Wash the stung area with soap and water.If you haven't had a serious reaction to an ant sting in the past Administer your adrenaline (epinephrine) if you have been instructed to use it in this situation.Philosophical Studies 127: 351–382.Ants If you have had a serious reaction to an ant sting in the past On the importance of history for responsible agency. “Defending (A Modified Version of) The Zygote Argument.” Philosophical Studies 164: 189–203. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64: 700–708. In An examination of Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy, ed. Moral responsibility and the continuation problem. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12: 463–475. Moral responsibility and history revisited. Moral responsibility and agents’ histories. Manipulation, compatibilism, and moral responsibility.
Autonomous agents: From self-control to autonomy. Zalta (ed.) =/entries/compatibilism/supplement.html. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 edn.), Edward N. American Philosophical Quarterly 8: 299–317.
Free will and the laws of human behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.įrankfurt, H. New York: Oxford University Press.įischer, J.M. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Īyer, A. Some agnostics about compatibilism may find themselves in that position partly because they are agnostic about Humeanism about laws of nature.Īudi, R. On a Humean view of laws, in Gideon Rosen’s words, “it may turn out in the end the laws are as they are in part because” Ernie acted as he did (Rosen 2002, p. 73): that is, it would be among the facts to be accounted for by the laws of nature.
If Ernie were to B at t, something that is consistent with the entire past of his universe (given a Humean view of laws), that fact would be one of the facts to be accounted for by a web of contingent generalizations that appear as theorems (or axioms) “in each of the true deductive systems that achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength” (Lewis 1973, p. Even if Diana makes a true, educated guess about what the collection of natural laws will turn out to be on the basis of her complete knowledge of the past, it is open when she creates Ernie and right up to t both that she will be wrong about what the laws will be and that Ernie will not A at t. So Diana, who is supposed to benefit from her knowledge of the laws of nature in designing Ernie, is in no position to know the laws of nature: her complete knowledge of the past does not include knowledge of the laws nor does it constitute a basis for deducing them. The natural laws might turn out to characterize a deterministic or an indeterministic universe, and even on the hypothesis that the universe turns out to be deterministic, it is open at the time of Ernie’s creation precisely what its laws will be. According to a Humean view, some of the ontological ingredients of the laws of nature of Ernie’s universe-namely, future regularities-are not in place at the time of his creation. 194–195), the truth of a Humean view of natural laws would undermine my thought experiment about Ernie. Readers are invited to compare their intuitions about Ernie’s A-ing in the story by Fischer quoted here with their intuitions about this in my augmented John and Mary story.Īs I pointed out in Mele ( 2006, pp. That is why the first step I took in augmenting Fischer’s story was to bestow knowledge of this kind on John and Mary. Her exhaustive knowledge of the state of her universe at a time and the laws of nature puts her in a position to do this. In my story, Diana exercises the power to intentionally bring it about that this happens and, indeed, the power to intentionally ensure that it happens. 268).Ĭonsider just Ernie’s doing A 30 years later. The intentions of John and Mary, and their acting in the belief that they are providing (relative to the background) a sufficient condition for something they want in the future, do not in any way bear on the intuitive basis for Ernie’s moral responsibility in that context 30 years later. We could also add the supposition that, not only did they have intercourse with the relevant belief, but that John and Mary intended that their intercourse lead to Ernie’s performing A and bringing about E 30 years hence. It does not affect my evaluation of Ernie's moral responsibility, even if we add that John and Mary had sexual intercourse at the precise moment they did in the belief that, by so doing, they would ensure that Ernie would behave as he does in the future-perhaps even in the specific context in question some 30 years later. And even if we changed the story to build into it that John and Mary had quite specific and even detailed desires with respect to the baby they hoped to create, this should not in any way affect our views about Ernie’s moral responsibility 30 years later.