Browsing by Author "Haji, Ishtiyaque"
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Item Open Access Ability, Frankfurt Examples, and Obligation(Springer, 2018-04-21) Haji, Ishtiyaque; Hebert, RyanFrankfurt examples invite controversy over whether the pertinent agent in these examples lacks the specific (as opposed to the general) ability to do otherwise, and whether what she does can be obligatory or permissible. We develop an account of ability that implies that this agent does not have the specific ability to refrain from performing the germane action. The account also undergirds a view of obligation that entails that it is morally required or prohibited for an agent to perform an action only if she has the specific ability to do, and to do otherwise than, perform it. Therefore, in Frankfurt examples, it is neither obligatory nor impermissible for the relevant agent to do what she does.Item Open Access Blameworthiness and Time(2021-09-03) Haji, IshtiyaqueThe following theses concerning moral obligation are widely accepted. Future Obligation: it is possible that at some time you are morally obligated to do something that you have not yet done but will do at a future time. Obligation-Changeability: it is possible that although it is obligatory, at some specified time, for you to do something later, at a time pursuant to this specified time you no longer have this obligation. The author argues that analogous theses concerning moral blameworthiness are true too: it’s possible that you may now be blameworthy for something you have not yet done but will do, and that blameworthiness can change with the passage of time.Item Open Access Divine and Conventional Frankfurt Examples(2021-08-13) Haji, IshtiyaqueThe principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) says that you are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for something you do only if you could have done otherwise. Frankfurt examples are putative counterexamples to PAP. These examples feature a failsafe mechanism that ensures that some agent cannot refrain from doing what she does without intervening in how she conducts herself, thereby supposedly sustaining the upshot that she is responsible for her behavior despite not being able to do otherwise. I introduce a Frankfurt example in which the agent who could not have done otherwise is God. Paying attention to the freedom requirements of moral obligation, the example is commissioned, first, to assess whether various states of affairs that are unavoidable for God can be obligatory for God and for which God can be praiseworthy. The example is, next, used to unearth problems with conventional Frankfurt examples that feature human agents. I argue that conceptual connections between responsibility and obligation cast suspicion on these examples. Pertinent lessons that the divine Frankfurt example helps to reveal motivate the view that divine foreknowledge and determinism, assuming that both preclude freedom to do otherwise, may well imperil obligation and responsibility.Item Open Access Epistemic Blame and Epistemic Business(2022-04) Cunningham, Alexandra; Fantl, Jeremy; Haji, Ishtiyaque; Delehanty, MeganThis thesis concerns our standing to epistemically blame. We have reason to think three claims hold true: (1) we only have the standing to epistemically blame when it’s our epistemic business, (2) other people’s epistemic errors are rarely our epistemic business, and (3) we often have the standing to epistemically blame. These jointly inconsistent claims generate the puzzle which motivates this thesis. I begin in Chapter II by offering a novel account of epistemic blame. Chapters III and IV represent my argument against the second of the above claims. I argue for two standing conditions on epistemic blame in order to demonstrate that others’ epistemic errors are often our epistemic business. Finally, in Chapter V, I examine a distinctly epistemic conception of hypocrisy to clarify one way in which we can lose the standing to epistemically blame. In sum, this thesis is meant to explain and defend our entitlement to epistemically blame.Item Open Access Ethical aspects of self-deception and akratic belief(2010) Booth, Daniel Adam; Haji, IshtiyaqueItem Open Access Indeterministic Choice and Ability(Springer, 2018-04-27) Haji, Ishtiyaque; Hebert, RyanThe problem of luck is advanced and defended against libertarian theories of responsibility-enabling ability. An outline of an account of ability is articulated to explore some features of the sort of ability moral responsibility requires. The account vindicates the luck objection and suggests a novel puzzle: Libertarianism is structurally barred from answering the problem of luck because responsibility requires, but inherently lacks, an explanation from reason states to actions that preserves reliability of connection between responsibility-grounding reasons-sensitivity and action.Item Open Access Moral Obligation, Luck, and Alternative Possibilities(2012-12-14) Murphy, Tess Laurenne; Haji, IshtiyaqueThe way in which luck impacts moral obligation has not been given sufficient philosophical attention. It is the subject of this thesis. I argue that just as there is a control condition that must be met in order for one to be morally responsible, so too there is a control condition that must be met in order for one to perform a morally obligatory action. The requisite control is captured by the principle that “ought” implies “can” (Kant’s Law). Exercising such control requires alternatives--namely that one both can and can refrain from performing any given action. However, through a series of cases, I will show that having such alternatives is often a matter of luck.Item Open Access Obligation Incompatibilism and Blameworthiness(2021-07-05) Haji, IshtiyaqueObligation incompatibilism is the view that determinism precludes moral obligation. I argue for the following. (i) Two principles, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible’, generate a powerful argument for obligation incompatibilism. (ii) Assuming conceptual ties between blameworthiness and impermissibility or belief in impermissibility, these principles also imperil blameworthiness provided determinism is true. If determinism undermines blameworthiness, it also undermines proposed justifications of punishment that presuppose blameworthiness. Allegedly blameworthiness-free justifications of punishment fare no better given their moral presuppositions. (iii) The most promising compatibilist reply to the argument for obligation incompatibilism should concede that obligation requires alternatives but of a variety that one can have even if determinism is true.Item Open Access Obligation, Responsibility, and History(Springer, 2018-01-03) Haji, IshtiyaqueI argue that, each of the following, appropriately clarified to yield a noteworthy thesis, is true. (1) Moral obligation can affect moral responsibility. (2) Obligation succumbs to changes in responsibility. (3) Obligation is immune from changes in responsibility.Item Open Access Responsibility, History, and Authenticity(2013-05-01) Katcharov, Maxim; Haji, IshtiyaqueThere is a debate in the literature on free will and responsibility regarding whether responsibility is historical. The focus is on what makes one’s values, desires, beliefs, and other springs of action authentic or “truly one’s own”, and what effect, if any, past manipulation has on authenticity. In this thesis, I present and attempt to clarify fundamental concepts, and give a critical account of prominent theories and motivating cases. I propose constraints on theories of responsibility, including a generalized regress problem affecting “positive” historical theories, and argue for a characterization of springs on which springs of the same type are treated as identical. I conclude by presenting a sketch of a historical theory of responsibility which conforms to my proposed constraints.Item Open Access Some Puzzles About Ability(2017) Yao, Bokai; Haji, Ishtiyaque; Kazmi, Ali; Latham, NoaThis thesis aims to solve two metaphysical puzzles about ability. The first belongs to the free will debate: is determinism compatible with the ability to do otherwise? The second pertains to time travel: what things can a backward time traveler do in the past? By introducing two principles about an agent’s ability regarding the past, I defend the following modal principle about ability: what an agent can do must be compossible with the past. This principle generates solutions to the two puzzles.Item Open Access Teleologism Full Stop: A General Theory of Ability, Agency, Obligation, and Justification(2016) Hebert, Ryan; Fantl, Jeremy; Haji, Ishtiyaque; Zach, Richard; Williamson, Timothy; Denzinger, JörgDeontic modals are the topic of my dissertation. All deontic modals, yes, but justification in particular, and epistemic justification even more specifically. Deontic modals operate upon performances—they appraise performances. Positively appraised, a performance is appropriate, decent, justifiable, right, permissible, or proper; negatively appraised, inappropriate, indecent, unjustifiable, wrong, impermissible, or improper. Belief and knowledge and performances in exactly the same sense that action and intention are performances: all are products of powers that are in some sense responsive to reasons. The principal difference is the direction of fit between mind and world. Knowledge and belief the product of cognitive powers aimed at adapting mind to world, action and intention the product of conative powers aimed at adapting world to mind. All are normatively evaluable and the characteristic normative appraisal of each is deontic. Epistemology, ethics, and rational choice all investigate the nature of deontic modals, differing only insofar as the central aims are epistemic, moral, or prudential in nature. In this sense, the general theory of deontic modals is the parent to epistemology, ethics, and rational choice. My project is to develop and defend a schematic theory of justification. I achieve this end by developing and defending a general theory of deontic modalities. Riffing on two pithy turns of phrase, the deontic theory may be tersely sloganized: value first and one must do the best one can. It is a teleological theory that defines all deontic concepts from the theoretically foundational notions of ability and value. Roughly, a belief is epistemically justifiable if, and only if, it is part of an epistemically optimific belief set the agent is able to have. Roughly, an act is morally justifiably if, and only if, it is part of a morally optimific action set the agent is able to perform. My pet interest is in the former. The resultant framework is enormously fruitful, especially in epistemology.Item Open Access The Luck Objection(2015-05-27) Cooper, Gordon; Haji, IshtiyaqueLibertarians propose that if agents are to act freely they must have alternative possibilities open to them and control over which possibility becomes actual. To secure alternative possibilities, libertarians must accept that our free actions are undetermined events. Proponents of the “luck objection” to libertarianism argue that undetermined events are not the sorts of things over which agents can have control. In what follows, I defend the luck objection against three of the more promising libertarian rejoinders.