Frankfurt: The Principle Of Alternate Possibilities

Therefore, an “innocent beneficiary” (Pojman, 1998, p. n.p.) is not completely innocent until they fulfill their moral obligation. This is because they are connected to past injustice and benefitted from someone’s harm. They only become completely innocent when they correct that wrong. Pojman, 1998, p.

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).

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

I do take full responsibility for my actions when I am the only one who engages in that act. However, if someone else is involved and he or she does not get punished, I start to blame the condemner. The reason for this is because the condemnation is unfair since it does not include everyone involved. I remember when I was 16 years old, I managed to get a scratch on my dad’s car. Of course my parents were not happy about this and scolded me for it. I believed that it was unfair because there was a huge dent in the car that my brother caused. However, he was not punished because he is the oldest and I should have learned from his mistakes. I honestly thought that reasoning was injudicious and tried to “turn” the blame around on my parents. As mentioned in the article, this condemnation was unacceptable because someone else who did the same thing was not punished. This is why I believe that this technique of neutralization is relevant to

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

A person has to be responsible for their self-makeup to be morally responsible and since no one is responsible for this they are not morally responsible for their actions. Moral responsibility from my view is for someone to do something and later is held accountable for their actions. To be morally responsible one must have the power or right to act or think as one wants without restraint. Whether they use

Frankfurt presents counterexamples to PAP to prove its falsity. He tells us to assume that there is a universal controller that wants to ensure certain outcomes. The controller makes it impossible for an agent to act otherwise, which causes her to act exactly as the controller wishes. Frankfurt argues that in such a case it is true that agent is not responsible for her action and that she could not have done otherwise, but he thinks that the agent’s lack of responsibility does not follow from her inability to do otherwise.

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility talks about the principle of alternate possibilities. The principle of alternate possibilities states that someone is morally responsible if they could have chosen to do otherwise. People who believe in free will are very supportive of the principle Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion. The principle of alternate possibilities, moral responsibility, and free will are all involved in this paper written by Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt states that “its exact meaning is a subject of controversy, particularly concerning whether someone who accepts it is thereby committed to believing that moral responsibility and determinism

Williams also delivers the idea of agent-regret which, to him, matters to the person in the unlucky case more than any extrinsic moral judgments. Agent-regret is defined as “thought being formed in part by first personal conceptions of how one might have acted otherwise”, (Williams, p.27), and required “a first-personal subject-matter” and “not yet merely a particular kind of psychological content, but also a particular kind of expression”, (Williams, 27). Hence, even if the driver A is morally treated as equal as driver B, the agent-regret of guilt may follow him to the

Harry Frankfurt famously argued that alternate possibilities are not necessary for moral responsibility, and therefore that PAP is false. Consider a case in which one subject, Jones, wishes to vote Democratic in a forthcoming election. Now suppose that another subject, Black, wants very badly for Jones to vote Democratic. He is, in fact, prepared to go to considerable lengths to ensure that Jones votes accordingly. If it becomes clear that Jones is going to refrain from voting Democratic, Black will intervene to ensure that Jones casts a Democratic vote. Perhaps Black is even able

every action we do is of our own design, and therefore we are morally responsible for the result of those actions. Of course there are exceptions such as being held at gunpoint, being hypnotized or driven by some psychological disorder. No-one would hold you at fault for actions you were forced to commit, but we do hold you responsible for other actions, ones we feel they were free to make. We feel appalled when we see someone kill, or act in an amoral way. This feeling - Campbell thinks - is what shows we must have free will; because without free will we can’t be held responsible for our actions. Yet when you see someone do something you as “why did you do that?” or “what made you do that?”; we ask for the

However, this cannot be said for all victims of guilt as the author makes sure to heed the consequences of

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

However, due to this idea of strict liability offences not requiring proof of fault leads to the simple moral claim of ‘is it right to punish a person who had no intent to commit a crime, and took precautions not to let anyone get harmed in any way, to still be convicted?’ This opens the argument against the use of strict liability as it suggests that no matter what the opposing says, strict liability is a criminal offence and it is not vigorously enforced. This in turn lowers the respect to law and the criminal justice system as it appears that the justice system cannot

I assert that for a moral system to be necessary and applicable, there must exist a moral agent who possesses both the desire and the ability to choose. By denoting certain actions or ways of being as better, a moral system implies that there are also other potential actions and ways of being that are worse. The individual must choose between them. Without this element of choice, an action has no moral qualification. For example, a computer acts, but it does not choose its action. Consequently, while a computer can be judged better or worse in its ability to carry out an action, it cannot be judged responsible for the action. Rather, the person who uses or creates the computer is in fact responsible, for it is that person who chooses for it to act in a particular way. In a moral system, choice, responsibility, and the viability of judgment are linked inextricably.