Frankfurt Cases and Alternate Deontic Categories

Dialogue 62 (3):539-552 (2023)
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Abstract

In Harry Frankfurt’s seminal “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” he advances an argument against the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: if an agent is responsible for performing some action, then she is able to do otherwise. However, almost all of the Frankfurt cases in this literature involve impermissible actions. In this article, I argue that the failure to consider other deontic categories exposes a deep problem, one that threatens either to upend much current moral theorizing or to upend the relevance of Frankfurt cases.

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Samuel J. M. Kahn
Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis

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References found in this work

Freedom of the will and the concept of a person.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (1):5-20.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.John Locke - 1979 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 169 (2):221-222.
Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.Harry Frankfurt - 1982 - In Gary Watson (ed.), Free will. New York: Oxford University Press.

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