Logic, Language and Cognition Research Group

I am currently pursuing the Language and Cognitive Science PhD program, and writing my dissertation on the problem of free will, under the supervision of Josep Lluís Prades. The main thesis I defend in my dissertation is that a certain kind of indeterminism would increase or enhance our rational control over at least some of the actions we perform without being unequivocally settled upon them (and perhaps also our indirect rational control over many other actions). On the other hand, and contrary to the conclusion of the Luck Argument and similar arguments, this kind of indeterminism (grounded in the causal power of practical reason) would not decrease or undermine the rational control exhibited by any kind of action. Therefore, this kind of indeterminism would enhance our overall rational control over our actions, and determinism would undermine our overall rational control - perhaps sufficiently for free will to require indeterminism, given that free will is, at least centrally, rational control. My dissertation is obviously incompatibilist-friendly, and it draws many ideas from Kane’s account, but I do not commit myself to the truth of incompatibilism. I remain neutral between a compatibilist position which says that indeterminism would neither undermine rational control nor significantly enhance it, and an incompatibilist position which says that indeterminism would enhance rational control significantly enough to be necessary for free will, because it would give us a valuable kind of indirect control over the formation process of our character and motives - a control we must have to be responsible agents.

My main areas of interest are free will and moral responsibility, but I am also interested in philosophy of action more generally, and in metaphysics.