Neil Levy

• Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health

Nudges are, roughly, ways of tweaking the context in which agents choose in order to bring them to make choices that are in their own interests. Nudges are controversial: opponents argue that because they bypass our reasoning processes, they threaten our autonomy. Proponents respond that nudging, and therefore this bypassing, is inevitable and perv...

There is a robust scientific consensus concerning climate change and evolution. But many people reject these expert views, in favour of beliefs that are strongly at variance with the evidence. It is tempting to try to explain these beliefs by reference to ignorance or irrationality, but those who reject the expert view seem often to be no worse inf...

Sometimes agents sincerely profess to believe a claim and yet act inconsistently with it in some contexts. In this paper, I focus on mismatch cases in the domain of religion. I distinguish between two kinds of representations: prompts and default states. Prompts are representations that must be salient to agents in order for them to play their beli...

What explains the context sensitivity of some (apparent) beliefs? Why, for example, do religious beliefs appear to control behaviour in some contexts but not others? Cases like this are heterogeneous, and we may require a matching heterogeneity of explanations, ranging over their contents, the attitudes of agents and features of the environment. In...

Free will is widely considered a foundational component of Western moral and legal codes, and yet current conceptions of free will are widely thought to fit uncomfortably with much research in psychology and neuroscience. Recent research investigating the consequences of laypeople’s free will beliefs (FWBs) for everyday moral behavior suggests that...

In a recent paper published in this journal, Eric Funkhouser argues that some of our beliefs have the primary function of signaling to others, rather than allowing us to navigate the world. Funkhouser’s case is persuasive. However, his account of beliefs as signals is underinclusive, omitting both beliefs that are signals to the self and less than...

There is a lively debate over who is to blame for the harms arising from unhealthy behaviours, like overeating and excessive drinking. In this paper, I argue that given how demanding the conditions required for moral responsibility actually are, we cannot be highly confident that anyone is ever morally responsible. I also adduce evidence that holdi...

In this paper we analyse the notion of collective responsibility and the criteria for its application to different types of groups. We argue that most of the ways in which the notion of collective responsibility has been attributed to different types of groups actually refer to a form of responsibility that is not genuinely collective, but that boi...

Proposals for regulating or nudging healthy choices are controversial. Opponents often argue that individuals should take responsibility for their own health, rather than be paternalistically manipulated for their own good. In this paper, I argue that people can take responsibility for their own health only if they satisfy certain epistemic conditi...

Because of the privileged place of beliefs in explaining behaviour, mismatch cases—in which agents sincerely claim to believe that p, but act in a way that is inconsistent with that belief—have attracted a great deal of attention. In this paper, I argue that some of these cases, at least, are at least partially explained by agents believing that th...

An influential model holds that obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is caused (in part) by distinctive personality traits and belief biases. But a substantial number of sufferers do not manifest these traits. I propose a predictive coding account of the disorder, which explains both the symptoms and the cognitive traits. On this account, OCD centra...

Free will is widely considered a foundational component of Western moral and legal codes, and yet current conceptions of free will are widely thought to fit uncomfortably with much research in psychology and neuroscience. Recent research investigating the consequences of laypeople’s free will beliefs (FWBs) for everyday moral behavior suggest that...

Nudges-policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour-are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reas...

Neil Van Leeuwen argues that religious beliefs are not factual beliefs: typically, at least, they are attitudes of a different type. He argues that they exhibit much more sensitivity to context than factual beliefs: outside of contexts in which they are salient, they do not govern behaviour or inference, or provide background assumptions for cognit...

I argue that the intellectualist account of knowledge-how, according to which agents have the knowledge-how to (Formula presented.) in virtue of standing in an appropriate relation to a proposition, is only half right. On the composition view defended here, knowledge-how at least typically requires both propositional knowledge and motor representat...

Introduction Philosophers, cognitive and social psychologists and laypeople often subscribe to the view that willpower is central to recovery from addiction. But there are reasons to suspect that willpower is much less important to explaining recovery than this view suggests. Methods Here we report findings from a qualitative longitudinal study on...

| Many researchers believe that the singularity – roughly, explosive growth in machine intelligence, resulting in the appearance of AIs that are vastly superior to us cognitively – will or might occur in the relatively near future. Understandably, many are worried by this prospect. In this paper, I argue that we have less to fear from the singulari...

Rationalist accounts of self-knowledge are motivated in important part by the claim that only by looking to our reasons to discover our beliefs and desires are we active in relation to them and only thereby do we take responsibility for them. These kinds of account seem to predict that self-knowledge generated using third-personal methods or analog...

According to the ego-depletion account of loss of self-control, self-control is, or depends on, a depletable resource. Advocates of this account have argued that what is depleted is actually glucose. However, there is experimental evidence that indicates that glucose replenishment is not necessary for regaining self-control, as well as theoretical...

Most of the philosophers engaged in the free will debate accept some kind of naturalism constraint. In this chapter, I distinguish three different kinds of naturalism. Strong naturalists hold that philosophical theorizing should be actually guided by current science, whereas weak naturalists avoid postulating any entities or processes that conflict...

Several ethicists have argued that research trials and treatment programs that involve the provision of drugs to addicts are prima facie unethical, because addicts can’t refuse the offer of drugs and therefore can’t give informed consent to participation. In response, several people have pointed out that addiction does not cause a compulsion to use...

In his paper published in this issue, Ishtiyaque Haji argues that the challenge to compatibilism from luck is not novel. Rather, the challenge is identical to that from manipulation cases, and compatibilists already have responses to that challenge. In response, I distinguish two different luck problems for compatibilism. One challenge is seen in m...

Our (2014) model for the regulation of cognitive enhancement devices (CEDs) received a great deal of interest from those involved in European device regulation and from academic commentators. Further, since the publication of our recommendations, the number of manufacturers of brain stimulation devices for non-medical purposes has increased, unders...

The puzzle of resultant moral luck arises when we are disposed to think that an agent who caused a harm deserves to be blamed more than an otherwise identical agent who did not. One popular (but controversial) perspective on resultant moral luck explains our dispositions to produce different judgments with regard to the agents who feature in these...

Addiction and Neuroethics.- Brain Research and Ethics.- Developmental Neuroethics.- Ethical Implications of Brain Imaging.- Ethical Implications of Brain Stimulation.- Ethical Implications of Brain-Machine Interfacing.- Ethical Implications of Cell and Genetherapy.- Ethical Implications of Sensory Prostheses.- Ethics in Neurosurgery.- Ethics in Psy...

A number of psychologists and neuroscientists have argued that experimental findings about the psychological basis of human behavior demonstrate that we lack free will, or that it is limited in ways we do not realize. In this chapter, I survey some of the main claims in this literature, with an eye to situating the contributions to come. I examine...

The use of interventions into the mind and body to treat a diagnosed disorder or disease is uncontroversial, but it is very controversial whether interventions aimed at enhancing function in the absence of disease or disorder are acceptable or not. In this chapter we focus on transcranial electrical stimulation used as a cognitive enhancer, and aim...

Neuroethics – as a multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary endeavor – examines the implications of the neurosciences on human beings in general and on their self-understanding and their social interactions in particular. The range of approaches adopted in neuroethics includes but is not limited to historical, anthropological, ethical, philosophic...

It is very widely held that Frankfurt-style cases—in which a counterfactual intervener stands by to bring it about that an agent performs an action but never actually acts because the agent performs that action on her own—show that free will does not require alternative possibilities. This essay argues that that conclusion is unjustified, because m...

Implicit attitudes are mental states that appear sometimes to cause agents to act in ways that conflict with their considered beliefs. Implicit attitudes are usually held to be mere associations between representations. Recently, however, some philosophers have suggested that they are, or are very like, ordinary beliefs: they are apt to feature in...

The recent debate over the moral responsibility of psychopaths has centered on whether, or in what sense, they understand moral requirements. In this paper, I argue that even if they do understand what morality requires, the content of their actions is not of the right kind to justify full-blown blame. I advance two independent justifications of th...

In Minds, Brains, and Law, Michael Pardo and Dennis Patterson argue that current attempts to use neuroscience to inform the theory and practice of law founder because they are built on confused conceptual foundations. Proponents of neurolaw attribute to the brain or to its parts psychological properties that belong only to people; this mistake viti...

A number of concerns have been raised about the possible future use of pharmaceuticals designed to enhance cognitive, affective, and motivational processes, particularly where the aim is to produce morally better decisions or behavior. In this article, we draw attention to what is arguably a more worrying possibility: that pharmaceuticals currently...

Consciousness, or its lack, is often invoked in debates in applied and normative ethics. Conscious beings are typically held to be significantly more morally valuable than non-consious, so that establishing whether a being is conscious becomes of critical importance. In this paper, I argue that the supposition that phenomenal consciousness explains...

Addiction is almost universally held to be characterized by a loss of control over drug-seeking and consuming behavior. But the actions of addicts, even of those who seem to want to abstain from drugs, seem to be guided by reasons. In this paper, I argue that we can explain this fact, consistent with continuing to maintain that addiction involves a...

This article presents a model for regulating cognitive enhancement devices (CEDs). Recently, it has become very easy for individuals to purchase devices which directly modulate brain function. For example, transcranial direct current stimulators are increasingly being produced and marketed online as devices for cognitive enhancement. Despite posing...

We are grateful to Crockett and Craigie for their interesting remarks on our paper. We accept Crockett’s claim that there is a need for caution in drawing inferences about patient groups from work on healthy volunteers in the laboratory. However, we believe that the evidence we cited established a strong presumption that many of the patients who ar...

Fitz and Reiner describe the widespread appeal of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as an all-purpose cognitive enhancer.1 Relatively safe, cheap and effective, tDCS has been met with excitement by academics, journalists and private individuals hoping to purchase or construct equipment for home use. Devices can now easily be bought onl...

In “The Immorality of Punishment”, Michael Zimmerman attempts to show that punishment is morally unjustified and therefore wrong. In this response, I focus on two main questions. First, I examine whether Zimmerman’s empirical claims—concerning our inability to identify wrongdoers who satisfy conditions on blameworthiness and who might be reformed t...

This chapter argues how the claim that the behaviors characteristic of addiction are voluntary does not entail either that the disease model of addiction is wrong or that addicts are fully responsible for their actions. Autonomy is a term with multiple meanings. There is a maximal sense of autonomy, according to which an autonomous being has only t...

In a recent paper, Ishtiyaque Haji and Michael McKenna argue that my attack on Frankfurt-style cases fails. I had argued that we cannot be confident that agents in these cases retain their responsibility-underwriting capacities, because what capacities an agent has can depend on features of the world external to her, including merely counterfactual...

It is sometimes objected that we cannot adopt skepticism about moral responsibility, because the criminal justice system plays an indispensable social function. In this paper, I examine the implications of moral responsibility skepticism for the punishment of those convicted of crime, with special attention to recent arguments by Saul Smilansky. Sm...

Neuroethics is a new sub-discipline of philosophy, with two broad focuses. The first, which has come to be called the ethics of neuroscience, concerns the assessment of ethical issues arising from neuroscience, its practice and its applications; the second, which has come to be called the neuroscience of ethics, concerns the ways in which the scien...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) is a brain stimulation tool that is portable, painless, inexpensive, apparently safe, and with potential long-term efficacy. Recent results obtained from TDCS experiments offer exciting possibilities for the enhancement and treatment of normal or impaired abilities, respectively. We discuss new neuroet...

In a recent paper in this journal, Matt King and Peter Carruthers argue that the common assumption that agents are only (or especially) morally responsible for actions caused by attitudes of which they are conscious needs to be rethought. They claim that there is persuasive evidence that we are never conscious of our propositional attitudes; we oug...

Nicholas Agar has recently argued that it would be irrational for future human beings to choose to radically enhance themselves by uploading their minds onto computers. Utilizing Searle’s argument that machines cannot think, he claims that uploading might entail death. He grants that Searle’s argument is controversial, but he claims, so long as the...

The concept of luck has played an important role in debates concerning free will and moral responsibility, yet participants in these debates have relied upon an intuitive notion of what luck is. This book develops an account of luck, which is then applied to the free will debate. It argues that the standard luck objection succeeds against common ac...

This chapter discusses the extent of an addict’s responsibility in drug-related behavior. It is argued that addicts cannot be held responsible for the range of activities in which they must engage in order to procure, prepare, and consume drugs, at least with regard to much of the behavior. Consequently, the view that addictive behavior is not resp...

If Knobe is right that ordinary judgments are normatively suffused, how do scientists free themselves from these influences? I suggest that because science is distributed and externalized, its claims can be manipulated in ways that allow normative influences to be hived off. This allows scientists to deploy concepts which are not normatively suffus...

Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that...

The question whether and when it is morally appropriate to withdraw life-support from patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state is one of the most controversial in bioethics. Recent work on the neuroscience of consciousness seems to promise fundamentally to alter the debate, by demonstrating that some entirely unresponsive pati...

Libertarianism seems vulnerable to a serious problem concerning present luck, because it requires indeterminism somewhere in the causal chain leading to directly free action. Compatibilism, in contrast, is thought to be free of this problem, as not requiring indeterminism in the causal chain. I argue that this view is false: compatibilism is subjec...

The field of neuroethics is experiencing a great deal of activity at present, as researchers come to realize the potentially dramatic implications of new work in neuroscience and its applications. This review aims to describe some of the work of direct relevance to psychiatric ethics. The review focuses on ethical issues surrounding the use of prop...

Ned Block has influentially distinguished two kinds of consciousness, access and phenomenal consciousness. He argues that these two kinds of consciousness can dissociate, and therefore we cannot rely upon subjective report in constructing a science of consciousness. I argue that none of Block's evidence better supports his claim than the rival view...

The extended mind thesis is the claim that mental states extend beyond the skulls of the agents whose states they are. This seemingly obscure and bizarre claim has far-reaching implications for neuroethics, I argue. In the first half of this article, I sketch the extended mind thesis and defend it against criticisms. In the second half, I turn to i...

The typical explanation of an event or process which attracts the label ‘conspiracy theory’ is an explanation that conflicts with the account advanced by the relevant epistemic authorities. I argue that both for the layperson and for the intellectual, it is almost never rational to accept such a conspiracy theory. Knowledge is not merely shallowly...

The typical explanation of an event or process which attracts the label ‘conspiracy theory’ is an explanation that conflicts with the account advanced by the relevant epistemic authorities. I argue that both for the layperson and for the intellectual, it is almost never rational to accept such a conspiracy theory. Knowledge is not merely shallowly...

In her paper, The case for physician assisted suicide: not (yet) proven, Bonnie Steinbock argues that the experience with Oregon's Death with Dignity Act fails to demonstrate that the benefits of legalising physician assisted suicide outweigh its risks. Given that her verdict is based on a small number of highly controversial cases that will most l...

No abstract available.

purposes of quotation. 1. Introduction1 One of the most exciting developments in the cognitive sciences in recent years has been a rediscovery of the phenomenology of agency (see e.g. Graham 2004; Horgan et al. 2003; Nahmias et al. 2004). That the phenomenology of agency has received renewed attention is due in no small part to claims that it is at...

Many people now believe that human reproductive cloning--once sufficiently safe and effective--should be permitted on the grounds that it will allow the otherwise infertile to have children that are biologically closely related to them. However, though it is widely believed that the possession of a close genetic link to our children is morally sign...

Should surgeons be permitted to amputate healthy limbs if patients request such operations? We argue that if such patients are experiencing significant distress as a consequence of the rare psychological disorder named Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), such operations might be permissible. We examine rival accounts of the origins of the desi...

Actions performed in a state of automatism are not subject to moral evaluation, while automatic actions often are. Is the asymmetry between automatistic and automatic actions justified? In order to answer this question we need a model of moral accountability that does justice to our intuitions about a range of modes of agency, both pathological and...

The recent controversy surrounding the choice, by a deaf lesbian couple, to have children who were themselves deaf, has focused attention on the ethics of choosing (apparent) disabilities for children. Deaf activists argue that deafness is not a disability, but instead the constitutive condition of access to a rich culture. Being deaf carries disad...

I distinguish and assess three separate arguments utilized by the opponents of cochlear implants: that treating deafness as a medical condition is inappropriate since it is not a disability; that so treating it sends a message to the Deaf that they are of lesser worth; and that the use of such implants would signal the end of Deaf culture. I give s...

Etude de la critique de la modernite et du mythe de la rationalite developpee par A. MacIntyre dans le sens d'un retour a la tradition. Alors que MacIntyre veut substituer au relativisme et au pluralisme modernes l'unite morale de l'aristotelisme (in «After virtue», 1985), l'A. montre que le philosophe reintroduit le pluralisme dans sa conception d...