The Importance Of Moral Responsibility For Something We Do

In this essay I will argue that moral responsibility for something we do does require that we have alternate possibilities in some sense. I will explore the criticisms of this from Frankfurt, with the suggestion that Frankfurt cases are not as damaging as they seem. Finally, I will attempt to show that it is philosophically safer to adopt Otsuka’s slight revision of alternate possibilities. It has long been taken for granted that for an agent to have moral responsibility for an action, they must have some degree of control over said action. This seems somewhat intuitive. It can be summarised by what is commonly referred to as ‘The Principle of Alternative Possibilities’ (PAP). Harry Frankfurt succinctly defined PAP by stating a ‘person†¦show more content†¦There is much debate on whether determinism undermines responsibility, but PAP was left virtually unchallenged, until Frankfurt offered a compelling argument for its falsehood. Frankfurt’s primary claim is that ‘the principle of alternate possibilities is false. A person may well be morally responsible for what he has done even though he could not have done otherwise.’ What is most significant in responsibility is the why of an action. He proceeds to motivate this claim with a compelling hypothetical example of a situation in which one may be morally responsible for his actions, yet have no alternative other than the one he makes. He posits an individual named Black. Black wants Jones to perform a certain action. However, Black does not like to show his hand too early, and so he waits until right before Jones is about to act to choose whether or not to interfere. If Jones is about to do something other than what Black wants (Black in some way knows exactly which choice Jones is about to make), Black will intervene and make Jones choose to do what Black wants. Jones’ initial preferences are irrelevant as Black will always have his way. It is impor tant to note that Jones is entirely unaware of Black’s machinations behind the scenes. However, it turns out that Black never has to intervene, as Jones performs the action Black wanted through his own volition . This example