New Work on Agency and Responsibility edited by Oisín Deery

I am delighted to introduce this special issue on the topic of “New work on agency and responsibility.” Its aim is to showcase a variety of fresh, new approaches to the topics of agency, free will, and moral responsibility. The issue is divided into five sections, respectively on methodology, the phenomenology of agency, legal and moral responsibility, science and agency, and artificial agency. The titles of these sections derive from my own interests in agency and my inclination to think that philosophical theorizing about free agency and moral responsibility may be due an overhaul. Methodologically, for example, I have argued in my own work that philosophers of free will should take naturalistic demands on their theorizing more seriously. In short, our best theories of free will and responsibility shouldn’t be beholden to what we intuitively think the conditions are for these phenomena. [continue]

Published: 2022-12-28

Introduction

Phenomenology of agency

Moral and legal responsibility