Frankfurt Cases and Overdetermination

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Funkhouser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Frankfurt Cases ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Causal Preemption ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

For nearly forty years now, Frankfurt cases have served as one of the major contributors to the compatibilist's cause with respect to moral responsibility. These cases typically involve a causally preempted condition that is supposed to guarantee a choice without causing it. This has had the effect of softening up some to the idea that determinism does not exclude moral responsibility simply in virtue of guaranteeing a unique future. I believe that these traditional Frankfurt cases adequately support this cause. But I also believe that the traditional versions of Frankfurt cases suffer from some rhetorical defects.My strategy is as follows. First, I want to respond to a dilemma that has been raised by some libertarians against arguments utilizing Frankfurt cases. This dilemma has the effect of raising a question-begging charge against such arguments. Part of my response is to draw attention to the relevant principle that I think Frankfurt cases should really target, a principle slightly different from Harry Frankfurt's original Principle of Alternate Possibilities. Second, I elaborate and defend the claim that traditional Frankfurt cases involve causal preemption.

Incompatibilism and Prudential Obligation

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-410
Author(s):  
Ishtiyaque Haji
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
The Many ◽  
Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Skeptical Conclusion

Take determinism to be the thesis that for any instant, there is exactly one physically possible future (van Inwagen 1983, 3), and understand incompatibilism regarding responsibility to be the view that determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. Of the many different arguments that have been advanced for this view, the crux of a relatively traditional one is this: If determinism is true, then we lack alternatives. If we lack alternatives, then we can't be morally responsible for any of our behavior. Therefore, if determinism is true, then we can't be morally responsible for any of our behavior. The second premise is a version of the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP): persons are morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done otherwise. This principle, in conjunction with the assumptions that responsibility requires control, and that this control consists in the freedom to do otherwise, provides the vital bridge from the initial premise to the skeptical conclusion. Some incompatibilists, joining ranks with various compatibilists, have sought to reject this principle by invoking so-called ‘Frankfurt examples.’

Freedom, Foreknowledge, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kadri Vihvelin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Four Quartets ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Famous Paper ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.T.S. Eliot, Four QuartetsFew arguments in contemporary philosophy have had more influence than Harry Frankfurt's ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsiblity.’ In that famous paper Frankfurt noted that all parties to the traditional debate about the compatibility of free will and moral responsibility with determinism had subscribed to a common assumption. They had assumed the truth of something Frankfurt called ‘the Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ which he expressed as follows:(PAP) A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise.In the traditional debate incompatibilists argued that if determinism is true, then no one can ever do otherwise, while compatibilists argued that there is a morally relevant sense in which even a deterministic agent can do otherwise. Frankfurt proposed to show that PAPis false, thereby undercutting the traditional debate.

Must Knowers Be Agents?

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Responsibility ◽  
Frankfurt Cases ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

This chapter explores agency as it applies to epistemic evaluation, using epistemic analogues of the well-known Frankfurt cases against the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. It argues that the satisfaction of manipulable counterfactual conditions is neither necessary nor sufficient for either moral or epistemic responsibility, nor is it necessary for knowledge. But what a person does in counterfactual circumstances is a sign of the presence of agency, and the argument here is that agency is necessary for epistemic responsibility and for knowledge. The chapter argues that agency is operative in getting epistemic credit and knowledge. The scope of agency includes those evaluative aspects of belief investigated by epistemology. In other work the author has argued that it is artificial to separate epistemology from ethics. The role of agency in beliefs as well as in acts further supports this position.

scholarly journals Is regulative control a necessary condition for moral responsibility?

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Marko Peric
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Sufficient Cause ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Regulative Control ◽  
The Given ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

Libertarianist concept of free will is based on the principle of alternate possibilities - standpoint which presupposes that an agent has moral responsibility only if, in the given circumstances, he could have done otherwise. The author of this paper tries to review this key principle of libertarianism, and to determine whether the access to alternate possibilities represents necessary or sufficient cause for the assessment of moral responsibility, or neither of that. Finally, based on the consideration of famous Frankfurt?s and Austin-style examples, in this paper is defended a sort of compatibilism, and the main advantages of that kind of free will concept over libertarianism are emphasized.

The Principle of Alternate Possibilities

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Phillip Gosselin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
List Type ◽  
Type Number ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Standard Argument ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

The standard argument for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility employs the following two premises:A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise:A person could have done otherwise only if his action was not causally determined.While premise two has been the focus of an enormous amount of controversy, premise one until recently has remained virtually unchallenged. However, since Harry Frankfurt’s provocative paper in 1969, premise one, which he dubbed the principle of alternate possibilities (henceforth referred to as PAP), has begun to attract its share of the debate. Frankfurt argued that PAP is false and that its falsity undermines the position of those who assert the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility. Two previous papers I wrote were devoted in part to showing that Frankfurt’s argument is ineffective; one of those papers also argued that, while PAP is indeed false as it stands (though for reasons entirely different from those advanced by Frankfurt), if it is appropriately supplemented, it can continue to serve its traditional role in the determinism-responsibility debate.

Reason and Dreaming in Republic IX and the Timaeus

Rhizomata ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Karel Thein
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Virtuous Character ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract The article discusses two passages, Republic IX 571d6–572b1, and Timaeus 71a3–72b5, where Plato does not use dream as a metaphor for the soul’s deficit in knowledge but, instead, focuses on the actual process of dreaming during sleep, and the origin and nature of the images involved. In both texts, Plato’s account is closely connected to the soul’s tripartition, with the resulting emphasis on reason’s capacity to control, and even to create, the dream images that influence the lower parts of the soul. While taking a closer look at the differences between the two accounts (and, therefore, at the physiology of dreaming described only in the Timaeus), the article concludes that, despite these differences, both dialogues agree on the possible alliance between reason and dreaming, an alliance that presupposes a virtuous character and further reinforces the reason’s dominance over appetite. Republic IX and the Timaeus thus converge on the idea that dreams, in virtue of their continuity with waking thoughts, can convey and fortify a certain kind of knowledge, and especially self-knowledge, which is of an ethical rather than strictly epistemic relevance. This is also why Plato’s two accounts of rational dreaming anticipate the issue of our moral responsibility for the content of our dreams.

scholarly journals For whom does determinism undermine moral responsibility? Surveying the conditions for free will across cultures

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivar Hannikainen ◽  
Edouard Machery ◽  
David Rose ◽  
Paulo Sousa ◽  
Florian Cova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Causal Determinism ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Ultimate Source ◽  
And Control ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions.

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