The Philosophy and Science of Self-Control


Big Questions in Free Will Documentary

Dr. Alfred Mele’s previous John Templeton Foundation grant project, Big Questions in Free Will, was featured in PBS’s Closer to Truth series. The Big Questions in Free Will project recruited scholars from multiple disciplines to focus on questions related to free will.  The project’s success led Dr. Mele to model the structure of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control project after the Big Questions in Free Will project. The PBS documentary can be viewed here.


Second-Round Philosophy of Self-Control Grant Winners

We are pleased to announce the winners of our second-round grant competition:

 2016-2017 Philosophy of Self-Control Grant Winners

The rationality of self-control: Integrating perspectives from philosophy and decision theory

  • José Luis Bermúdez

The cornerstone of self-control.  A philosophical investigation into the role of mental time travel in overcoming temporal discounting.

  • Maria Erica Cosentino and Francesco Ferretti

Self-control through accountability to others

  • Katherine Hawley

Self-control, decision-making and mental effort

  • Stephen Kearns and Marcela Herdova

When self-control breaks down: Motor imagery and action initiation

  • Bence Nanay

 Executive and motivational self-control: How they interface and interact

  • Elisabeth Pacherie and Myrto Mylopoulous

Resisting the temptation of willpower

  • Sarah Paul and Jennifer Morton

Empathic self-control

  • David W. Shoemaker


Cluster Group Prize Winners

Winners for the first round of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Cluster Group Prize are:

  • Varieties of Normative Agency: Self-Control Beyond Will-Power and the Relevance of Personal Projects
    • Ludwig Jaskolla and Godehard Brüntrup, Munich School of Philosophy
  • Improving Ourselves as Moral Agents
    • Susanne Uusitalo, University of Turku
  • Theology and Psychology of Self-Control
    • Sarah A. Schnitker, Fuller Theological Seminary

A second competition for Cluster Group Prizes will take place next year, with an application deadline of July 1, 2016.


Philosophy of Self-Control and Integrated Science & Philosophy of Self-Control Grant Winners

We are pleased to announce the winners of our grant competition:

2015-2016 Philosophy of Self-Control Grant Winners

Self-control, vigilance, and unintentional omissions

  • Robert Audi, Manuel Vargas, and Samuel Murray

Shaping our mental lives: On the possibility and value of mental self-control and mental self-regulation

  • Dorothea Debus

Children, self-control, and responsible agency

  • Meghan Griffith

The guilty brain: Self-control as executive function

  • William Hirstein, Katrina Sifferd, and Tyler Fagan

The subjective authority of intentions: Self-control in planning agents

  • Lilian O’Brien

Theories of self-control and the role of attention

  • Adina Roskies

The role of emotions in self-control

  • Andrea Scarantino

2015-2017 Integrated Science & Philosophy of Self-Control Grant Winners

Moral virtue and self-control

  • Roy F. Baumeister and Richard Holton

Efficient intentions: How control-beliefs shape self-control

  • Marcel Brass, Davide Rigoni, and Mario De Caro

Self-control and cooperation: Evolutionary, developmental and cross-cultural perspective

  • Yarrow Dunham, David Rand, Eric Mandelbaum, Katie McAuliffe

Epistemic improvement and the dynamics of bias: The role of belief in one’s introspective capabilities in guiding exposure control and strategic ignorance

  • James Friedrich and Sammy Basu

Integrated wholes versus fragmented parts: How construal level affects perceptions of the ‘real me’ and agency in self-control

  • Kentaro Fujita, Timothy Schroeder, Yaacov Trope

Self-control and conceptions of free will, desire and normative constraint: A cross-cultural developmental investigation

  • Alison Gopnik, John Campbell, and Tamar Kushnir

Applying moral pluralism to the study of self-control

  • Jesse Graham, John Doris, John Monterosso, Daphna Oyserman, Morteza Dehghani, Peter Meindl

Attentional control and self-control

  • Glyn Humphreys, Julian Savulescu, Jeanette Kennett, Neil Levy, Joshua Shepherd

Complementary benefits of first- and third-person perspectives for self-control

  • E.J. Masicampo, Kathleen Vohs, Shaun Nichols

Using connectomic imaging to investigate a (reformulated) muscle model of self-control

  • Chandra Sripada and John Jonides

Temptation and the self: Acceptance versus alienation as influencing self-control

  • Jennifer Veilleux and Eric Funkhouser