Free will and moral responsibility: three perspectives

The purpose of this Royal Institute of Philosophy workshop is to bring together different frameworks for investigating free will and moral responsibility. The speakers will explore the traditionally philosophical questions in this area also from the legal and scientific perspectives. The workshop is open to all audiences, and there is no attendance fee (refreshments will be free, but drinks and dinner will not be included).

Timetable

13.00-14.30 “Legal Authority and the Paradox of Intention”

Dr Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco (Birmingham Law School)

14.30-14.45 Tea and Coffee Break

14.45-16.15 “Choosing for Reasons: Choosing from Character”

Professor Kevin Timpe (Nortwest Nazarene University)

16.15-16.30 Tea and Coffee Break

16.30-18.00 “How Can I Possibly Be Free: Determinism, Neurodeterminism, and Free Will”

Professor Raymond Tallis (Manchester University)

18.00-... Drinks and Dinner

Speakers

Dr Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the School of Law, University of Birmingham, UK. She studied law and philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge and has published articles on legal objectivity, methodological issues in legal theory and legal normativity in prestigious journals such as Legal Theory, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Law and Philosophy, Philosophy Compass, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence and Ratio Juris. She is also the author of the monograph Meta-ethics, Moral Objectivity and Law. She is finishing a manuscript on the normative and authoritative character of law. The investigation is located at the intersection of ancient and medieval philosophy of action (Aristotle and Aquinas), contemporary philosophy of action and legal philosophy. The provisional title of the monograph is "Law under the Guise of the Good".

Professor Raymond Tallis is the Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester, and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford (retired in 2006).  He has published over 200 research publications in the neurology of old age (epilepsy and stroke) and neurological rehabilitation. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and his recent awards include the Lord Cohen Gold Medal for Research into Ageing. Professor Tallis has also published fiction (a novel and short stories), three volumes of poetry, and 20 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art, and cultural criticism.  He has been awarded two honorary degrees: DLitt (Hon Causa) University of Hull, 1997; and LittD (Hon Causa) University of Manchester 2002. Since 2008, he has also been a Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of English at the University of Liverpool.

Dr Kevin Timpe is a research fellow at St. Peter’s College, Oxford for the 2010-2011 academic year.  He is also associate professor of philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University.  His research is focused on the metaphysics of free will and moral responsibility, and issues in the philosophy of religion.  He is the author of Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives (Continuum Press, 2008) and the editor of Arguing about Religion (Routledge, 2009) and Metaphysics and God (Routledge, 2009).  His recent publications have appeared in Oxford Bibliographies Online, Philosophical Studies, American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Faith and Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Philosophia.