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.

John M. Doris, Washington University in St. Louis

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, the National Endowment for the Humanities (three times), and is a winner of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology's Stanton Prize. He authored Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge, 2002) and, with his colleagues in the Moral Psychology Research Group, edited The Moral Psychology Handbook (Oxford, 2010). Doris' teaching has been recognized with an Outstanding Mentor Award from Washington University's Graduate Student Senate.

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