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Moral responsibility without alternative possibilities
Stump, Eleonore
Stump, Eleonore
Author
Abstract
A standard strategy for trying to show false the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) – the principle that alternative possibilities for action are required for moral responsibility – is what has come to be known as a Frankfurt-style counterexample or a Frankfurt story, after Harry Frankfurt’s well-known kind of counterexample to PAP. The author proposed a Frankfurt story which is immune to the criticism of David Widerker’s. It is a revised version of a Frankfurt story presented earlier by John Martin Fischer. Fischer’s own example, like most Frankfurt stories, is vague about how the fictional coercive mechanism works and what it operates on; but for purposes of examining Widerker’s argument, it helps to spell out the details of the coercive mechanism and to consider the theory of mind that a Frankfurt story presupposes. For that reason, he revised Fischer’s example to make the operation of the coercive mechanism clearer.
Keywords
Social Sciences
Date
2017
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities
Volume
Issue
Page Range
139-158
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled
Notes
© Routledge, 2019.