Divine and Conventional Frankfurt Examples

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Canada.

Abstract

The principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) says that you are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for something you do only if you could have done otherwise. Frankfurt examples are putative counterexamples to PAP. These examples feature a failsafe mechanism that ensures that some agent cannot refrain from doing what she does without intervening in how she conducts herself, thereby supposedly sustaining the upshot that she is responsible for her behavior despite not being able to do otherwise. I introduce a Frankfurt example in which the agent who could not have done otherwise is God. Paying attention to the freedom requirements of moral obligation, the example is commissioned, first, to assess whether various states
of affairs that are unavoidable for God can be obligatory for God and for which
God can be praiseworthy. The example is, next, used to unearth problems with conventional Frankfurt examples that feature human agents. I argue that conceptual connections between responsibility and obligation cast suspicion on these examples. Pertinent lessons that the divine Frankfurt example helps to reveal motivate the view that divine foreknowledge and determinism, assuming that both preclude freedom to do otherwise, may well imperil obligation and responsibility.

Keywords


Arpaly, N. (2006). Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage: An Essay on Free Will. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Belzer, M. (1998). Deontic Logic. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/deontic-logic/v-1. New York: Taylor and Francis.
Campbell, J. K. (2011). Free Will. Oxford: Polity Press.
Capes, J. (2012). Blameworthiness without Wrongdoing. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 93(3), 417-437. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0114.2012.01433.x
Choo, F. & Goh, E. (2019). The Free Will Defense Revisited: The Instrumental Value of Significant Free Will. International Journal of Theology, Philosophy, and Science, 4, 32-45.
Copp, D. (1997). Defending the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Blameworthiness and Moral Responsibility. Nous, 31(4), 441-456.
doi: 10.1111/0029-4624.00055
Copp, D. (2003). Ought’ Implies ‘Can’: Blameworthiness, and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. In: D. Widerker & M. McKenna (Eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities (pp.265-99). Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
Feinberg, J. (1970). Doing and Deserving. In: J. Feinberg, Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility (pp.55-94). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Feldman, F. (1986). Doing the Best We Can. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Fields, L. (1994). Moral Beliefs and Blameworthiness. Philosophy, 69(270),
397-415. doi: 10.1017/S0031819100047239
Fischer, J. M. (1983). Freedom and Foreknowledge. Philosophical Review, 92(1), 67-79. doi: 10.2307/2184522
Fischer, J. M. (1994). The Metaphysics of Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.
Fischer, J. M. (2006). My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, J. M. (2021). The Frankfurt-style Cases: Extinguishing the Flickers of Freedom. Inquiry, doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2021.1904640
Frankfurt, H. G. (1969). Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. Journal of Philosophy, 66(23), 829-839. doi: 10.2307/2023833
Franklin, C. (2018). A Minimal Libertarianism: Free Will and the Promise of Reduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ginet, C. (1966). Might We Have No Choice? In: K. Lehrer (Ed.), Freedom and Determinism (pp.87-104). New York: Random House.
Ginet, C. (1990). On Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ginet, C. (1996). In Defense of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities: Why I Don’t Find Frankfurt’s Argument Convincing. Philosophical Perspectives, 10, 403-417. doi: 10.2307/2216254
Ginet, C. (2003). Libertarianism. In: M. J. Loux & D. W. Zimmerman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (pp.587-612). New York: Oxford University Press.
Haji, I. (1994). Changing Obligations and Immutable Blameworthiness. Theoria, 60(1), 48-62. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-2567.1994.tb00877.x
Haji, I. (1998). Moral Appraisability: Puzzles, Proposals, and Perplexities. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haji, I. (2002). Deontic Morality and Control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Haji, I. (2016). Luck’s Mischief: Obligation and Blameworthiness on a Thread. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haji, I. (2012). Reason’s Debt to Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haji, I. (2019). The Obligation Dilemma. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hanser, M. (2005). Permissibility and Practical Inference. Ethics, 115, 443-470. doi: 10.1086/428457
Hilpinen, R, & McNamara, P. (2013). Deontic Logic: A Historical Survey and Introduction. In D. Gabbay, J. Horty, X. Parent, R. van der Meyden, & L. van der Torre (Eds.), Handbook of Deontic Logic and Normative Systems (pp.3-36). London: College Publications.
Hoffman, J. & Rosenkrantz, G. S. (2002). The Divine Attributes. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Kane, R. (1985). Free Will and Values. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Kane, R. (1996). The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kittle, S. (2019). When is an Alternative Possibility Robust? European Journal of Philosophy, 27(1), 199-210. doi: 10.1111/ejop.12369
Littlejohn, C. (2012). Does ‘Ought’ Still Imply ‘Can’? Philosophia, 40(4), 821-828. doi: 10.1007/s11406-012-9366-5
McLear, C. (2020). On the Transcendental Freedom of the Intellect. Ergo. 7(2), 35-104.
McNamara, P. (1996). Making Room for Going Beyond the Call. Mind, 105,
415-450.
McNamara, P. (2019). Deontic Logic. In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2019 edition). Available at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/logic-deontic/.
Mele, A. & Robb, D. (1998). Rescuing Frankfurt-style Cases. Philosophical Review, 107(1), 97-112. doi: 10.2307/2998316
Moore, G. E. (1912). Ethics. (William H. Shaw, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morriston, W. (1985). Is God Significantly Free? Faith and Philosophy, 2(3),
257-264. doi: 10.5840/faithphil19852331
Nelkin, D. K. (2011). Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Pereboom, D. (2001). Living Without Free Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pereboom, D. (2003). Source Incompatibilism and Alternative Possibilities. In D. Widerker & M. McKenna (Eds.), Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities
(pp.185-199). Burlington: Ashgate Press.
Pereboom, D. (2005). Defending Hard Incompatibilism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 29(1), 228-247. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4975.2005.00114.x
Pereboom, D. (2006). Kant on Transcendental Freedom. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73(3), 537-567.
doi: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00548.x
Pereboom, D. (2014). Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pike, N. (1977). Divine Foreknowledge, Human Freedom and Possible Worlds. Philosophical Review, 86(2), 209-216. doi: 10.2307/2184007
Rönnedal, D. (2009). An Introduction to Deontic Logic. Lexington, KY.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Scanlon, T. M. (2013). Giving Desert Its Due. Philosophical Explorations, 16(2), 101-116. doi: 10.1080/13869795.2013.787437
Shabo, S. (2014). It Wasn’t up to Jones: Unavoidable Actions and Intensional Contexts in Frankfurt Examples. Philosophical Studies, 169 (3), 379-399. doi: 10.1007/s11098-013-0187-6
Smilansky, S. (2000). Free Will and Illusion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, H. (1991). Varieties of Moral Worth and Moral Credit. Ethics, 101(2),
279-303. doi: 10.1086/293289
Thomson, J. J. (1991). Self-Defense. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20(4),
283-310.
Van Inwagen, P. (1978). Ability and Responsibility. Philosophical Review, 87(2), 201-224. doi: 10.2307/2184752
Van Inwagen, P. (1983). An Essay on Free Will. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Vranas, P. (2007). I Ought, Therefore I Can. Philosophical Studies, 136(2),
167-216. doi: 10.1007/s11098-007-9071-6
Widerker, D. (1991). Frankfurt on ‘Ought Implies Can’ and Alternative Possibilities. Analysis, 51(4), 222-224. doi: 10.1093/analys/51.4.222
Widerker, D. (1995). Libertarianism and Frankfurt’s Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. Philosophical Review, 104 (2), 247-261.
doi: 10.2307/2185979
Wiggins, D. (1973). Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism. In: T. Honderich (Ed.), Essays on Freedom of Action (pp.31-61). Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Zimmerman, M. J. (1988). An Essay on Moral Responsibility. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
Zimmerman, M. J. (1996). The Concept of Moral Obligation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman, M. J. (1997). A Plea for Accuses. American Philosophical Quarterly, 34(2), 229-243.
CAPTCHA Image