Professor Oisin Deery
deery@yorku.ca
Office Location:  S442 Ross Building
Office Hours:  Mondays 13:00 - 15:00 and by appointment

The problem of free will and determinism is one of the great perennial issues in philosophy, covering metaphysics, morals, and matters of central importance not just for philosophy but also for law, theology, psychology, and the social sciences. What is at stake is nothing less than our self-image as responsible agents who are in control of our own destinies. In the past few decades, the free-will debate has developed in exciting new ways, with the result that most parties have had to revise their positions in order to respond to
the arguments of critics. In this course, we will look at some of the most important contributions to this ongoing discussion

TBA

Paul Russell & Oisin Deery, Eds. (2013). The Philosophy of Free Will: Essential Readings From The Contemporary
Debates, Oxford University Press.

A PDF of the relevant readings from this book will be available to download.

Assignment/Test % of final grade
Expository assignment #1 20%
Expository assignment #2 20%
Essay 20%
Final exam 40%
The 2 expository assignments consist in short-answer, expository exercises in response to set questions. The aim is to provide succinct summaries of philosophical arguments and theories in your own words. You are not required to give critical evaluation here, but merely to give an exposition of each concept or argument. Limit is 500 words. You may be penalized for exceeding the word limit.
Criteria for marking: Your aim should be to show that you understand the relevant concepts and arguments put forward by the philosophers we have studied. We will be looking to see that you understand the issues you are talking about. So a good rule of thumb is to write as though your reader were a student who has not taken this course, explaining to them the arguments and issues clearly and accurately.
Although we are primarily interested in seeing that you understand the issues and not in the style of your writing, if you do not write clearly we will not be able to evaluate your task properly. Each of the two expository assignments and the essay are due within a 5-day window, to allow you time to complete assignments in other courses. Generally, late assignments outside this 5-day window will not be accepted for any reason. (This is partly because you have a 5-day window in which to submit your assignments.)
For the essay, a list of topics will be posted on the Moodle site. You must select one. The essay questions will give you the opportunity to undertake an extended investigation of a particular topic covered in the course. Limit is 1500 words. You may be penalized for exceeding the limit. Essays should be presented in the form of a single document in the following format: the essay topic should be written at the top of page 1 in bold; margins should be 2.5 cm all around (Microsoft Word default) and paragraphs unjustified; 1.5 line spacing with an empty line left between paragraphs; preferred font: Times New Roman; preferred font size: 12.
For the final exam, you will answer 20 multiple choice questions covering all of the course and 2 short-answer questions (3 options to choose among). The short answer questions will require you to write approximately 2 paragraphs each, or 500-600 words each.

Schedule
I hope to stick to the following schedule, but it is flexible. If it takes us longer than expected to cover some of the topics (or if it does
not take as long), I will make changes to the schedule accordingly. Please read the required material before the date indicated.
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Week Date Content Assignments Readings
1 Sept. 4 Introduction to the course
2 Sept. 9 Moral luck and the control
principle
Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck”
2 Sept. 11 Please don’t feed the
bugbears
Daniel Dennett, “Please Don’t Feed the Bugbears”
3 Sept. 16 The free-will problem (1) Russell & Deery, Introduction (pp. 1-6)
3 Sept. 18 The free-will problem (2) TBD
4 Sept. 23 The Consequence Argument Peter van Inwagen, “A Modal Argument for
Incompatibilism”; Russell & Deery Introduction (pp.
8-9)
4 Sept. 25 Challenges to the
Consequence Argument
Dana Nelkin, “The Consequence Argument and the
Mind Argument”
5 Sept. 30 Responsibility and
alternative possibilities
Expository assignment
#1 due between 8:00 am
today and end of day
Oct. 4
Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral
Responsibility”; Russell & Deery, Introduction
(pp. 10-11)
5 Oct. 2 Frankfurt-style cases TBD
6 Oct. 7 Naturalism against
skepticism
Peter Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment”; Russell
& Deery, Introduction (pp. 6-8)
6 Oct. 9 Responsibility and the limits
of evil
Gary Watson, “The Limits of Evil: Variations on a
Strawsonian Theme”
7 NO CLASS – Fall reading
week
8 Oct. 21 Compatibilist hierarchical
theories
Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the
Concept of a Person”; Russell & Deery, Introduction
(p. 14)
8 Oct. 23 Problems with Frankfurt’s
theory
TBD
9 Oct. 28 Wolf’s sane-real-self view
of free will
Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of
Responsibility”
9 Oct. 30 Problems with Wolf’s view Russell & Deery, Introduction (pp. 15-16)
10 Nov. 4 Leeway compatibilism
(again)
Expository assignment
#2 due between 8:00 am
today and end of day
Nov. 8
Kadri Vihvelin, “Free Will Demystified: A
Dispositional Account”
10 Nov. 6 Problems with leeway
compatibilism
Russell & Deery, Introduction (pp. 10-11)
11 Nov. 11 Event-causal libertarianism Robert Kane, “Responsibility, Luck and Chance:
Reflections on Free Will and Indeterminism”
11 Nov. 13 Problems with event-causal
libertarianism
Russell & Deery, Introduction (pp. 11-13)
12 Nov. 18 The experience of free
agency
Eddy Nahmias et al. “The Phenomenology of
Agency”; Russell & Deery, Introduction (pp. 24-25)
12 Nov. 20 Phenomenal abilities and
incompatibilism
Oisin Deery et al., “Phenomenal Abilities:
Incompatibilism and the Experience of Agency”
13 Nov. 25 Free will as a natural kind Oisin Deery, “Naturally Free Action”
13 Nov. 27 Revisionism Manuel Vargas, “Revisionism”
14 Dec. 2 Final exam In-class exam
Final essay due
between 8:00 am Dec. 4
and end of day Dec. 9

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Moodle
There is a Moodle site for the course where you will find this syllabus, additional reading material, assignments, lecture
handouts/presentations, and other information. You are required to turn in some of your assignments via the Moodle site:
http://moodle.yorku.ca
Attendance
No part of your grade will be based on attendance per se. Note, however, that it is your responsibility to know the material covered in
the lectures. You are also responsible for knowing about any announcements that I make in class with respect to changes to the
schedule, due dates, etc.
Course requirements
This course will be mostly lecture-based. I will introduce the material for each class in lecture format (I do my utmost to avoid boring
lectures!). I will also invite you to ask questions and contribute to discussion in class. From time to time, I will break up the lectures in
order to engage in activities and exercises. Assessment for the course is by two expository assignments, an essay, and an exam (see
below).
Academic Dishonesty
You are responsible for knowing the policies regarding academic dishonesty. Do not plagiarize. Plagiarism is presenting
somebody else’s ideas as your own. This includes (but is not limited to) quoting a work without citing it or presenting the major ideas
in another student’s assignment, an article, book, web page, etc. as your own without giving credit to the author. If you have any
questions about what might count as plagiarism, please ask. Any instances of cheating will be reported and prosecuted to the fullest
extent possible.
Special Accommodations
If you require special accommodations because of a disability, let me know as soon as possible and arrangements will be made.
Accessibility, inclusion, expectations
It is crucial that you learn how to respectfully listen to what others have to say in this course, no matter what others may believe or
how different their beliefs are from yours. Please note that sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or racist comments will not be
tolerated.
While the course will be primarily lecture-based, a variety of pedagogical approaches will be used in order to help you learn. I
encourage you to tell me if a method that helps you learn is not being used in the lectures. I will make parts of the PowerPoint slides
for lectures available on Moodle before each lecture.
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I expect that every student will be ready to pay attention in class, come to all of the lectures, and be prepared to partake in discussions
and classroom activities. Taking notes is strongly encouraged. If you miss a class, it is your responsibility to get the material you
missed from your classmates. Yes, you will be missing “something important” (at least, from my perspective).
Please abstain from using your cellphone in class. You may use laptop computers or tablets to take notes, but are requested to sit either
towards the back or to the left side of the classroom (as you look toward the front) in order to avoid distracting your fellow students.
Making appointments with me to discuss course content that you do not understand is your responsibility. I will be available for
questions after class or by appointment.
Please make sure that, when contacting me by email, you use the course code in the subject line of the email. The body of your email
should also include your full name and your Student ID so that your records can be accessed quickly. I will not reply to emails that do
not conform to these requirements—course code in the subject line, full name, Student ID.
For your own sake, I also ask you to familiarize yourselves with the basics of “How to Email a Professor”:
https://www.wikihow.com/Email-a-Professor
Learning the basics of such email etiquette will be helpful to you later on (hint: emailing your boss with the greeting, “Hey dude!”
won’t serve you well in life).
Please note that many questions that I receive by email could be answered quickly by you, on your own. Before sending me an email,
you might want to ask yourself whether the information you seek is available already in the syllabus, online, or from another student.
For longer questions or interactions, it might also be preferable to set up an appointment: I am happy to meet with students.