Obligation, Reason, and Frankfurt Examples

Abstract

AbstractThis article gives an unusual twist to debates about Frankfurt-type examples. It defends the thesis that if agents are to be fit subjects of “morally deontic judgments”, they must have the power to act and to act otherwise. It argues that, if moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness for actions presuppose that the agents praised or blamed are “fit subjects of morally deontic judgments”, then moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness would also presuppose the power to act and to act otherwise. In defending these claims, the article makes use of a technical analysis of the notion of moral obligation in terms of accessible possible worlds advanced by Fred Feldman and Michael Zimmerman.