Alternate Possibilities And Moral Responsibility By Harry Frankfurt

Over the course of time, in the dominion of philosophy, there has been a constant debate involving two major concepts: free will and determinism. Are our paths in life pre-determined? Do we have the ability to make decisions by using our freedom of will? While heavily subjective questions that have been answered many different authors, philosophers, etc., two authors in particular have answered these questions very similarly. David Hume, a Scottish philosopher from the 18th century, argues in his essay “Of Liberty and Necessity” that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that they can both be accepted at the same time without being logically incorrect. Alike Hume, 20th century author Harry G. Frankfurt concludes in his essay “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” that the two major concepts are compatible. These two authors are among the most famous of Compatibilists (hence the fact that they believe free will and determinism are compatible ideas) in philosophical history. The question that then arises in the realm of compatibilism particularly, is one dealing with moral responsibility: If our paths in life are not totally pre-determined, and we have the ability to make decisions willingly (using free will), then how do we deem an individual morally responsible for a given decision? Frankfurt reaches the conclusion that we are held morally responsible regardless of

Ethical dilemmas occur when there is a disagreement about a situation and all parties involved question how they should behave based on their individual ethical morals. (Newman & Pollnitz, 2005). The dilemma that I will be addressing in this essay involves Michael, recently employed male educator working in the nursery, and parents of a baby enrolled at the centre. The parents have raised concerns about male educators changing their child’s nappy as they have cultural practices that do not allow this practice to take place. This situation is classed as an ethical dilemma as there is a dispute between cultural beliefs and legal requirements within the workplace. There are four parties involved (parents, child, educator and director), all

The life of a person may be measured in years, moments, and the number of laughs or cries but what if one were to measure a life on good deeds or on that person’s virtues? The theory and idea of ethics and virtue as conceptualized by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics and as it is expressed in the pages of The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau is a complex and dubious notion. It is one that is easily related to characters in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

Ethical relativism is not just simply one concept. It can be divided into two categories cultural relativism and ethical subjectivism. Cultural relativism states that what a culture finds correct is what is correct, within its own realm. Ethical subjectivism are what people as individuals find correct, or the values a person stands for and what they support whereas culture relativism is has a certain standard of morality held within a culture or society. These both view people as being in charge of their own morality. However, there are some problems with the view ethical relativism itself. For instance marital rape, machismo in Hispanics culture and premarital sex. In this dissertation I will be discussing problems with ethical relativism, while using the examples above.

The aim of this essay is to prove the reliability of and why Libertarianism is the most coherent of the three Free Will and Determinism views. It refers to the idea of human free will being true, that one is not determined, and therefore, they are morally responsible. In response to the quote on the essay, I am disagreeing with Wolf. This essay will be further strengthened with the help of such authors as C.A. Campell, R. Taylor and R.M. Chisholm. They present similar arguments, which essentially demonstrate that one could have done otherwise and one is the sole author of the volition. I will present the three most common arguments in support of Libertarianism, present an objection against Libertarianism and attempt to rebut it as well as

is false, because there are cases where a person is morally responsible for what she has done even if she could not have done otherwise (835-6). Call such cases Frankfurt-style cases. A lot of literature thereafter has been targeted on these Frankfurt-style cases, particularly whether it’s really possible to construct them. Among critics of Frankfurt, David Widerker (2003) takes one step further and he grants, for the sake of his argument, that it is possible to construct Frankfurt-style cases ; however, he argues that even so, Frankfurt’s argument still fails because there are counter-examples to Frankfurt-style cases, which are in favor of PAP (60-2).

will and moral responsibility. I will argue, that Frankfurt makes an invalid implicit assumption that the

In “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Harry Frankfurt illustrates the concepts of freedom of will and freedom of action, but more importantly, Frankfurt has refined the compatibilism theory. Compatibilism allows the freedom of will to exist in the deterministic world. According to determinism theory, the future state of worlds is determined by some events in the distant past (E) and the laws of nature (L). More specifically, E refers to the history, such as experiences or states whereas L refers to scientific or physical law like gravity. For example, an alcoholic’s action is determined that he will not stop drinking. Here E is that he had been drinking in the past, and L is the physiological addiction effect caused by

In “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives”, Philippa Foot argues against Immanuel Kant, that morality exists in hypothetical imperatives rather than categorical imperatives. For Kant, categorical imperatives alone serve as moral commands, and it would be impossible for a moral system to be based on hypothetical imperatives because such imperatives serve as means to ends and result from maxims that cannot be universalized into perfect duties. Despite this, Foot holds that acting on many hypothetical imperatives can be morally praiseworthy and can even serve as the basis of moral judgments. Although I agree with Foot that hypothetical imperatives can have moral worth, in this paper, I will argue that a morality based on the purposes that hypothetical imperatives are directed toward appears to be circular. To do this, I will explain Foot’s theory of how morality is known and binds. Then, I will argue that this theory is insufficient to explain the moral purpose that hypothetical imperatives must be directed toward, thus begging the question of what is the moral basis of the purpose directed toward in the hypothetical imperative.

The incompatibilists argue that one is morally responsible for what she has done given that she could have done otherwise. Further, they think that if determinism is true then one could not have done otherwise, so if determinism is true, one is not morally responsible for things she has done. In debates surrounding the issue of free will, philosophers have focused on discussing whether determinism is true or false. Harry Frankfurt thinks even though the requirement of alternative possibilities in order to be held morally responsible for our actions seems intuitively plausible, it is a questionable premise in the argument provided by incompatibilists. Frankfurt calls the premise that “a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise” the principle of alternative possibilities or PAP (Frankfurt, 829). He argues that PAP is false and a person can be held morally responsible even if she could not have done otherwise.

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

There are a variety of different ethical systems that have developed of the course of millennia. However, even though the subject has been covered so thoroughly, it is still heavily debated. The varieties of ethical systems that are in existence look at various ethical problems from different perspectives and can be applied differently in different circumstances. Because of the subjective aspects to applying ethics, they can be as much an art as they are a science. Ethics are something that must be practiced and really cannot be perfected. In this way, studying ethics is a continual process that does not really stop. This paper will argue that ethics are the most important subject that an individual can pursue.

The Classical and Neo-Classical theories are based upon the ideation of free will and rational choice. This theory occurs when the benefits outweigh the costs—when people pursue self-interest in the absence of effective punishments. They are simplex modules to follow when applying them to the role of individual responsibility. This theory further states that crime is a free-willed choice, that a person is aware of their actions, they are aware of their choice to commit crime. This is the theory of free will and rational thought. For instance, if a man robs a bank with complete mental awareness, he is aware of his actions.

Morality is not a device by which individuals decide how to appropriate from wrong, yet an apparatus people utilize either intentionally or unwittingly to serve their own particular finishes. Unmistakably, all-inclusive gauges of good and bad don't exist. The conditions Didion delineated in her article, and additionally current world occasions, show that reality. However, many individuals don't concur with that investigation, and as Didion brings up in her essay, that trends are unsafe. Individuals who hold fast themselves to an as far as anyone knows all-inclusive good code can bamboozle themselves into deduction individuals who don't take after that code are heathens who are not as much as human. As the occasions of September 11, 2001, appear,

The four main ethical frameworks are Proportionalism, Utilitarianism, Situation Ethics and Natural Law. There many other ethical points of view besides these four, some only slightly different from one these and some very different from any of these, but most people will be able to roughly fit in one of these categories.