{"id":12604,"date":"2009-06-01T19:59:52","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T19:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/01\/the-indeterministic-world-objection-to-frankfurt-counterexamples\/"},"modified":"2009-06-01T19:59:52","modified_gmt":"2009-06-01T19:59:52","slug":"the-indeterministic-world-objection-to-frankfurt-counterexamples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/01\/the-indeterministic-world-objection-to-frankfurt-counterexamples\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indeterministic World Objection to Frankfurt Counterexamples"},"content":{"rendered":"

We got bogged down in an earlier thread, so let's try a different tack.  The following discussion draws upon Robert Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will<\/em>, Oxford 2005, pp. 87-88.<\/font><\/p>\n

In his seminal 1969 J. Phil.<\/em> article, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Harry Frankfurt enunciates what he calls "the principle of alternate possibilities," (PAP) namely, "a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise."  Frankfurt goes on to argue that PAP is false because there are conceivable scenarios in which an agent is morally responsible despite his inability to do otherwise.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Suppose agent Jones has a controller Black who makes sure that Jones does what Black wants.  So if Jones decides to do A, rob a bank, say, and Black wants Jones to do A, then Black stands aloof and allows Jones to implement his decision.  If Jones wavers in his resoluteness, or falters in his implementation of his decision, Black renders whatever assistance is necessary to keep Jones on course.  The point is that Jones cannot do other than A because Black won't let him.  Now suppose Jones decides on his own to do A:  he operates from his own motives and reasons without interference. On this supposition Jones is morally responsible for doing A if he does A.   He is morally responsible even though he could not have done otherwise.  For had he begun to change his plan or begun to falter in its execution Black would have intervened to keep him on track.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now if scenarios such as the above are possible,  and it surely seems as if they are, then 'S is morally responsible for having done A' does not entail 'S could have done other than A.'<\/span><\/p>\n

But if we think about it, we see that these Frankfurt examples give an incompatibilist who believes in free will no reason to abandon PAP.  Incompatibilists hold that (libertarian) free will and (causal) determinism are logically incompatible: they cannot both be true.  So if free will exists, then determinism is false.  And if determinism is false, then indeterminism is true.  If indeterminism is true, then free choices are not determined by earlier events and the laws of nature.  Jones choice is determined only at the instant at which Jones chooses, and is determined by Jones.  How then could Black control Jones' choice?  Suppose Black has all the powers of a Laplacean demon: in a deterministic universe he can predict any state from any temporally prior state.  These powers won't help him, however, in an indeterministic universe.  Before Jones chooses, Black cannot predict what he will choose.  He cannot foresee (by observing  electrical activity in Jones' brain , say, that Jones will choose A rather than B.  <\/span>Black must wait for Jones to choose before he can know what he chooses.  But then it is too late for Black to interfere.  Jones will have made a choice, and indeed one that he might not have made. For Black to ensure that Jones will make the choice that Black desires him to make, Black must act prior to the time at which Jones chooses so as to bring it about that Jones chooses as Black desires.  But then Jones is not responsible for his choice.  Jones cannot be responsible for his choice if Black is part of the cause of the choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if indeterminism is true, Frankfurt counterexamples  fail to refute PAP.    Either Black intervenes before Jones chooses or he does not.  If Black intervenes before Jones chooses, then Jones is not responsible for the choice.  But if Black waits for Jones to choose, then Jones has alternative possibilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In sum, whether Frankfurt-type counterexamples refute PAP seems to hinge on whether incompatibilism or compatibilism is true.  An incompatibilist who believes in free will can easily reject the Frankfurt counterexamples as explained above.   A compatibilist who is a determinist, however, could accept them.  But if you are a compatibilist and a determinist then you already have a reason to decouple moral responsibility and alternative possibilities.  So why would you need Frankfurt counterexamples?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We got bogged down in an earlier thread, so let's try a different tack.  The following discussion draws upon Robert Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, Oxford 2005, pp. 87-88. In his seminal 1969 J. Phil. article, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility," Harry Frankfurt enunciates what he calls "the principle of alternate possibilities," (PAP) … Continue reading “The Indeterministic World Objection to Frankfurt Counterexamples”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}