Moral Responsibility and the Flicker of Freedom

Abstract

Abstract This book addresses a long-standing controversy in the literature on free will and moral responsibility concerning whether Frankfurt cases—thought experiments of a sort devised by Harry Frankfurt—are counterexamples to the so-called principle of alternative possibilities (roughly, the principle that a person is morally responsible for what he did only if he could have avoided doing it). Frankfurt and many others contend that Frankfurt cases are counterexamples to the principle, but here it is argued that, far from being counterexamples to the principle, Frankfurt cases actually provide further confirmation of it, a conclusion that has important implications for our understanding of free will and moral responsibility.