Assignment 1
Papers should be around ten pages long (i.e. 3,000 - 4,000 words long).
Due: Lec #13
- How should we understand 'could have done otherwise'? Does the compatibilist need to understand it in a way that makes it come out true?
- Are there grounds for denying that freedom is closed under entailment? Does this help accommodate freedom into a deterministic picture?
- Does Lewis give a convincing account of how we could have done otherwise?
- Should we believe in possible worlds?
- Can a libertarian account be made coherent? Can it give us what we want? Is it compatible with physics as we think it to be?
Assignment 2
Papers should be around ten pages long (i.e. 3,000 - 4,000 words long).
Due: Eight days after Lec #23
- Does Frankfurt succeed in showing that one can be morally responsible for an act even if one couldn't have done otherwise?
- How successful is Strawson in showing how moral responsibility can be reconciled with determinism? How should his account be extended to give an account of freedom?
- Do higher order accounts help to give an account of freedom? Do they help to give an account of authenticity?
- What is akrasia? Is it possible? Does it differ from weakness of will?
- How should we understand choice?
- What, if anything, can empirical findings tell us about the nature of free will?
If you would like to do a paper on some other topic, or would like to return to one of the topics listed for the first assignment, that is quite probably fine, but check with the Instructor first.