Philosophy Speakers: Alfred Mele (Florida State), “On Some Unsuccessful Control-featuring Arguments Against Event-Causal Libertarianism”

The Philosophy Speakers Program presents Alfred Mele (Florida State), “On Some Unsuccessful Control-featuring Arguments Against Event-Causal Libertarianism” About the Talk Libertarianism about free will is the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism and there are free actions (exercises of free will). Event-causal libertarianism appeals to ordinary indeterministic causation of decisions and other actions and states and steers clear of agent causation. This talk is a critique of a trio of control-featuring arguments against event-causal libertarianism. One features the claim that “the active control that is exercised on [an event-causal libertarian] view is just the same as that exercised on an event-causal compatibilist account” (Clarke 2003, p.220). Another hinges on the assertion that event-causal libertarianism “does not provide agents with any more control than compatibilism does” (Pereboom 2001, p.56). And a third is Derk Pereboom’s “disappearing agent objection” (2014). Morals are drawn. About the Speaker Al Mele is the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University where he is also the Director of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Project and Director of the Big Questions in Free Will Project. His primary research interests revolve around human behavior. His major publications include: Irrationality (1987); Springs of Action (1992); Autonomous Agents (1995); Self-Deception Unmasked (2001); Motivation and Agency (2003); Free Will and Luck (2006); Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will (2009 and winner of the APA’s 2013 Sanders Book Prize); Backsliding: Understanding Weakness of Will (2012); A Dialogue on Free Will and Science (2014); and Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will (2014). An edited volume Surrounding Free Will will appear from Oxford University Press in 2015.

Location:

Social Sciences Building – Room 1253

More information at http://www.ucalgary.ca/events/calendar/philosophy-speakers-alfred-mele-florida-state-some-unsuccessful-control-featuring-arguments