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Maria Alvarez

Maria Alvarez

Fellow, King’s College London

Philosophy of action; Metaphysics of Agency; Responsibility; Reasons and Normativity; Choice; Moral responsibility; Blame

The bulk of my work in recent years has been on agency, choice, and moral responsibility. I have been developing various themes which I intend to bring together in a monograph. One is an account of agency as a causal power: the power to cause change. A related theme is an understanding of a distinctive capacity for agency articulated in terms of the concept of ‘two-way’ powers or abilities, that is, abilities, whose exercise is, in principle, under our control. This distinctive agentive capacity underpins moral responsibility. A third theme explores the significance of having alternatives (i.e. choice), for responsibility and for degrees of blame- or praise worthiness. During my fellowship, I intend to examine how precisely we should characterise the connection between two-way abilities, having alternatives and choice.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Research Foundation