Complete blockage Frankfurt examples and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

Bibliographic Data

ID21702841
AuthorsRick Stoody (Cleveland State Community College), Rick Lee Stoody (Cleveland State Community College, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume24
Issue2
Pages174-184
Publication date2021-05-04
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophical Explorations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1386-9795 • E-ISSN: 1741-5918
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13869795.2021.1908582
OpenAlexW3144750506
LanguageEN
References cited14

According to the ‘Principle of Alternative Possibilities’ (PAP), an agent is morally responsible for performing some action only if she could have done otherwise. Beginning with Harry Frankfurt nearly fifty years ago, a number of putative counterexamples (‘Frankfurt examples’) have been offered. In this essay, I consider a type of counterexample developed by David Hunt: so-called ‘complete blockage’ Frankfurt examples. The chief objection to these cases is that they presuppose causal determinism, thereby begging the question against incompatibilists. I argue, however, that even if we grant that complete blockage Frankfurt examples assume causal determinism, they can still be successfully deployed as counterexamples to PAP without begging the question

Begging · Combinatorics · Compatibilism · Counterexample · Determinism · Epistemology · Free will · Incompatibilism · Theology · Free Will and Agency · Mathematics · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy

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