David Palmer
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David Palmer
Associate Professor & Associate Head
Education
My Ph.D. is from the University of Texas. Prior to this, I studied at King’s College London and at the University of York.
Research
I specialize in ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of action. Within these areas, my main research focuses on free will, moral responsibility, and the nature of action and agency more generally. I also work on mind, causation, and meaning in life. A question that unifies much of my work is how (and whether) our free will and agency are part of the natural causal order.
Publications
Book
- Libertarian Free Will: Contemporary Debates (editor) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
Journal Articles
- “Must choices and decisions be uncaused by prior events or states of the agent?” forthcoming in Erkenntnis.
- “Achievements, free will, and meaning in life” (with Ning Fan), Synthese, 204 (2024): 1-19.
- “Hume on the temporal priority of cause over effect,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 53 (2023): 81-94.
- “Free will and control: a noncausal approach,” Synthese, 198 (2021): 10043-10062.
- “Moral responsibility for actions and omissions: the asymmetry thesis rejected” (with Yuanyuan Liu), Erkenntnis, 86 (2021): 1225-1237.
- “Omissions: the constitution view defended,” Erkenntnis, 85 (2020): 793-756.
- “Goetz on the noncausal libertarian view of free will,” Thought, 5 (2016): 99-107.
- “Deterministic Frankfurt cases,” Synthese, 191 (2014): 3847-3864.
- “The timing objection to the Frankfurt cases,” Erkenntnis, 78 (2013): 1011-1023.
- “Capes on the W-defense,” Philosophia, 41 (2013): 555-566.
- “The ethics of marketing to vulnerable populations,” (with Trevor Hedberg), Journal of Business Ethics, 116 (2013): 403-413.
- “Pereboom on the Frankfurt cases,” Philosophical Studies, 153 (2011): 261-272.
- “On Mele and Robb’s indeterministic Frankfurt-style case,” (with Carl Ginet), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 80 (2010): 440-446.
- “New distinctions, same troubles: a reply to Haji and McKenna,” Journal of Philosophy, 102 (2005): 474-482.
Book Chapters
- “Non-causal libertarianism,” in How Free Are We? eds. Taylor Cyr and Matthew Flummer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024): 194-213.
- “Is the unexamined life worth living?” in Philosophers in the Classroom, eds. Steven Cahn, Alexandra Bradner, and Andrew Mills (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2018): 123-131.
- “Free will, libertarianism, and Kane,” in Libertarian Free Will, ed. David Palmer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 3-11.
- “Event-causal libertarianism: two objections reconsidered,” in Free Will and Moral Responsibility, eds. Ishtiyaque Haji and Justin Caouette (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013): 98-122.
Book Reviews
- Review of Robert Kane, The Complex Tapestry of Free Will, forthcoming in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- Review of Bernard Berofsky, Nature’s Challenge to Free Will, Mind, 123 (2014): 1171-1174.
- Review of Richard Swinburne, Mind, Brain, and Free Will, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2013).
Teaching
I teach a variety of courses throughout the philosophy curriculum. These include, at the undergraduate level, classes in metaphysics and philosophy of mind as well as introductory classes and, at the graduate level, seminars in ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. I am also a keen supervisor of independent student work, regularly supervising undergraduate theses and graduate dissertations.