Philosopher

Saul Smilansky

I am a Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Haifa, Israel. I work primarily on normative and applied ethics, the free will problem, and the meaning of life. On normative and applied ethics and the meaning of life (with the exception of free will) I am particularly interested in moral paradoxes and other forms of "crazy ethics", moral theory, justice, population ethics, egalitarianism, moral complaint, the influence of technology on the future of morality, the role of self-deception and illusion in our lives, and the significance of contribution. On free will I have done various things. My main efforts have been, first, to open up the debate on the compatibility question to a dualistic or pluralistic approach that sees both compatibilism and hard determinism (or other forms of free will and moral responsibility denialism) as partly valid and seeks to integrate them. Second, to explore Illusionism, the view that illusion is central and, in many ways, positive in the free will problem. I am the author of Free Will and Illusion (Oxford University Press 2000), 10 Moral Paradoxes (Blackwell 2007), and ninety papers in philosophical journals and edited collections.

I received my B.A. from Tel-Aviv University and my D.Phil from Oxford University (Magdalen College).