1. 1.Hyam v. D.P.P. (1974), p. 77. For discussion of the case see R.A. Duff, Intention, Agency, and Criminal Liability: Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 1-3, 15-18.
2. 2.For one who makes this point see Duff, pp. 33-34.
3. 3.Moloney v. D.P.P. (1985). See Duff, pp. 20-25.
4. 4.Alan R. White, Grounds of Liability: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 86.
5. 5.The definition of an action is itself problematic. As is well known, it is quite problematic to define an action in terms of bodily movement.
6. 6.This example may bring to mind the Doctrine of Double Effect. The example of the hangover is certainly not a moral one, but it does raise the question of whether one necessarily intends the consequences of an action which one foresees. For an excellent discussion of these issues as related to philosophy of the act see Michael Bratman, Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 140 ff.
7. 7.Duff, p. 61. If my action does not pass the test of failure its consequences/side effects were not intended, but that does not mean by default that they were foreseen. It is possible for consequences/side effects to be neither intended nor foreseen.
8. 8.See for example, Anthony Kenny, Intention and Purpose in Law, in R.S. Summers ed., Essays in Legal Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 146-163.
9. 9.R. v. Steane (1947) K.B. 997. For an excellent discussion of this case see H.L.A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 125-127.
10. 10.This is very much like the case of the hangover. The agent intends to drink the bottle of whiskey, and foresees but does not desire the hangover.
11. 11.Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed. J. Burns and H.L.A. Hart (London: Methuen, 1970). See also G. Williams, Oblique Intention, Cambridge Law Journal 46 (1987), p. 417.
12. 12.See Hart (1968), pp. 113-115 for some support of Bentham's view. For the opposing view see Burleigh T. Wilkins, Intention and Criminal Responsibility, Journal of Applied Philosophy 2 (1985), pp. 271-278.
13. 13.Duff, p.73.
14. 14.Wilkins, p. 273.
15. 15.Duff, p. 37.
16. 16.Ibid., p. 95.
17. 17.For discussion of conversational implicature see Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
18. 18.Hart (1968), p. 126.
19. 19. A felony is sometimes defined as a crime punishable by death or imprisonment. In this way a felony is to be distinguished from a misdemeanor. Another common way to distinguish between a felony and a misdemeanor is in terms of length of imprisonment. Any crime punishable by death or imprisonment for more than one year is a felony and any other crime is a misdemeanor. Cf. Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr. Handbook on Criminal Law (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1972), p. 26. Felony murder dates back to early common law. At that time one whose conduct brought about an unintended death in the commission or attempted commission of a felony was guilty of murder. American jurisdictions have limited felony murder in one or more of the following ways: "(1) by permitting its use only as to certain types of felonies; (2) by more strict interpretation of the requirement of proximate or legal cause; (3) by a narrower construction of the time period during which the felony is in the process of commission; (4) by requiring that the underlying felony be independent of the homicide." LaFave and Scott, p.545. "In England the courts came to limit the felony-murder doctrine in one of two ways: (1) by requiring that the defendant's conduct in committing the felony involve an act of violence, or (2) by requiring that the death be the natural and probable consequence of the defendant's conduct in committing the felony." LaFave and Scott, p. 546.
20. 20.Certainly there should be restrictions placed on the application of felony murder, but it is not within the scope of this paper to argue for what exactly those restrictions should be. For the various ways in which felony murder has been restricted see not 19 above.
21. 21.Raymond Lyons begins to argue along similar lines in his Intention and Foresight in Law, Mind 85 (1976), pp. 84-89.
22. 22. Some might argue that the crime is, despite its deplorable nature, still only one of manslaughter. I do not find this convincing. In any event, even if this case were not found to be one of murder in itself, it would serve as further testimony for the need for at least some limited form of felony murder. Dr. Smith might conceivably be convicted of a felony in this case apart from the manslaughter, and so in the end still be found guilty of murder.
23. 23.Of course, though either intention or foresight can be sufficient, neither one is necessary for murder. For example, if I shoot at the president and accidentally kill a bystander I had neither the intention nor the foresight of killing that individual but nonetheless should be found guilty of murder.
24. 24.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fall 1995 meeting of the Tri-State Philosophical Association in Erie, Pennsylvania. I wish to thank all of those present, particularly my respondent, Robert B. Hallborg, Jr. In addition I wish to thank Gregory Bassham and James Brady for very helpful comments and criticisms.
25. 25.The Problem of Empiricism, The Journal of Philosophy 45 (1948): 512-7.
26. 26.C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1946), pp. 240, 248-9. Lewis was not a translational phenomenalist, but he did maintain that any physical statement entails sensory statements -- a claim essential to translational phenomenalism.
27. 27.D. M. Armstrong provides a number of fascinating objections to phenomenalism in his book Perception and the Physical World (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961); see Chapters Five and Six. Although each of his objections merits serious consideration, I do not have space in this paper to address them. Suffice it to say that Armstrong himself does not consider the objections to be decisive.
28. 28.Hilary Putnam, Psychological Predicates, in W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill, eds., Art, Mind and Religion (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967).
29. 29.Donald Davidson, Mental Events, in Lawrence Foster and J. W. Swanson, eds., Experience and Theory (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1970).
30. 30.See Ibid. and Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
31. 31.The clause bracketed by commas makes this supervenience strong. Weak psychophysical supervenience, by contrast, is the claim that physical sameness of two individuals guarantees their mental sameness within any physically possible world but not necessarily between worlds. So the weak supervenience of the mental on the physical is compatible with two individuals being exactly alike physically but radically different mentally as long as they occupy different physically possible worlds. This form of supervenience, however, is of little interest as it clearly fails to capture the dependence of the supervenient on the subvenient. See Ibid., Chapter Four.
32. 32.See John Haugeland, Weak Supervenience, American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1982): 93-103.
33. 33.See Paul Teller, Relational Holism and Quantum Mechanics, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (1986): 71-81.
34. 34.This terminology is inspired by, but not quite identical to, some of Alvin Plantinga's terminology. See Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 36.
35. 35.This is only an initial formulation of the theory. I will suggest several refinements at a later point in the paper.
36. 36.A. J. Ayer, Phenomenalism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 47 (1946/7): 163-96; see pp. 171-4.
37. 37.For the inspiration behind this example, see Peter Unger, Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 123-6.
38. 38.A. J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell (New York: Viking, 1972), p. 34.
39. 39.Mark Sainsbury, Russell (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), pp. 202.
40. 40.Ibid., p. 203.
41. 41.D. M. Armstrong, op. cit., pp. 48-50.
42. 42.Kim appears to have been the first to suggest that global supervenience is more plausible when spelled out in terms of degrees of similarity rather than indiscernibility. See Kim op. cit., pp. 89-91.
43. 43.This example is inspired by Kim's wayward atom objection to global supervenience. See Kim, op. cit., p. 277.
44. 44.Kim, op. cit., p. 90.
45. 45.David Lewis, Counterfactuals (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973), Chapter Four.
46. 46.Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Philosophical Review 83 (1974): 435-50; Frank Jackson, Epiphenomenal Qualia, Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982): 127-36; and Ned Block, Troubles with Functionalism, in C. W. Savage, ed., Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), pp. 261-325.
47. 47.David J. Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (1995): 200-219.
48. 48.See Ibid., and Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), Chapter Three.
49. 49.Op. cit., p. 210.
50. 50.J. J. C. Smart, Sensations and Brain Processes, in V. C. Chappell, ed., The Philosophy of Mind (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1962), pp. 160-172.
51. Gaita. Raymond. Good & Evil An Absolute Conception (Macmillan)1991 page 1.
52. see Dancy, Jonathan. Moral Reasons (Blackwell)1993 page75.
53. ibid page 75.
54. See Dancy Two conceptions Of Moral Realism Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 1981.
55. Projectivism was coined by Simon Blackburn. See his Spreading The Word.
56. A reference taken from the first line of the poem Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins, No I'll not carrion comfort, despair.
57. Norman, Richard. Making Sense Of Moral Realism unpublished paper given at the philosophy of education conference at Gregynog
58. ibid.
59. Mulhall, Stephen. On Being In The World Wittgenstein and Heidegger On Seeing Aspects. page 73
60. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book 1V.
61. McDowell, John. Values and Secondary Qualities in Morality and Objectivity, ed. by Ted Honderich (Routeledge and Kegan Paul) 1985 page 112.
62. Nagel, Thomas. The View From Nowhere (
63. op cit Dancy, J. Two Conceptions Of Moral Realism P.A.S. 1981.
64. ibid
65. ibid page 73
66. Soltis, J. F. Seeing, Knowing & Believing (George Allen & Unwin)1966 page 46.
67. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Remarks on the philosophy of psychology 1 1102.
68. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations 212D
69. op cit (Mulhall) page 79
70. ibid page 80
71. 71.Throughout his discussion, Frankfurt equates the event of Q's looking left at scenery with his failure to remain attentive. This collapsing together of descriptive and normative elements of the examples -- essentially an equivocation fallacy -- is what at bottom allows Frankfurt to attend most closely to those agent-related matters that seem so irrelevant to PAP, and diverts attention from matters of surrounding circumstances that, as I argue here, are tightly tied to PAPish assessments of fairness.
72. 72.I have enclosed my references to the instance of the gambler's actually losing as failure to win because I wish to clearly indicate that I do not literally want the gambling loss to be construed as a failure in the same sense that Q may have been claimed to fail. The force of my argument concerns the surrounding circumstances that are comparable between the gambler and the case of Q, and does not crucially depend upon equivocating these obviously separate senses of failure.
73. 73.No doubt Frankfurt would hold that my argument constitutes a non sequitur because PAP as he defines and discusses it relates only to his favored (psychologically structural) concept of free will, and any reference to a PAP-like principle beyond the purview of an agent's psychological makeup is an illicit attempt to associate matters foreign to that concept however relevant they might be to ulterior moral considerations (see similar comments in [3], 294). I would retort that such a claim itself misses my point. Free will, I insist, in its most fundamental meaning and usage must refer in part to morally relevant conditions that encompass circumstances surrounding an agent as well as those involving an agent's psychological states and history. As I see it, Frankfurt-style examples merely construct a sort of modal set of blinders that illegitimately screen off matters quite relevant to an adequate moral model of free will.
74. 74.See, for example, Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (M. Friedländer, translator; Hebrew Publishing Company, 1881), III: XX.
75. 75.Joseph S. Fulda, The Mathematical Pull of Temptation, Mind 101(April 1992): 305-307.
76. 76.See Henry Ward Beecher's Life Thoughts (Philips, Sampson and Company, 1858), pp. 73-74.
77. 77.Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil (Basic Books, 1988).
78. 78.Sydney Shoemaker. Identity, Cause, And Mind. London, 1984, Chap. 7.
79. 79.Unfortunately we cannot yet handle TeX or LaTeX files. The convertors we've tried have proved useless.
80. 80.In the case of WordPerfect 5.1, the procedure is as follows. Suppose you have a file called `dilemmas.wp5' in your directory c:\articles, and you want to submit it to SORITES. At your DOS prompt you change to your directory c:\articles. We assume your WordPerfect files are in directory c:\WP51. At the DOS prompt you give the command `\wp51\convert'; when prompted you reply `dilemmas.wp5' as your input file and whatever you want as the output file -- suppose your answer is `dilemmas.ker'; when prompted for a kind of conversion you choose 1, then 6. Then you launch your communications program, log into your local host, upload your file c:\articles\dilemmas.ker using any available transmission protocol (such as Kermit, e.g.). And, last, you enter your e_mail service, start an e_mail to <sorites@ifs.csic.es>; and include your just uploaded dilemmas.ker file into the body of the message. (What command serves to that effect depends on the e_mail software available; consult your local host administrators.)
With WordPerfect 6 the conversion to kermit format is simple and straightforward: you only have to save your paper as a `kermit (7 bits transfer)' file.
81. 81.The reader may find an excellent discussion of copyright-related issues in a FAQ paper (available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209] /pub/usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ). The paper is entitled Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright (V. 1.1.3), 1994, by Terry Carroll. We have borrowed a number of considerations from that helpful document.