b. 1952
John Martin Fischer is a contemporary American philosopher at the University of California, Riverside, specializing in free will, moral responsibility, and philosophy of religion. He is best known for developing semicompatibilism, the view that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism even if free will is not. His work has significantly shaped contemporary debates on Frankfurt cases, reasons-responsiveness, and the relationship between free will and ethics.
Developed semicompatibilism, distinguishing moral responsibility from free will under determinism
Advanced the reasons-responsiveness theory of moral responsibility
Influential analysis of Frankfurt cases and their implications for sourcehood and leeway incompatibilism
Authored 'The Metaphysics of Free Will' and co-authored 'Responsibility and Control'
Led the Immortality Project, a major funded research initiative on afterlife and meaning