For those of us who want to have control over all our mental states, compatibilist substitutes - such as desiring what we desire to desire - will alw….

If I make a stupid decision but don't execute it because I'm, say, lazy, then I'm lucky, not rational. However, at other times a person acts for good….

When you find yourself reluctant to sit on a chair because it had unexpectedly collapsed in the past you might shake your head and think "there, I'm ….

I am an atheist. I don't think there's anything divine. Beautiful, impressive, awe-inspiring - sure, but not divine..

The fact that only humans above a certain age can be morally virtuous, rather than babies or cats, means that that being moral requires some cognitiv….

Moral virtues and intellectual virtues are very different from each other, and moral virtue has to do with motivation, not cognition. Moral virtue re….

I think that if your tenure case depends on your proving what you thought was a mathematical theorem and the proposed theorem turns out to be false j….

A very tall man once asked a question after my talk. Before beginning his question, he explained that the reason he was standing up is not to be inti….

I don't think we are all irrational every time we fail to see through an argument in a book, but suppose it's true about you. You are still more rati….

"Externality" is a different phenomenon from akrasia and doesn't always come with it. The set of desires and actions from which one feels alienated i….

Characters in Hollywood movies encounter a lot of car chases. Characters in novels rarely wash their hands or do their laundry. And in the work of mo….

Duties concern things that are voluntary. I do think that if you have a moral duty to bring me back the book you borrowed, that implies, roughly, tha….

When I see two owls and then two more owls and conclude that I see four owls, I am responding to reasons, and it better not be my choice to believe t….

Though we think intrinsic desires tend to be pretty stable, we do not think they imply anything like the amount of predictability in behavior that tr….

Sometimes I suspect that there are two prototypes of philosophers who write about humans - I call them "celestials" and "terrestrials", without imply….

If I am told my loving you had to happen because of some Freudian stuff about my childhood, that might be degrading or deflationary, but if I am told….

Incompatibilists will tell you that a work of art has no meaning unless the artists could have chosen to create a different one, but actual artists o….

A person is praiseworthy for a right action to the extent that her action manifests, and is rationalized by, good will, that is, concern for the righ….

I don't think any of my desires or beliefs or other mental states are external to me. Many people will occasionally feel alienated from the motives f….

Sometimes we deliberate - for example when we plan a long trip or - if we are not math wizards - when we solve long division problems. However, if we….

Suppose whether or not someone tells me a lie depends only on whether he wants to, but he is morally indifferent, he doesn't care much about the trut….