Overview
In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in problems related to human agency and responsibility by philosophers and researchers in cognate disciplines. The present volume brings together original contributions by leading specialists working in this vital field of philosophical inquiry. The contents represent the state of the art of philosophical research on intentional agency, free will, and moral responsibility. The volume begins with chapters on the metaphysics of agency and moves to chapters examining various problems of luck. The final two sections have a normative focus, with the first of the two containing chapters examining issues related to responsible agency and blame and the chapters in the final section examine responsibility and relationships. This book will be of interest to researchers and students interested in both metaphysical and normative issues related to human agency.
Full Product Details
Author: Andrei Buckareff ,
Carlos Moya ,
Sergi Rosell
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Edition: 1st ed. 2015
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 4.827kg
ISBN: 9781137414946
ISBN 10: 1137414944
Pages: 293
Publication Date: 08 December 2015
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
It is a collection of front-line research in the intersection of agency, responsibility, moral luck and free will. As such, this volume is valuable for anyone interested in researching these subjects. (Mattias Gunnemyr and Cathrine Felix, metapsychology online reviews, metapsychology.mentahelp.net, Vol. 20 (28), July, 2016)
I recommend offering the editors a contract for this book. It will be a valuable contribution to the literature. I do, however, think that the editors give an overly optimistic account of the impact and appeal of this volume, for reasons that I will explain below. My reasons for recommending publication is simple. This is, as the editors note, an important and ever-increasing area of philosophical discussion, and I suspect that many of the essays collected here will advance the discussion. Without actually reading the essays it is, of course, hard to evaluate quality. But approximately half-dozen of the proposed contributors are major figures in the field, and almost all of the abstracts present what seem to me promising lines of inquiry. This is why, as I said, I recommend the editors be offered a contract. I am somewhat less enthusiastic about the proposal than the editors themselves, however. They write: 'This will be a volume that should be included in any library at any university or college with a philosophy program.' This strikes me as not true. This is one of many recent volumes in this general area, and I doubt that any but the most comprehensive of libraries can be expected to collect all of them. Nor do I think it likely that non-philosophers will purchase this book, as the editors also suggest, as the discussions are almost entirely intradisciplinary. That is not to say that the book does not have a market: I think the authors are quite right that this will be purchased by faculty and graduate students working in these areas. But I am skeptical that the market extends very far beyond this. I am also not clear what distinguishes this volume from the many others that have been published in this area in the last decade, several of which are listed in the editors' proposal. They write: 'Our volume is unique in being one of the few volumes that aims at offering an up-to-date approach to the current debates over the foundations of agency, the metaphysics of free will, the nature of moral responsibility, and the problem of moral luck.' On which dimension does the 'uniqueness' lie, in being 'up-to-date' or in covering all of these areas? The former doesn't distinguish this volume, since almost any volume published by a reputable press in the last decade is (almost analytically) 'up-to-date.' The latter does perhaps distinguish it. The range of topics covered is wider than most other volumes in this area I am familiar with. Though I am not entirely convinced that this degree of breadth is a virtue. What does seem to be true is the following. This is a volume of papers produced from what were clearly a couple of high-quality conferences, presenting original work from some very important philosophers. Philosophers working in this area should, and I suspect many will, buy it. Despite my qualifications above, that seems to me reason enough to offer the editors a contract. A couple of minor notes: First, the editors present the increase in the number of articles on these topics in the Philosopher's Index as evidence of an increase in interest in these areas. One would want to run a 'control' on some arbitrary philosophical topic, since it may just be that more philosophy articles are being published simpliciter. My own informal database searching suggests that the effect the editors point to is real, though perhaps not quite as extreme as the raw figures suggest. Second, I would recommend a change in title. (Actually, I was given two titles: what is the subtitle in the editors' proposal was presented as the title in the email I received from the press - but the point to be made now applies to both of them). The title is perfectly fine, but for that reason forgettable. It could be the title of almost any volume of essays on these topics. I would recommend something less generic, ideally something other than a concatenation of the various phrases that get used in this literature.
“It is a collection of front-line research in the intersection of agency, responsibility, moral luck and free will. As such, this volume is valuable for anyone interested in researching these subjects.” (Mattias Gunnemyr and Cathrine Felix, metapsychology online reviews, metapsychology.mentahelp.net, Vol. 20 (28), July, 2016)
Author Information
Andrei A. Buckareff is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, US. His work has appeared in various journals. He is the co-editor of Alternative Concepts of God with Yujin Nagasawa and Causing Human Actions with Jesús Aguilar. Carlos J. Moya is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Valencia, Spain. He has published The Philosophy of Action and Moral Responsibility: the ways of skepticism , as well as a number of papers in several philosophical journals and contributions to edited volumes. Sergi Rosell is a postdoctoral researcher associated to the University of Valencia (Phrónesis Group), and has been postdoctoral research fellow at the universities of Sheffield and Oxford. His work has appeared in various journals.
