Abstract
Proponents of modern Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples (FSCs) generally accept that we cannot construct successful FSCs in which there are no alternative possibilities present. But they maintain that we can construct successful FSCs in which there are no morally significant alternatives present and that such examples succeed in breaking any conceptual link between alternative possibilities and free will. I argue that it is not possible to construct an FSC that succeeds even in this weaker sense. In cases where any alternatives are clearly insignificant, it does not appear at all obvious that the agent can be held responsible. Present popular FSCs include alternatives that are ambiguous in their significance, and when the examples are sharpened to remove this ambiguity, they lose their force. Moreover, the proponent of such examples faces a problem: We can easily construct scenarios in which any alternatives are obviously insignificant, and in such scenarios, we are not intuitively inclined to suppose the agent is responsible. The proponent of new FSCs must therefore distinguish any alternatives she includes from the sorts included in these scenarios. The difference must now be such that (a) this helps to make it seem intuitively likely that the agent is responsible where the agent otherwise would not appear responsible, and (b) these alternatives are irrelevant to any judgment about whether the agent is responsible. I maintain that it is impossible to achieve both of these goals at once.
Highlights
The idea that alternative possibilities are important for moral responsibility has been steadily in decline since the publication of Harry Frankfurt’s famous counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, or “PAP” (Frankfurt 1969)
There may be different versions with alternatives that are differentiated in other ways. In all of these Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples (FSCs), it’s clearly the fact that they include alternatives that involve events which are located in the brain and involved in the agent’s choices and deliberation that makes them fare better than the simple case when it comes to evoking the judgement that the agent is responsible
The original argument involved conceding that there are alternative possibilities present in all of the examples in which it is clear that the agent is responsible, but insisting that these alternatives are doing no work in supporting this moral responsibility
Summary
The idea that alternative possibilities are important for moral responsibility has been steadily in decline since the publication of Harry Frankfurt’s famous counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, or “PAP” (Frankfurt 1969). Neo-Frankfurtians must try to formulate examples which are like these simple cases, in that any alternatives present are irrelevant to the agent’s responsibility, but which differ from these cases, in that they are able to reliably produce the intuition that the agent is responsible. Since Hunt’s example is very similar in structure to Pereboom’s, it should be obvious how my arguments might be generalised Another strategy is to try to show that there can be scenarios in which (like in Simple Case 2) any alternatives are inaccessible, but where (unlike in Simple Case 2) the agent might appear responsible. Some theorists might object to my evaluating FSCs in this way They may argue that whether an example evokes the correct judgement is beside the point: What matters is whether we can present a successful argument to the conclusion that the agent ought to be regarded as responsible. I will conclude by offering some remarks about the overall point of my argument and its implications
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