In "Change Without Time" I urge a novel approach to the metaphysics of time and change. The approach is novel in that it takes change, but not time, as an ultimate physical reality. I argue that time achieves its seeming reality for us only as it supervenes on real changes. I therefore suggest a metaphysics of time that may truly be labeled "change without time."
One of the key advantages of the theory that time supervenes on change is that imagined deterministic constraints on the human willing faculty can no longer be argued to be analogous to familiar constraints posed by our co-present physical environment. In "Time and Free Will" I flesh out the resulting compatibilist argument that a lawlike natural will may nevertheless be free.
"Mind and Will" -- In order to see how a true natural science of ethics might be possible, we must re-think our assumptions about Mind and Will. Two things seem clear: a "will" that does no more than extend my "reach" is no more my will than is my right arm; and a "mind" that does no more than extend my "view" is no more my mind than is my eyeball.
In "The Ideal Agent Theory" I introduce the theory I intend as a model of what a true natural science of ethics might turn out to be. This paper builds on the results of earlier papers on the metaphysics of time, the possibility of a theory of lawlike free-will, and the view of Will as integral with Mind viewed as a structure of beliefs. The Ideal Agent owes much to Roderick Firth's conception of "Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer." But, if Will is integral with Belief, then the Ideal Observer becomes an Ideal Agent.
"The Ideal Agent and the Problem of Evil" -- Most naturalistic theories of ethics start with an amoral theory of human motivation and work very hard to figure out how morality, or the appearance of morality, might have evolved from this essentially amoral foundation. As can be seen, the Ideal Agent Theory is different in that it starts with a theory of motivation designed at the outset to be moral in form. Thus, instead of a problem of morality the Ideal Agent Theory faces a Problem of Evil: it must explain how non-moral motivation can occur despite this essentially moral foundation.