Are we morally responsible for what we believe and intend? If so, what is the nature of this responsibility, and how does it differ from our moral responsibility for our outward bodily deeds? How is our moral responsibility for belief and intention grounded in mental action? I argue that we do bear a species of moral responsibility for our beliefs and intentions. But our beliefs and intentions are nonvoluntary—we neither believe nor intend ‘at will.’ This raises a pressing question about how we can be legitimately held accountable for the attitudes. Given that we do not choose our attitudes in the same way we choose to perform ordinary intentional actions, how do we exercise agency in belief and intention? My answer is that responsibility for the attitudes is grounded in a fully intentional yet nonvoluntary form of mental action. This is a thinker’s reasoning to a conclusion in thought (or inferring). Drawing on the work of G.E.M. Anscombe, I argue that reasoning is active because it is constituted by the very species of self-conscious practical knowledge as intentional bodily action. This practical knowledge positions a thinker to answer the justificatory demands that mark our responsibility for the attitudes.

Children’s interests are often used as a rationale in child-centered approaches to build emergent curriculum that is tailored to young children’s motivations for learning. Against a neoliberal backdrop of standardized learning objectives, emergent curriculum appeals to children’s interests to foster children’s agency through building curriculum alongside teachers. However, research on children’s interests calls for further development of theory regarding children’s interests as the concept may be conceptualized narrowly in research and practice. This study explored the concept of children’s interests within a child-centered preschool classroom at a private university-based school that implements emergent curriculum. I used critical childhoods studies and Actor Network Theory as analytic and theoretical frames for conceptualizing children’s interests as socially and materially constructed among networks of both human and nonhuman actors. The findings are presented as a case study of a Store project that was developed based on children’s interests in money, stores, and ice cream. Fieldnotes and memos from participant observation, artifacts, and teacher documentation were used to map actor networks acting upon one another in the development of the Store project. Through the tracing of the material and semiotic transformations of money, stores, and ice cream, I argue that children exhibited agency through expressions of resistance that were made viable in network with material and other nonhuman actors. Children sought free interests that circulated outside the frames of the Store project’s currency by networking with red shoes, emptied bookshelves, and lollipops. Even as teachers supported and sustained the interest-based Store project toward real learning goals through eliciting children’s feedback and sense of duty, children offered silence as well as critique of the shopkeeper/customer dichotomy as resistance. As such, I propose that children exhibit agency through resistance in the process of redefining their interests within the contexts of their particular childhoods. Implications of the findings explore ways that children’s interests are situated within and propulsive toward particular childhoods and markets of labor futures. Though non-publicly funded child-centered settings that adopt emergent curriculum are partially sheltered from neoliberal demands on proffering real learning outcomes, they are networked within a neoliberal context through their positions within markets of schooling.

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Yuan Ai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-48). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in Chinese and English. / Yuan Ai.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [56]-68).

Thesis (M.A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75). Also available on microfilm.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-284) and index.

The Bhagavad Gītā, a classical Sanskrit text, describes a spiritual practice called karma yoga. Central to this practice is niṣkāma karman or action without desire. A number of philosophical issues present themselves in connection with this teaching. First, while the Gītā enjoins action, action seems prima facie problematic in the Gītā in light of metaphysical claims that seem to deny human freedom. Second, Western scholars who hold that desire is necessary for action find the Gītā's desirelessness requirement problematic. Finally, while the sense of karma yoga seems clear enough, the teaching is connected with two notions that are obscure: transcendence of the guṇa-s and surrender of action to Krishna. This dissertation explores and seeks solutions to these problems. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the Gītā's philosophy and selected classical Indian commentaries. Chapter 2 tackles the assumption by some scholars that the Gītā shares tenets of the determinist metaphysics of classical Sāṃkhya. This assumption is shown false and the argument made that the Gītā, as a yogic text, implies voluntarism. Chapter 2 offers an analysis of the Gītā's concept of guṇa (literally 'strand'), and argues that the puruṣa, or self, which is called a 'consenter' exercises agency in consenting. Chapter 3 addresses the worry that niṣkāma karman, or desireless action, is a contradictory notion because desire is necessary for action. Based on examination of the Gītā's theory of action, it is shown that the Gītā does not hold desire necessary for action and that in fact the text articulates four distinct types of niṣkaāma karman. Chapter 4 explores the concepts of transcendence of the guṇa-s and surrender of action to Krishna and develops a definition of karma yoga involving these concepts. The chapter concludes with an argument that karma yoga requires creativity. The dissertation closes with the suggestion that through karma yoga a practitioner might come to enjoy an extraordinary sort of freedom that surpasses the ability to exercise will. / text

A review of the philosophical and psychological literature on free will is presented. Three major positions are identified: libertarianism, hard determinism and compatibilism (or soft determinism). The latter enjoys widespread and largely unchallenged support in psychology. Substantive conceptual and empirical grounds are presented which suggest that psychologists may be dismissing free will at their peril. It is argued, first of all, that belief in the reality of free will has profound implications for conceptions of human action, of moral responsibility, of the form and veracity of scientific accounts and of the validity of scientific reduction. Moreover, the results of a multi-disciplinary survey of academics reveal that 80% of those surveyed believe free will is real. Contrary to popular assumptions in psychology, determinism is not endorsed by many scientists outside of psychology, nor does belief in free will reflect naive belief in mind-body dualism. Modern libertarians reject both dualism and reductionism, distinguishing instead between different levels of scientific explanation. The findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for cognitive, social and clinical psychology, and directions for further research are suggested.

In Jacques Maritain's text The Education of Man (1962) a Christian perspective affirming the individual's free will is presented. This study examines the validity of Maritain's argument and speculates upon some consequences for public schooling. The conclusions of the study are as follows: First. Maritain's exposition of the existence of absolute free will is unconvincing as it is not successfully reconciled with his religious world view. Second. if Maritain's views may be assumed to complement the religous educational and institutional objectives of Alberta's Catholic schools, the potential for conflict between these views and the 'secular' (i.e. the common goals, contents and processes of all public and separte schools) objectives of Catholic schools exists. / vi, 81 leaves ; 28 cm.