Assessment will be by means of three short papers (5-7 pages; 30% each) and the class presentation (10% each). At least one paper (normally the first) will be revised and resubmitted. Presentation groups

Assignment One (due March 4th)
Assignment Two (due April 8th)
Assignment Three (due May 13th; note later date in light of recent events)

Monday February 11th Egoism I [Handout 1]
*Bishop Butler Fifteen Sermons Sermon XI
*Batson and Shaw 'Evidence for Altruism' Psychological Inquiry 1991 Off campus link
Stich, Doris and Roedder Altruism (Discusses Batson, and Sober and Wilson)

Wednesday February 13th Egoism II[Handout 2]
*E. Fehr & U. Fischbacher 'The Nature of Human Altruism' Nature 425 (2003) 785-91 [On-line]

Tuesday February 19th Cooperation[Handout 3]
*Michael Tomasello Why we Cooperate (This is a link to the ebook; you might need to get to it through the MIT library site)

Wednesday February 20th Emotions[Handout 4]
*J. Prinz 'Embodied Emotions'

Monday February 25th Intentions[Handout 5]
M. Bratman, 'Taking Plans Seriously'
*Holton, Chapter One of Willing, Wanting, Waiting; includes short presentation of the Bratman approach, and a summary of the empirical work from Gollwitzer.

Monday March 4th [Handout 6]

D. Davidson, 'How is Weakness of the Will Possible?' in his Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford, 1980)
G. Watson, 'Skepticism about Weakness of Will', Philosophical Review 1977, JSTOR

R. Holton, 'Intention and Weakness of Will', Journal of Philosophy 1999 JSTOR

Wednesday March 6th [Handout 7]
George Ainslie 'A Selectionist Model of the Ego: Implications for Self-Control' forthcoming in N. Sebanz and W. Prinz (eds.) Disorders of Volition (MIT Press).

R. Holton 'How is Strength of Will Possible?' in S. Stroud and C Tappolet (eds.) Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality (Oxford University Press, 2003). [Acrobat version]

M. Muraven and R. Baumeister, 'Self-Regulation and Depletion of Limited Resources: Does Self-Control Resemble a Muscle?', Psychological Bulletin 126 (2000) pp. 247-59.

Monday March 11th [Handout 8]
G. Kavka, 'The Toxin Puzzle', Analysis 43 (1983), pp. 33-6.
M. Bratman 'Toxin, Temptation and the Stability of Intention' in Faces of Intention pp. 58-90.

J. Broome, 'Are Intentions Reasons? And How Should We Cope with Incommensurable Values?', in C. Morris and A. Ripstein (eds.), Practical Rationality and Preference: Essays for David Gauthier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) pp. 98-120. Online version

R. Holton 'Rational Resolve' The Philosophical Review 113 (2004) 507-35 [Acrobat version]

Wednesday March 13th [Handout 9]
Gideon Yaffe, Recent Work on Addiction and Responsible Agency

Monday March 18th [Handout 10]
Richard Holton and Kent Berridge 'Addiction Between Compulsion and Choice'

Monday April 1st [Handout 11]
Harry Frankfurt Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971)

Gary Watson 'Free Action and Free Will', Mind 96 (1987)

Wednesday April 3rd [Handout 12]
Harry Frankfurt Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility

Monday April 8th [Handout 13]

Strawson 'Freedom and Resentment' Proceedings of the British Academy, 48 (1962) 1-25
Watson, 'Responsibility and the Limits of Evil' D. Schoeman (ed.) Responsibility, Character and the Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
Susan Wolf, 'The Importance of Freewill' Mind 90 (1981)

Wednesday April 10th [Handout 14]

Robert Kane 'Two Kinds of Incompatibilism' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (1989)

Monday April 15th No Class -- Patriot's Day

Wednesday April 17th [Handout 15]

D. Wegner and T. Wheatley 'Apparent Mental Causation' American Psychologist 54 (1999).
D. Wegner 'Precis of The Illusion of Conscious Will'

T Bayne, Phenomenology and the Feeling of Doing

A Mele, Free Will: Action Theory Meets Neuroscience (on Libet's work)

Monday April 21st [Handout 16]

Wednesday April 24th No Class; Memorial service for Sean Collier

Monday April 29th (Hand out as for previous week)

A. Mele, 'Real Self-Deception', Behavioural and Brain Sciences 20, 1997 pp. 91-136. Electronic Version (Note: this is a pre-print, and doesn't include the peer commentary that appeared with the printed version).

R. Holton, 'What is the role of the self in self-deception?' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2000/1. Acrobat version

Wednesday May 1st [Handout 17]

Joshua Greene et al, The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment, Neuron 44 (2004)

Joshua Greene, The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul, in Sinnott-Armstrong ed. Moral Psychology Vol III

Selim Berker, "The Normative Insignificance of Neuroscience," Philosophy & Public Affairs 37:4 (2009), pp. 293-329.

Monday May 6th [Handout 18]
Kelly et al, Harm, Affect and the Moral/Conventional Distinction
G. Nunner Winkler, 'The Growth of Moral Motivation' in G. Noam and T. Wren (eds.) The Moral Self (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993)
--- 'Development of Moral Motivation from Childhood to Early Adulthood' Journal of Moral Education, (2007) 36: 4, 399 - 414.
Rackozy et al, 'The Sources of Normativity', Developmental Psychology, (2008) Vol. 44, No. 3, 875Ð881
Shaun Nichols Norms with Feeling, Cognition 84 (2002)


Jonathan Haidt 'The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail'

Wednesday May 8th [Handout 19]
Jeanette Kennett, Autism and Empathy Philosophical Quarterly July 2002, vol. 52, pp. 340-357.

Adina Roskies, 'Are ethical judgements intrinsically motivational? Lessons from acquired sociopathy'

Monday May 13th [Handout 20]

Pettit and Knobe, The Pervasive Impact of Moral Judgment
Holton, 'Norms and the Knobe Effect' Analysis 2010
Uttich and Lombrozo'Norms inform mental state ascriptions' Cognition 116 (2010)
Sripada 'The Deep Self Model' Philosophical Studies (2010)

Wednesday May 15th [Handout 21]
John Doris 'Persons, Situations and Virtue Ethics', Nous 32 (1998)

Daryl Bem On the Uncommon Wisdom of our Lay Personality Theory

Rachana Kamtekar Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of our Character Ethics 114 (2004)