrant from a third world country, sees someone in obvious need of medical help in a hotel room. Zamir can call for medical help by lifting the telephone nearby and dialing '0'. If Zamir does not know that he can call for medical help by lifting the telephone and dialing '0', he lacks control over whether he calls for medical help, by virtue of a lack of knowledge. However, if (instead) he does not know (weirdly) that it is a bad thing to be in distress and perhaps to die, then he is not morally responsible by virtue of failing to satisfy to satisfy an epistemic condition that is not a control condition.

Surveys like this are notoriously unreliable because they effectively select for complainants: people who (like me, as it happens) have had okay experience with Mind will not be as motivated to respond. That said, a survey like this may not be useless. The proportion of dissatisfied respondents will be unreliable, but sheer numbers might matter. I continue to believe that the major problem with philosophy journals is the time taken by referees, not editorial practices. As an editor I can report, and other editors also report, that referees routinely: fail to respond to requests that they referee; turn down all requests while finding plenty of time for blog comments and their own research; agree to referee papers and then fail to turn in a report on time, or often enough at all. MInd may have a particular problem, but the unacceptably long turn around times for most journals is a bigger one. In fact, what Jonathan is calling for wrt Mind is effectively what most people do anyway, with regard to most journals.

First stab: distinguish epistemic conditions concerning how to perform an action from those concerning whether to perform an action. What does this do? is a question bearing on the epistemic conditions on control. Should I do that? Is it wrong to do this? Will my action serve as an example to others, and so forth, are questions bearing on epistemic conditions external to control.

Hi Galen, You say that there's a fundamental sense in which no punishment is ultimately deserved. You also say that there is a respectable sense in which we are morally responsible. Does that second claim entail that there is a respectable sense in which some punishment is deserved? And if so, does that sense justify some or all actual world punishment? It's the justification of punishment with which many of us here are concerned.

Hi Al, Perhaps saying I have an account is giving myself too much credit. Roughly, the basic idea is this: luck in the circumstances in which an agent acts is not inherited by the act itself. If that were not the case, all actions would be lucky (which they are not); we might be lucky to be alive at all (say because we are lucky to survive a terrible accident) without being lucky in helping other victims. An agent is not lucky in acting when it is possible to hold fixed a chancy event and when we hold it fixed that agent exercises sufficient control over their actions. There tricky issues with regard to what we are entitled to holds fixed which, frankly, I have not solved. But cases like the accident case mentioned above demonstrate the non-transitiveness of luck and the fact that there is a distinction we need to draw between being lucky in being able to act and lucky in acting.

Justin, thanks. That's helpful. As i understand what you're doing, you are not so mucho trying to solve the luck problem as rejecting it (as a pseudo-problem). Your response may in fact actually be the right one, in the sense of convincing educated laypeople that luck is not a problem. So to that extent I can't fault it. My view is that they would be making a mistake if they were convinced, because what the problem shows us is that the alleged sufficient conditions for responsibility you mention are inadequate. If they did accept the response, I might ask them to reflect on the following facts: that Bob might easily have done otherwise, in precisely the circumstances in which he was, and had he done otherwise nothing at all about his desires, attitudes, volitions and so on would have been different to how they are actually are. I would therefore encourage them to see how luck partially explained his act, including its moral character. I would ask them to reflect on the unfairness of blaming or praising someone when luck explained the fact that the act was good or was bad. If all else failed, I would have them read my book (that *always* convinces the characters in Al's thought experiments, though it might be less effective in real life). Alan: the main reason indeterminism isn't sufficient for luck is that on my analysis (which is heavily indebted to EJ Coffman), probabilities matter. Suppose I enter the New York State lottery. If I win, I'm very lucky. But if I fail to win, I'm not unlucky: that's the expected result, the probability of which was overwhelming. Similarly, I don't think a good golfer is lucky to make a short putt, if he is makes putts like that 99 times out 100. If he might have missed due to indeterminism, but the probability that indeterminism would have had that effect is tiny (on my understanding of the physics, that's actually a plausible situation), then had he missed due to indeterminism he would have been unlucky, but he is not lucky in sinking the putt despite the indeterminism.

Where Michael sees a challenge to the causal theory, I see a need to supplement the theory with work in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. We need to know which states and processes are constitutive of the agent, and which play a role in (event) causing actions.

The crucial difference between Jane and Joan consists in the fact that it is metaphysically possible for Joan to jump left and to jump right, whereas it is not metaphysically possible for Jane to jump left and to jump right. But Joan exercises no control at all over whether she jumps left or right - the indeterministic process settles that, and there is nothing Joan can do about it (she can can - compatibilis - control what the chances are of each, but she has no further control beyond that). For that reason, she has less control than Jane: her control is compatibilist control plus luck. It is nevertheless open for the libertarian to hold that that's enough control, and enough control plus metaphysical openness gives Joan a greater degree of freedom than Jane has, despite her enhanced control.

Here are the citation figures for the Frankfurt articles which are the subject of David Shoemaker and John Fischer's debate: "Freedom of the will and the concept of a person" - 2204 citations. "Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility" - 857 citations. That seems a pretty good indicator that David is right about which has been more influential, even if John is right about which should be more influential (fwiw, hierarchical compatibilism seems to have been in the air in the early 70s, so Frankfurt's articulation of the view wasn't essential to its development; the attack on alternative possibilities seems more due to Frankfurt alone).

That is a genuine concern. I don't believe that anyone has the ability to introspect whether this kind of influence isn't playing an important role in their decisions. I do think the concern is pervasive, though: there comes a point at which one should - eg - speak out against one's university, or one's department, or one's colleagues, and all kinds of factors influence where that point is for you (not only your funding source, but also how extensive your interpersonal interactions with them, the identification with the 'team', and so on).

The only thing that worries me in what he lists is the 'freedom and free enterprise' stuff. In our grant proposal, where we talked about why the kind of question we're looking about might matter, we motivated by saying that it could be used for tighter regulations over the use of space. We specifically attacked the 'personal responsibility' garbage often used as a reason why businesses should not be regulated. Anyway, I was aware that they are a free enterprise promoting organisation, and that is code for right-wing in certain ways, which I find objectionable. I am not aware of them funding specific projects that I find objectionable. How I would have responded had I known that they were funding specific objectionable projects would, I hope, have depended on the nature of those projects. Some would have raised qualms insufficient for me to pull out, and some would not. It is reasonable to suspect that my circumstances - when I applied for that particular grant I required funding to keep myself employed; still the case, when my current grants run out - would bias where I drew that line, but I would still have drawn it somewhere.

I don't think the structure of science presupposes that scientists are truth-seekers. That's a good thing, because every scientist has mixed motives, and truth seeking is dominant in only some. Yet science works - for the most part - in washing out these biases. Like a market, though, its going to take lots of work to ensure that the failures aren't drastic, so pointing to that fact (as I take it) doesn't end the conversation. Of course there is also a different issue. Suppose I get a pass: my work is not biased by Templeton (I am confident that it isn't; not because of my virtue but because the questions are too low level for biasing to have an influence). But that kind of work might provide 'cover' for Templeton's other projects by giving them credibility. As a matter of fact I'm not aware of anything they're funding that raises real question marks for me, but I'm not highly motivated to look!

I am Templeton funded. I defy anyone to read the work they fund - cognitive psychology on resource depletion - through a Templetony lens and come up with anything at all interesting. Eric's portfolio management approach holds good at the level of science in general: if there are enough sufficiently independent funders (of sufficient clout) then biases will be washed out. The structure of science is designed to do this. Of course the antecedent offer fails to hold; that's a problem with pharmaceutical research today. Also science is big enough for washing out to work. It may not work in philosophy.

I didn't know BoB was so old. I agree that from the perspective of the 20s things might have looked quite different. I doubt that Ray Henderson (I just googled!) knew of the contemporary country blues. Johnson and Son House recorded for so-called 'race' labels, and had almost no white audience and very little influence beyond a small region.