Papers

The Grounds of Our Freedom

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Inquiry (2022, symposium on Frankfurt’s alternative possibilities paper). I discuss the relation between freedom and grounding, especially in connection with views inspired by Frankfurt’s paper.

Juggling Intuitions about Causation and Omissions

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In Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Causation (Wiegmann and Willemsen, eds., 2022). I discuss the interplay between intuitions of different types in our theorizing about causation.

Responsibility and Causation

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In Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility (Nelkin and Pereboom, eds., 2022). I discuss the role that causation plays in both derivative and basic responsibility.

The Concept of Responsibility in the Ethics of Self-Defense and War

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Philosophical Studies (2021, symposium on responsibility and defensive harm). I discuss “Responsibility Views” in the ethics of self-defense and war, and the concept of responsibility at work in them.

Indeterministic Compatibilism

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In Free Will: Historical and Analytic Perspectives (Hausmann and Noller, eds., 2021). I discuss some new puzzles that arise for free will compatibilism, under the assumption of indeterminism.

Responsibility and the Metaphysics of Omissions

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In Non-Being: New Essays on Non-Existence (Bernstein and Goldschmidt, eds., 2021). I discuss the relevance of the metaphysics of omission and causation for our theorizing about moral responsibility.

More of a Cause?

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Journal of Applied Philosophy (2020, symposium on causation and war). I argue against the idea that causal contributions come in degrees, and draw consequences for moral responsibility and the ethics of war.

Flickers of Freedom and Moral Luck

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Midwest Studies in Philosophy (2019). Some have suggested that what we’re ultimately responsible for is not making decisions but making them “on our own.” I critically examine this view in connection with the problem of moral luck.

Situations and Responsiveness to Reasons

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Noûs (2018). I discuss how we can be responsive to reasons despite the “situationist” threat.

The Puzzle(s) of Frankfurt-Style Omission Cases

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In The Ethics and Law of Omissions (Nelkin and Rickless, eds., 2017). I discuss some interesting puzzles about responsibility by omission.

Ignorance, Alternative Possibilities, and the Epistemic Conditions for Responsibility

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In Perspectives on Ignorance from Moral and Social Philosophy (Peels, ed., 2017). I argue that being blameworthy doesn’t require the belief that one could have done otherwise, and draw some conclusions about the epistemic conditions for responsibility.

Frankfurt-Style Examples

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Routledge Companion to Free Will (Griffin, Levy, and Timpe, eds., 2017). A survey of Frankfurt-style examples, different roles they can play in free will debates, and potential new avenues of research.

PAP-Style Cases

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Journal of Philosophy (2016). I discuss the prospects of the counterparts of Frankfurt-style cases (cases that aim to show that free will requires alternative possibilities).

A Partial Defense of the Actual-Sequence Model of Freedom

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Journal of Ethics (2016). I develop new arguments in support of the actual-sequence model of freedom.

Vihvelin on Frankfurt-Style Cases and the Actual-Sequence View

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Criminal Law and Philosophy (2016). This is a critical discussion of Vihvelin’s Causes, Laws, and Free Will (OUP, 2013).

Resultant Luck and the Thirsty Traveler

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Methode (2015). My solution to the thirsty traveler puzzle (among other things).

A New Form of Moral Luck?

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In Agency and Moral Responsibility (Buckareff, Moya, and Rosell, eds., 2015). I discuss a particularly puzzling form of luck: one where our responsibility seems to depend exclusively on whether other responsible agents are present and what their contributions are.

Sensitivity to Reasons and Actual Sequences

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In Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility (Shoemaker, ed., 2015). How can one hold that acting freely is a matter of being sensitive to (non-actual) reasons, and also hold that freedom is just a function of actual sequences? I argue for an answer in terms of the concept of absence causation.

The Problem of Determinism and Free Will Is Not the Problem of Determinism and Free Will

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In Surrounding Free Will (Mele, ed., 2015). I argue that the threat to our free will isn’t determinism but determination by factors beyond our causal reach. I draw consequences for some free will debates.

Difference-Making in Epistemology

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(With Juan Comesaña) Noûs 48 (2014). We argue for a new difference-making constraint on evidence and justification. We show that the constraint sheds light on the easy knowledge problem.

Making a Difference in a Deterministic World

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The Philosophical Review 122 (2013). I argue that responsibility is grounded in difference-making, in particular, in a form of difference-making that is compatible with determinism.

Causation and Freedom

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Journal of Philosophy 109 (2012). I argue that the metaphysics of causation has a neglected but important role to play in the debate about freedom and determinism. In particular, the intransitivity of causation can support a better version of the alternative possibilities view of freedom (as well as a rival view that doesn’t require alternative possibilities).

Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right: Responsibility and Overdetermination

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Legal Theory 18 (2012). This is part of a symposium on Michael Moore’s book Causation and Responsibility. I critically examine Moore’s views on whether and how agents are responsible in overdetermination cases and then develop my own view on this issue.

Resultant Luck

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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (2012). I give an account of the concept of resultant moral luck (moral luck about consequences), a concept that is, I argue, much more intricate and interesting than has been recognized.

Actuality and Responsibility

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Mind 120 (2011). “Actual-sequence” views of responsibility are views according to which moral responsibility is a function of actual sequences. I argue that the best view of this kind is one that understands actual sequences in a non-traditional way and one that entails that unactualized possibilities of a certain kind are always relevant to responsibility.

Moore on Doing versus Allowing Harm

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Rutgers Law Journal 42 (2011). This is a critical discussion of Michael Moore’s views on the doing/allowing distinction in his book Causation and Responsibility (Oxford, 2009).

Failing to Do the Impossible

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In New Waves in the Philosophy of Action (Aguilar, Frankish, and Buckareff, eds., 2010). I discuss the relation between intentional omissions and alternative possibilities.

The Prince of Wales Problem for Counterfactual Theories of Causation

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In New Waves in Metaphysics (Hazzlett, ed., 2010). I argue that counterfactual views of causation cannot accommodate causation by omission while remaining faithful to the motivation for accepting that kind of causation.

Omissions and Causalism

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Noûs 43 (2009). I argue that omissions make trouble for causal theories of agency.

Causation And Ethics

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In Oxford Handbook of Causation (Beebee, Hitchcock and Menzies, eds., 2009). I discuss the role of causation in consequentialism, the distinction between killing and letting die, the doctrine of double effect, and the concept of moral responsibility.

Moral Inertia

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Philosophical Studies 140 (2008). I argue that, according to commonsense morality, there is moral pressure to leave things “as is.”

Causation and Responsibility

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Philosophy Compass (2007). I discuss different views about the relation between moral responsibility and causation and I defend an unorthodox view.

Disjunctive Causes

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Journal of Philosophy 103 (2006). I argue that there is reason to believe in the existence of disjunctive causes.

Failures to Act and Failures of Additivity

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Philosophical Perspectives 20 (2006). It might seem that, if I cause X and Y, I also cause their sum. I argue that this principle fails, at least for omissions, and I draw some implications of this failure for the problem of famine.

On Causing Something to Happen in a Certain Way without Causing It to Happen

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Philosophical Studies 129 (2006). I offer conditions under which causing an outcome to happen in a certain way is not sufficient for causing the outcome. The principle works as an argument against the transitivity of causation.

A New Asymmetry Between Actions and Omissions

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Noûs 39 (2005). I argue that there is a moral asymmetry between actions and omissions, which has its source in a causal asymmetry.

Causes As Difference Makers

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Philosophical Studies 123 (2005). I defend a principle according to which causes are difference-makers with respect to their effects.

How To Be Responsible for Something Without Causing It

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Philosophical Perspectives 18 (2004). I argue that being morally responsible doesn’t entail being a cause, and I offer an alternative way of understanding the relationship between responsibility and causation.