Fall 2005

Philosophy 780 - 83008

CONTROL AND SELF CONTROL

1:00-4:30pm R

Professor Sara Worley

 

This course will focus on issues at the intersection of philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and philosophy of psychology.  We will also pay some attention to the empirical psychological and neurobiological literature.   One difference between action and mere behavior is that we seem to be in control of our actions in ways in which we are not in control of our (mere) behavior.    It’s up to me whether I get a cup of coffee now, in a way in which it’s not up to me whether I sneeze, or whether my pupils dilate in response to a dimming of the light.   Or so it seems.   One worry here  physicalism:  if physicalism is true, then each of us is just a big complicated physical system, which does what it does solely  as a result of its structure and organization and the physical forces impinging on it.   So there’s a question about what room this picture leaves for the role of an ‘agent’ who can decide to do some things and not others.  We will start the course by looking at some libertarian attempts to preserve a realm of agent-control, e.g., those of Kane and O’Connor.   To put my cards on the table, I don’t think that these libertarian attempts will prove very successful (although I do think they are worth looking at in detail) because I think we essentially are just big complicated physical systems.  So we will then move on to looking at (seemingly more plausible) compatibilist attempts to show how it is possible to make sense of control and self-control.   Philosophers we will read will include Dan Dennett and Al Mele.   We will also, however,  pay some attention to what psychologists and neurobiologists have to tell us about control and self-control.    I’m particularly interested in cases in which self-control apparently becomes “hijacked” by, e.g., strong emotion, obsessions, compulsions, etc.  Then, in the last part of the course, we will look at some recent claims (by, e.g., Libet and Wegner) that conscious deliberation doesn’t play much of a role (or at least doesn’t play the role we had thought) in producing human action.    This is a lot to do:  how much time we devote to each section will depend at least in part on student interest.