Course Descriptions

This seminar will provide a series of interconnected debates about moral responsibility, free will and alternative possibilities, determinism and indeterminism, deliberation, lotteries, and luck. The readings will involve a combination of contemporary classics as well as more recent writings. As well as work by Sartorio and Otsuka on these topics, these are among the readings we plan to discuss: Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Robinson, “Modified Frankfurt-type examples and the flickers of freedom", Capes, selections from Moral Responsibility and the Flicker of Freedom; Nagel, "Moral Luck", Zimmerman, "Taking Luck Seriously"; Mele, selections from Autonomous Agents and Free Will and Luck; Montminy, “Derivative Culpability"; G. Strawson, "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility"; Broadie, "On What Would Have Happened Otherwise: A problem for determinism’", and Kapitan, “Deliberation and the Presumption of Open Alternatives".