PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE SEMINAR “TOPICS IN MORAL PSYCHOLOGY”

• Offered annually in period 3
• Requirements for admission: Admission to masters degree program in philosophy
• Language: English

The topic for this “capita selecta” seminar will be different each time, but will be in the area of philosophy of the mind and moral psychology, broadly construed to include issues in philosophical psychology, moral psychology, action theory, and philosophical anthropology.

TOPIC FOR 2012–13: THE WILL

February 4, 2013

Introduction, review of the syllabus and requirements

February 11, 2013

• Jon Elster, “Ulysses Revisited:  How and Why People Bind Themselves,” in Ulysses Unbound:  Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints (Cambridge UP, 2000)

February 18, 2013: 

• Michael Bratman, “Reflection, Planning and Temporarily Extended Agency” and
• Bratman, “Temptation Revisited” (in Structures of Agency)

February 25, 2013

• Donald Davidson, Davidson D (1969). How is weakness of the will possible? In: Essays on actions and events, 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001, 21–42.
•  Alison McIntyre, “What Is Wrong with Weakness of Will?” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 103, No. 6 (Jun., 2006), pp. 284–311 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20619944
• Sarah Stroud, “Is Procrastination Weakness of Will?” in Chrisoula Andreou and Mark White (eds.), The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010).

March 4, 2013

Midterm exam during the first half of the class. - Richard Holton, Willing, Wanting, Waiting, ch. 4, “Weakness of Will” - Mele, Backsliding, ch 1–2 “Weakness of Will and Akrasia”

March 11, 2013

• Richard Holton, Willing, Wanting, Waiting, ch. 5, “Temptation”
• Gary Watson, “Disordered appetites: addiction, compulsion, and dependence”. In: Agency and answerability: selected essays. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004, 59–87.
• Walter Mischel and Ozlem Ayduk, “Willpower in a Cognitive Affective Processing System: The Dynamics of Delay of Gratification” in Vohs and Baumeister, The Handbook of Self-Regulation
• Alfred Mele, Backsliding, pp. 77–89. 

March 18, 2013 

• Alfred Mele, Backsliding, pp. 91–121 (ch 5, “Self-control” and the (short) “Conclusion”)
• Holton, Willing, Wanting, Waiting, ch. 7, “Rationality”
• Ainslie, “Precis of Breakdown of Will” in Behavioral and Brian Sciences 
• Bauer and Baumeister, “Self-Regulatory Strength” in Vohs and Baumeister, The Handbook of Self-Regulation

March 25, 2013

• Neil Levy, “Resisting ‘Weakness of Will’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (2011): 134–155.
• Joseph Heath and Joel Anderson, “ Procrastination and the Extended Will,” in Andreou and White (eds.), The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination

FUTURE TOPICS

Topic for 2013–14 is “Autonomy and Human Agency”.

• This course focuses on recent theories of personal autonomy, understood as the capacity to act - and, more generally, lead one’s own life - according to reasons and motives that are genuinely one’s own. The course will focuses on a wide range of approaches (relational, procedural, perfectionist, neo-pragmatist, etc.) and authors, including (most likely) the work of Gerald Dworkin, John Christman, Harry Frankfurt, Marilyn Friedman, Catriona MacKenzie, Alfred Mele, and Diana T. Meyers. We will also examine the implications of these theories for a range of political and ethical debates.

PAST TOPICS

Topic for 2008–09: The Extended Mind and Will

We will be studying the idea that both cognition and volition are best understood as something that is not confined to what goes on within the skin/skull boundary of a human being. For a now-classic treatment of this idea (and a taste of what we’ll be discussing), see Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended Mind”. The course will include defenses and critiques of this approach, as well as extensions to the context of practical philosophy, namely that of extended will and what I call “scaffolded autonomy”.
1: http://consc.net/papers/extended.html

Syllabus / schedule of meetings (PDF)

May 12 Extended mind: Critique and replies.

• Adams, Fred & Aizawa, Ken (forthcoming). Why the mind is still in the head. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge University Press.
• Robert Rupert, “Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition,” Journal of Philosophy 101 (2004): 389–428.
• Jerry Fodor, “Where’s My Mind,” London Review of Books (2009)
• Andy Clark, “Reply to Fodor” London Review of Books (2009)
• Optional (note the change!!!) Frederick R. Adams & Kenneth Aizawa (forthcoming). Defending the Bounds of Cognition

May 26 Environmental Supports, Capabilities, and Disability

• Ingrid Robeyns, "The Capability Approach: A Theoretical survey, Journal of Human Development 6 (2005).
• Tom Shakespeare and Nicholas Watson, “The Social Model of Disability: An Outdated Ideology?”
• http://www.brainhe.com/TheSocialModelofDisabilityText.html
• “U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”
• Recommended: Tom Shakespeare, “Disability: Suffering, Social Oppression, or Complex Predicament?” in M. Duwell, Chr. Rehmann-Sutter, and D. Mieth (eds.), The Contingent Nature of Life: Bioethics and Limits of Human Existence (Heidelberg: Springer, 2008), 231–41.

June 2: The Ethics of Enhancements

• Neil Levy, “Rethinking Neuroethics in the Light of the Extended Mind Thesis,” American Journal of Bioethics 7 (2007): 3–11.
• Zoe Drayson and Andy Clark, “Augmentation, agency, and the spreading of the mental state” (draft manuscript)
• Optional but recommended: Joel Anderson, “Neuro-Prosthetics, the Extended Mind, and Respect for Persons with Disability,” in M. Duwell, Chr. Rehmann-Sutter, and D. Mieth (eds.), The Contingent Nature of Life: Bioethics and Limits of Human Existence (Heidelberg: Springer, 2008), 259–74.

June 9: Situationism, Nudges, and Endogenous Preferences

• Gerd Gigerenzer, “Is the Mind Irrational or Ecologically Rational?” (hard copy distributed in advance) in The Law and Economics of Irrational Behavior, Francesco Parisi and Vernon Smith, eds., Stanford University Press, (2004)
• Gilbert Harman, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 99, 315331.
• Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). “`From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27.

June 16: Extended Will, Procrastination, and the Bounds of Agency

• Joseph Heath and Joel Anderson, “Procrastination and the Extended Will,” in Chrisoula Andreou and Mark White (eds.), The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
• Carol Rovane, “Alienation and the Alleged Separateness of Persons,” The Monist 87 (2004): 554–572.

PREVIOUS COURSES, UNDER THE DESCRIPTION “WBMA4051 CS PHILOSOPHY OF MIND”

2004/2005: Practical Self-Knowledge Link to the syllabus

2006/2007: “Free Will and Neurophilosophy.”

Co-taught with visiting professor Dr. Marina Oshana, Download the syllabus (cursushandleiding) for the course here