Saul Smilansky

Saul Smilansky (; born 1961) is an Israeli philosopher and a Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Haifa. He is known for his works on free will and applied ethics.

In normative and applied ethics, Smilansky has written extensively on moral paradoxes and related issues in what he terms "paradoxical ethics," where propositions may appear both plausible and absurd. His work addresses moral theory, justice, the role of self-deception and illusion in human life, population ethics, punishment, moral complaint and hypocrisy, gratitude, and contribution.

In the free will debate, Smilansky has developed two major lines of argument. First, he has defended a pluralistic approach to the compatibility question, which acknowledges both compatibilism and hard determinism (or other forms of free will skepticism) as partially valid, and seeks to integrate them. Second, he has advanced the position of Illusionism, according to which illusion plays a central and in many respects positive role in the free will problem.

Smilansky is the author of Free Will and Illusion (Oxford University Press, 2000), 10 Moral Paradoxes (Blackwell, 2007), which has been translated into seven languages, and Paradoxical Ethics (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026). He has also published more than one hundred papers in leading philosophical journals and edited collections.

Smilansky received his B.A. in philosophy from Tel Aviv University (1983) and his D.Phil. from Magdalen College, Oxford (1992). Provided by Wikipedia