Reply to Clayton on Frankfurt

Clayton wrote:

I take it that the idea is something like this. There are cases where an agent A will X either in virtue of an intention or in virtue of a backup plan that will force A to X. In some of these very cases where the agent A's in virtue of the intention, we judge that A is responsible _even though had the intention not led to the X-ing something else would have_. The intuition that these subjects are responsible under these conditions (not the conditions where the agent does not intend to X but is forced to X by an outside agent) is supposed to be trouble for PAP.

The intuition that these subjects are responsible under these conditions (not the conditions where the agent does not intend to X but is forced to X by an outside agent) is supposed to be trouble for PAP.

It seems to me that what I am getting at is that in the case of determinism, alternative possibilities are ruled out be the presence of sufficient antecedent causes. So it could be argued that PAP is an attempt to get at what incompatibilist see as a problem with attributing moral responsibility in cases of causal determination. Further, the very thing that tempts us to say that the person is responsible is that causal determination is missing in these cases. God doesn't in fact cause you to show up for lunch, you emphasize that when I try to deny responsibility in those cases. At the end of the day, I may have to doctor PAP to deal with the cases and to capture the essence of the incompatibilist intuition.

Suppose my version of PAP is:

1) I am not responsible for my actions if causal antecedents prevent me from doing otherwise.

That principle is immune to Frankfurtian attack.

Kevin Timpe's critique of Frankfurt libertarianism

Timpe is a critic of use of Frankfurt counterexamples both by libertarians and by compatibilists. Of special interest is the fact that he points out, that in the Frankfurt cases there has to be a forking path. One path in which the controller does nothing (the actual case) and one in which the controller stops a process from going further. John Martin Fischer says that this is just a "flicker" of freedom and doesn't play a sufficient role in grounding moral responsibility. Why?

The original Frankfurt essay

This is the original essay in which Frankfurt introduced his counterexamples. But what seems troubling to me is that the very force of those counterexamples is based on a lack of causal connection between the controller and the action. What insures that we cannot do otherwise is something that doesn't cause the action in question, therefore we are more inclined to jump to the "responsible" verdict. Or some people are, others, who might be inclined to accept the central argument for open theism, may disagree. But whatever the case is, Frankfurt even points out the lack of causal connection as the reason for giving the "responsible" verdict, then the argument jumps the tracks and argues for the compatiblity of moral responsibility with causal determination.
You change the very thing that makes the counterexamples work when you go to the case of causal determination, yet these counterexamples are supposed to undergird the compatibility of moral responsiblity with causal determination. This seems just wrong.

Attacking Frankfurt Counterexamples with a Bludgeon

On Frankfurt counterexamples, I think I'd like to present Clayton's counterexample to one of the anti-compatibilist arguments I presented. In this case, I would like to ask "Why shouldn't I just apply PAP and just render a verdict of "not responsible" in all Frankfurt cases? Frankfurt cases go like this:

1) In case A, there were no alternate possibilities.
2) In case a, S was morally responsible.
3) Therefore, PAP is false.

While you could just as easily argue.

1) In case A there were no alternative possibilities.
2) PAP is true.
3) Therefore, S is not morally responsible.

Some resources on Frankfurt from Triablogue

But I am still confused.

I wrote my master's thesis on free will. It still seems to me that the distinction between the freedom of action of freedom of choice means that we can ask the question "was the choice free" independent of any consideration of whether in a counterfactual situation, a person could have carried out their action had they chosen otherwise. PAP, as I see it, applies to choices, not actions. So if I am right the Frankfurt considerations are just irrelevant to assessing the freedom of an action.

I must ask myself, is it that easy to refute Frankfurt arguments? And maybe you guys can help me see why it isn't that easy. Still, I think the examples will all sooner or later founder on this problem.

On Frankfurt counterexamples

I must say I don't understand the fuss about Frankfurt's counterexamples, or why people are able to keep this argument alive. It really looks to me like a patient etherized on a table with feeding tubes, breathing equipment, artificial heart stimulators, etc. Look, don't these examples all founder on a failure to distinguish between choosing freely and carrying out the choice effectively. In the cases given, isn't it the case that you could have chosen otherwise. You have what is ex hypothesi a libertarian free choice. Of course, if you had chosen otherwise, unbeknownst to you, you would have been prevented from carrying out the choice. But the choice was free.

24 years ago I completed my master's thesis at Arizona State University. There, I argued that there conceptions of moral responsibility that were essentially utilitarian in nature, which indicated where one could supply a motive of deterrence or protection of society, could indeed be compatible with determinism. In other words, so long as we are asking "who is it practical to blame" as opposed to "who really deserves to be blamed," compatibilism seems to have some plausibility. When we get to the idea of a purely retributive punishment, an absolute just deserts for someone, compatibilism breaks down. It is in the last analysis unfair to punish (or reward) someone for the inevitable results of past causes.