Talking to Our Selves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency

The unconscious, according to contemporary psychology, determines much of our lives: very often, we don't know why we do what we do, or even exactly what we are doing. This realization undermines the philosophical-- and common sense--picture of human beings as rational, responsible, agents whose behavior is ordered by their deliberations and decisions. Drawing on the latest scientific psychology and philosophical ethics, Talking to Our Selves develops a philosophically viable theory of agency and moral responsibility that fully accounts for the unsettling challenges posed by the sciences of mind.

Table of Contents:
Part I 1: Staging 2: Reflection 3: Skepticism 4: Experience Part II 5: Collaboration 6: Agency 7: Responsibility 8: Selves Afterwards Acknowledgements References Index

About the Author :
John M. Doris is Professor in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program and Philosophy Department, Washington University in St. Louis; he works at the intersection of cognitive science, moral psychology, and philosophical ethics, and has published in many leading journals. Doris has been awarded fellowships from Michigan's Institute for the Humanities, Princeton's University Center for Human Values, the National Humanities Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a winner of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology's Stanton Prize. He authored Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior and, with his colleagues in the Moral Psychology Research Group, edited The Moral Psychology Handbook.

Review :
[This] is an important contribution Talking to Our Selves should appeal to all kinds of readers, philosophers and psychologists, students and the general public. For those who are aware of the current state of affairs, Doris is careful to situate his views with respect to other researchers and positions. It's an excellent model for those pursuing work at the intersection of philosophy and social science. But even for those who have not been following contemporary philosophy in this area, by focusing on the bigger picture, Doris has written an accessible and engaging book and one which gives the reader a sense of where empirical philosophy is headed. This is an excellent book and would make an excellent text for a course or course segment on the nature of moral responsibility. A psychologically and philosophically informed reader would also find it well worth the effort. charming and incisive ... Doris has done a huge service to the cause of empirical philosophy with this book. It is a model of how to do psychologically-informed work ... This is empirical philosophy with integrity. ... It reminds us, with striking real-life evidence, just how hidden we often are from ourselves. Whether this evidence is compatible with our being morally responsible agents is the next important conversation agency theorists ought to have, and we should be grateful to Doris for sparking it in such a bold, original, and colorful way. Talking to Our Selves is well-written and well-argued. And the wide-ranging evidence he considers makes for a very interesting and stimulating read. Moreover, its topic, the nature of human agency and moral responsibility, connects directly to the important question of what it means to be human...the theory deserves to be taken seriously, to be engaged and further developed, and to become an important part of our ongoing project of understanding ourselves.