Sarah Buss
Biographic Data
| ID | 5911697 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Buss |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Buss |
| SIGNATURE | BUSS S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Department of Philosophy University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Dependence of Rational Agency on Various Forms of Powerlessness
Passivity is the opposite of activity. And yet in order to do something intentionally, one must be passive in certain respects. In this essay, I identify three forms of passivity that are necessary conditions of intentional action, contrast these forms of passivity with a fourth form that is incompatible with intentional action, and explore the relationships among all four. In so doing, I call attention to the complex relationship between our cap…
Rethinking the Value of Humanity
Personal ideals and the ideal of rational agency 1
All of us have personal ideals. We are committed to being good (enough) friends, parents, neighbors, teachers, citizens, human beings, and more. In this paper, I examine the thick and thin aspects of these ideals: (i) their substance (to internalize an ideal is to endorse a particular way of being) and (ii) their accountability to reason (to internalize an ideal is to assume that this is really a good way to be). In considering how these two aspe…
Some Musings About the Limits of an Ethics That Can Be Applied – A Response to a Question About Courage and Convictions That Confronted the Author When She Woke Up on November 9, 2016
I experienced the 2016 Presidential election as a loss of innocence. For the first time in my life, the prospect of losing my most basic rights and freedoms did not feel so remote. Confronting this possibility prompted the musings in this article. I call them ‘musings' because the article is not a systematic defense of a clearly demarcated position. It is, rather, a somewhat circuitous exploration of the many questions that pressed themselves upo…
The Value of Humanity
Practical Induction
Weakness of Will
My chief aim is to explain how someone can act freely against her own best judgment. But I also have a second aim: to defend a conception of practical rationality according to which someone cannot do something freely if she believes it would be better to do something else. These aims may appear incompatible. But I argue that practical reason has the capacity to undermine itself in such a way that it produces reasons for behaving irrationally. Wea…
Morality and the Emotions
Autonomy Reconsidered
Determinism, Blameworthiness, and Deprivation
Introduction The compatabilist and the could-have-acted-otherwise condition Frankfurt, van Inwagen and the could-have-acted-otherwise condition The compatabilist, the could-have-acted-otherwise condition and the U-condition Are we committed to a U-condition for blameworthiness? Can the U-condition for blameworthiness be fulfilled? What should we do about our commitment to the U-condition? A compatabilist principle for just blaming Appendix Index …
Autonomy Reconsidered
Weakness of Will
My chief aim is to explain how someone can act freely against her own best judgment. But I also have a second aim: to defend a conception of practical rationality according to which someone cannot do something freely if she believes it would be better to do something else. These aims may appear incompatible. But I argue that practical reason has the capacity to undermine itself in such a way that it produces reasons for behaving irrationally. Wea…
The Value of Humanity
Determinism, Blameworthiness, and Deprivation
Introduction The compatabilist and the could-have-acted-otherwise condition Frankfurt, van Inwagen and the could-have-acted-otherwise condition The compatabilist, the could-have-acted-otherwise condition and the U-condition Are we committed to a U-condition for blameworthiness? Can the U-condition for blameworthiness be fulfilled? What should we do about our commitment to the U-condition? A compatabilist principle for just blaming Appendix Index …
Morality and the Emotions
Autonomy Reconsidered
Weakness of Will
My chief aim is to explain how someone can act freely against her own best judgment. But I also have a second aim: to defend a conception of practical rationality according to which someone cannot do something freely if she believes it would be better to do something else. These aims may appear incompatible. But I argue that practical reason has the capacity to undermine itself in such a way that it produces reasons for behaving irrationally. Wea…
Practical Induction
The Value of Humanity
Some Musings About the Limits of an Ethics That Can Be Applied – A Response to a Question About Courage and Convictions That Confronted the Author When She Woke Up on November 9, 2016
I experienced the 2016 Presidential election as a loss of innocence. For the first time in my life, the prospect of losing my most basic rights and freedoms did not feel so remote. Confronting this possibility prompted the musings in this article. I call them ‘musings' because the article is not a systematic defense of a clearly demarcated position. It is, rather, a somewhat circuitous exploration of the many questions that pressed themselves upo…
Personal ideals and the ideal of rational agency 1
All of us have personal ideals. We are committed to being good (enough) friends, parents, neighbors, teachers, citizens, human beings, and more. In this paper, I examine the thick and thin aspects of these ideals: (i) their substance (to internalize an ideal is to endorse a particular way of being) and (ii) their accountability to reason (to internalize an ideal is to assume that this is really a good way to be). In considering how these two aspe…
Rethinking the Value of Humanity
The Dependence of Rational Agency on Various Forms of Powerlessness
Passivity is the opposite of activity. And yet in order to do something intentionally, one must be passive in certain respects. In this essay, I identify three forms of passivity that are necessary conditions of intentional action, contrast these forms of passivity with a fourth form that is incompatible with intentional action, and explore the relationships among all four. In so doing, I call attention to the complex relationship between our cap…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (6 works) · Analytic philosophy (5 works) · Contemporary philosophy (5 works) · Environmental ethics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Free Will and Agency (3 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (3 works)