Morally Responsible
Essay Preview: Morally Responsible
Report this essay
According to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, a person is morally responsible for what he/she has done only if he/she could have done otherwise. For the most part philosophers who questioned the idea of freedom of the will generally regarded the Principle of Alternate Possibilities as beyond the shadow of doubt. Harry Frankfurt argues that this principle is false. Frankfurt is stating that a person is morally responsible for his actions even though he could not have done otherwise.
Using Jones and Black, the protagonist and antagonist respectfully, Frankfurt applies the situation that Jones is not always in control of certain circumstances and analyzing the threat and absence of will-power. While Black, the threat and coercion into suggesting a certain action to be performed in such a manner as to take away all other possible alternatives, becomes the intent to intervene with his own reasoning.
There are two necessary conditions that a genuine counter-analysis that needs to be reached to disprove the principle.
Condition # 1: The person is morally responsible for the action performed.
Condition # 2: The person could not have done otherwise.
In Frankfurts reasoning to argue that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities is a false idea he also suggests a third condition that can be used to disprove the principle.
Condition # 3: The persons action is not determined by the circumstances that make him unable to do otherwise.
If a persons action was determined by the circumstances that made him unable to do otherwise, then that person would no longer seem to be morally responsible for his action. For example, when Black intervenes, we no longer regard Jones as morally responsible for his action. “In this example there are sufficient conditions for Jones performing the action in question. What action he performs is not up to him. Of course it is in a way up to him whether he acts on his own or as a result of Blacks