John Martin Fischer (born December 26, 1952) is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Professor of

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban dist ...

and a leading contributor to the philosophy of

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

and

moral responsibility In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations. Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a pr ...

Education and career

Fischer received his undergraduate degree from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

and his Ph.D. from

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1982. He began his teaching career at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

, where he taught for almost a decade before joining the faculty at the University of California, Riverside. In June 2011, Fischer was elected Vice-President of the Pacific Division of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

and became President of the Pacific Division in 2013.

Philosophical work

While Fischer's work centers primarily on

and

, where he is particularly noted as a proponent of semi-compatibilism (the idea that regardless of whether free will and

determinism Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and cons ...

are compatible, moral responsibility and determinism are), he also has worked on the metaphysics of death and philosophy of religion and led a multi-year, multi-pronged research project on "immortality," funded in 2012 by the

John Templeton Foundation The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious a ...

Books

*''Moral Responsibility'' (editor) (Cornell University Press, 1986) *''God, Foreknowledge and Freedom'' (editor) (Stanford University Press, 1989) *''Perspectives on Moral Responsibility'' (co-editor with Ravizza) (Cornell University Press, 1993) *''The Metaphysics of Death'' (editor) (Stanford University Press, 1993) *''The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control'' (Blackwell, 1994) *''Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility'' (co-authored with Ravizza) (Cambridge University Press, 1998) *''My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility'' (Oxford University Press, 2006) *''Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will'' (Oxford University Press, 2009) *''Near-Death Experiences: Understanding Visions of the Afterlife'' (co-authored with Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin) (Oxford University Press, 2016) *

Media appearances and interviews

* *

References

External links