9:30-11:00am
Libertarianism and the Problem of Flip-flopping
John Martin Fischer
Distinguished Professor Philosophy
University of California, Riverside
Fischer’s main topic here is one alleged cost of libertarianism: it appears to imply that our status as free agents who are morally responsible for our behavior ‘hangs on a thread.’ Libertarianism depends on whether the (arguably) empirical thesis of causal determinism is true. The problem is not that our status as free agents would depend on an empirical thesis as such — it is that our status would depend on that sort of empirical thesis. Specifically, our free agency would depend on whether the laws of nature have associated with them 100% probabilities, instead of 95% or 99% probabilities. It seems curious that this sort of difference should change our status as free and morally responsible agents. Fischer is going to argue that it is a cost of libertarianism that it holds our status as agents hostage to theoretical physics, but that claim has met with disagreement. Some libertarians regard it as the cost of doing business, not a philosophical liability. By contrast, Peter van Inwagen has addressed the worry head on. He says that if he were to become convinced that causal determinism were true, he would not change his view that humans are free and morally responsible. Rather, he would give up at least one of the formerly-thought-to-be a priori truths that are elements in his argument for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the relevant sort of freedom. Thus, according to van Inwagen, our status as free and morally responsible agents would not be held hostage to the physicists or hang on a thread. Fischer thinks that van Inwagen’s strategy for securing our freedom and responsibility is unattractive. Somewhat tendentiously, Fischer has called the rejection of an a priori ingredient in the incompatibilist’s argument, contingent upon learning that causal determinism is true, ‘metaphysical flip-flopping.’ And it does seem that van Inwagen’s approach is implausible insofar as he is open to such metaphysical flip-flopping. That he is open to it — that he would flip-flop if he became convinced of the truth of causal determinism — is a problem for his actual philosophical position. Or so Fischer will argue.
Professor Fischer’s main research interests lie in free will, moral responsibility, and both metaphysical and ethical issues pertaining to life and death. He is the author of The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control; with Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility; and My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility. His recent work includes a contribution to Four Views on Free Will (in Blackwell’s Great Debates in Philosophy series) and three collections of essays all published by Oxford University Press: My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility; Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will; and Deep Control: Essays on Free Will and Value. His undergraduate teaching includes an introductory ethics course, philosophy of law, theories of distributive justice, and philosophy of religion. He has also taught various courses on death and the meaning of life. His graduate teaching has primarily focused on free will, moral responsibility, and the metaphysics of death (and the meaning of life). Fischer served as President of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, and is Project Leader for The Immortality Project, a major grant supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
11:15am-12:45pm
Who Do We Think We Are?
Andrea Westlund
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
This paper is part of a larger project on the role of autobiographical story-telling in our moral lives, with a focus on questions of self-understanding, personal autonomy, and moral transformation. The stories we tell about ourselves in everyday life help others understand what we do by helping them understand “who we are” in a practical or normative sense: through our stories, we inform others about our beliefs, values, desires, what we regard as important, and what we think we have reason to do. Self-narratives do this normative work by placing our choices and actions within a teleologically structured interpretive framework, fixing the meaning of earlier episodes in terms of what comes later. But because we tell our stories from within the context of a life still being lived, they will often lack the closure needed to fix the meaning of choices and actions for once and for all. This paper explores the ways in which these features of self-narration shape our practices of holding one another answerable and of responding to moral imperfection.
Andrea Westlund’s research focuses on personal autonomy, shared agency, and the ethics of friendship and love. She is currently working on a series of papers on the role of autobiographical narration in self-understanding, autonomy, and moral transformation.
2:30-4:00pm
We Are Not Human Beings
Derek Parfit
Emeritus Fellow
All Souls College, Oxford
Regular Visiting Professor to the Departments of Philosophy
Harvard, Rutgers, and New York University
When philosophers discuss what we are, Lockeans claims that we are persons, not human beings. Animalists reject this distinction. Parfit will defend a Lockean view.
4:15-5:45pm
What Do We Need to Know About Human Nature
Louise Antony
Professor of Philosophy
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Reception to follow