Agency without Avoidability: Defusing a New Threat to Frankfurt’s Counterexample Strategy1

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (4):505-522 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper, I examine a new line of response to Frankfurt’s challenge to the traditional association of moral responsibility with the ability to do otherwise. According to this response, Frankfurt’s counterexample strategy fails, not in light of the conditions for moral responsibility per se, but in view of the conditions for action. Specifically, it is claimed, a piece of behavior counts as an action only if it is within the agent’s power to avoid performing it. In so far as Frankfurt’s challenge presupposes that actions can be unavoidable, this view of action seems to bring his challenge up short. Helen Steward and Maria Alvarez have independently proposed versions of this response. Here I argue that this response is unavailable to Frankfurt’s incompatibilist opponents. This becomes evident when we put this question to its proponents: “Are actions that originate deterministically ipso facto unavoidable?” If they answer “yes,” they encounter one horn of a dilemma. If they answer “no,” they encounter the other horn. Since no one has a clearer stake in meeting Frankfurt’s challenge than these theorists do, it is significant that the Steward-Alvarez response is unavailable to them.

Other Versions

No versions found

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-07-14

Downloads
1,149 (#13,769)

6 months
95 (#61,134)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Seth Shabo
University of Delaware

References found in this work

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
Masked Abilities and Compatibilism.M. Fara - 2008 - Mind 117 (468):843-865.

View all 44 references / Add more references