Abstract
The Principle of Alternative Possibilities is the intuitive idea that someone is morally responsible for an action only if she could have done otherwise. Harry Frankfurt has famously presented putative counterexamples to this intuitive principle. In this paper, I formulate a simple version of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities that invokes a course-grained notion of actions. After warming up with a Frankfurt-Style Counterexample to this principle, I introduce a new kind of counterexample based on the possibility of time travel. At the end of the paper, I formulate a more sophisticated version of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities that invokes a certain fine grained notion of actions. I then explain how this new kind of counterexample can be augmented to show that even the more sophisticated principle is false.
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Notes
Some people make the distinction between act types and act tokens. They might say, for example, that the act of returning a book to the library is an act type whereas the particular way that I returned An Essay on Free Will this week is an act token. It seems to me that the relationship between returning a book and returning a book in a particular way is more like the relationship of a determinable to a determinate rather than a type to a token. But, nothing of importance in this essay will hinge which relationship obtains between these two actions.
Harry Frankfurt’s famous counterexamples were first introduced in his (1969).
This, I take it, is a very rough characterization of the objection put forward in (Alvarez 2009).
Arntzenius and Maudlin (2002) have a nice discussion of the possibility of time travel.
Bricker (1991) has an extensive discussion of principles of plenitude of possible structures. Such principles seem to support the kind of argument I am alluding to here.
Davies (2001) presents a clear and accessible account of the physics behind artificial worm holes and time travel.
Perhaps it can do so by traveling through certain artificial worm holes.
This argument is counterfactually valid. Let ‘O’ stand for the proposition that Martin does otherwise than release the safety net, let ‘E’ stand for the proposition that Martin exists at some time or other, and let ‘R’ stand for the proposition that he does release the safety net. Finally, let ‘◊’ stand for ‘it is possible that…’ and ‘◊m’ stand for ‘Martin can make it such that…’, and let ‘\( \,{\square{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow}\)’ stand for the counterfactual conditional. Now we can formulate a formal version of this argument as follows:
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(1) \((\sim \text{R} \,{\square{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow}\sim \text{E})\)
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(2) \({\square(\sim \text{E} \,{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow}\sim \text{O})\)
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So, (3) \((\sim \text{R} \,{\square{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow}\sim \text{O})\) [from (1) and (2)]
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(4) ◊~R
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So, (5) \(\sim(\sim \text{R} \,{\square{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow} \text{O})\) [from (3) and (4)]
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(6) ◊mO \({{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow}\) \((\sim \text{R} \,{\square{\kern-4.1pt}\rightarrow} \text{O})\)
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So, (7) ~◊mO [from (5) and (6)]
The inference from (3) and (4) to (5) is needed to rule out that (3) is vacuously true. If (3) is vacuously true, then (5) is the denial of a vacuous truth and, hence, clearly false. But, of course, if (4) is true, then (3) is not vacuous and (5) is true as well.
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Vranas does present other objections in his paper as well. Unfortunately, it would be too much of a detour to discuss his other objections here.
Fischer-Style Counterexamples were discussed by Fischer (2003).
This point is also made by in Alvarez (2009).
Some Christian theists seem to believe that God obeys a prime directive of non-interference. Some believe, for example, that such a directive must be followed in order for humans to have free will and in order for the world to have whatever good results from the fact that humans have free will.
Lewis uses the word ‘compossible’ rather than ‘consistent’. If ‘P is compossible with Q’ means that P and Q are together possible, then it may be that Lewis’s phrasing, along with the claim that ‘Tim can kill his grandfather in the circumstances in question’ expresses a truth in some contexts, will commit him to a denial of the necessity of origins or to an acceptance of the possibility of branching time or resurrection. Otherwise, it would be impossible for Tim to kill his grandfather, and hence not compossible with anything. Using the word ‘consistent’ instead will result in no such commitment.
Most likely such a defender should say that the sentence next (1) expresses a falsehood in some contexts. Of course, such a response will most likely commit the defender to the claim that counterfactuals are context sensitive. Although the defender of (PAP) may not be worried about such a commitment (since it is widely accepted that counterfactuals are context sensitive) she should provide a theory that indicated the connection between those contexts in which the counterfactual is false and those contexts in moral responsibility attributions are correct.
I am assuming here that the logical truth conditions for conditional sentences remains fixed across contexts.
Admittedly, whether or not someone is morally responsible for an action depends on the details of the circumstances under which the action is performed. In some circumstances, one may be morally responsible for stealing and in others one may not. But, this view is a view about being morally responsible not about the words “morally responsible”. Hence, it does not imply contextualism. If a person is morally responsible for stealing in a particular circumstance, then it doesn’t matter what conversational context we are in, if we are talking about the person’s moral responsibility, we speak truly when we say “she is morally responsible for stealing” and falsely when we say “she is not morally responsible for stealing”.
I am very grateful to Kelly McCormick for suggesting and extensively discussing this argument with me. Unfortunately, this argument deserves a lengthier discussion than is warranted for this paper.
van Inwagen (1983) considers a principle that involves act particulars, each one of which has its causal origins essentially. Insofar as I understand act particulars, they are simply fully determinate actions. John Fischer (2006, p. 13) suggests that it is impossible to come up with a counterexample to principles that employ such fine grained notions of action. In what follows I hope to show that Fischer is mistaken about this.
References
Alvarez, M. (2009). Actions, thought-experiments and the ‘principle of alternate possibilites’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87, 61–81.
Arntzenius, F., & Maudlin, T. (2002). Time travel in modern physics. In C. Callender (Ed.), Time, reality and experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bricker, P. (1991). Plenitude of possible structures. The Journal of Philosophy, 88, 607–619.
Davies, P. (2001). How to build a time machine. New York: Viking Penguin.
Fischer, J. M. (2003). Responsibility and agent causation. In D. Widerker & M. McKenna (Eds.), Moral responsibility and alternative possibilities. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Fischer, J. M. (2006). “Introduction” in My Way. New York: Oxford University Press.
Frankfurt, H. (1969). Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility. Journal of Philosophy, 66, 829–839.
Kiourti, I. (2008). Killing baby Suzy. Philosophical Studies, 139, 343–352.
Lewis, D. (1976). The paradoxes of time travel. American Philosophical Quarterly 13, (pp. 145–152). Reprinted in Philosophical Papers vol. II. (pp. 67–80) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sider, T. (2002). Time travel, coincidences and counterfactuals. Philosophical Studies, 110, 115–138.
van Inwagen, P. (1983). An essay on free will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Vihvelin, K. (1996). What time travelers cannot do. Philosophical Studies, 81, 315–330.
Vranas, P. B. M. (2010). What time travellers may be able to do. Philosophical Studies, 150, 115–121.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Andrew Cullison, Ben Caplan, Hud Hudson, André Gallois, Kelly McCormick, Neal Tognazzini, and an anonymous referee for several helpful comments and suggestions. Thanks to the anonymous referee for suggesting the title for this paper. Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee and at SUNY Fredonia (for the Young Philosophers lecture series). Thanks to both audiences.
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Spencer, J. What time travelers cannot not do (but are responsible for anyway). Philos Stud 166, 149–162 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0029-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-0029-y