Frankfurt counterexample defended

Analysis 71 (1):102-104 (2011)
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Abstract

Frankfurt sets out to refute the principle according to which ‘a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise’. Frankfurt devises a counterexample in which an agent is intuitively responsible even though she could not have done otherwise: Suppose someone – Black, let us say – wants Jones to perform a certain action. Black is prepared to go to considerable lengths to get his way, but he prefers to avoid showing his hand unnecessarily. So he waits until Jones is about to make up his mind what to do, and he does nothing unless it is clear to him that Jones is going to decide to do something other than what he wants him to do. If it does become clear that Jones is going to decide to do something else, Black takes effective steps to ensure that Jones decides to do, and that he does do, what he wants him to do. Whatever Jones's initial preferences and inclinations, then, Black will have his way … Now suppose that Black never has to show his hand because Jones, for reasons of his own, decides to perform and does perform the very action Black wants him to perform. In that case, it seems clear, Jones will bear precisely …

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Ezio Di Nucci
University of Copenhagen

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References found in this work

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
Recent work on moral responsibility.John Fischer - 1999 - Ethics 110 (1):93–139.
Actions, thought-experiments and the 'principle of alternate possibilities'.Maria Alvarez - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1):61 – 81.
Refuting a Frankfurtian Objection to Frankfurt-Type Counterexamples.Ezio Di Nucci - 2010 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (2):207 - 213.
Frankfurt counter-example defused.Brendan Larvor - 2010 - Analysis 70 (3):506-508.

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