Harry G. Frankfurt - Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility / Alternative Möglichkeiten …

Harry G. Frankfurt

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility

Alternative Möglichkeiten und moralische Verantwortung

Englisch / Deutsch

Aus dem amerikanischen Englisch übersetzt und herausgegeben von Julius Schälike

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A dominant role in nearly all recent inquiries into the free-will problem has been played by a principle which I shall call “the principle of alternate possibilities.” This principle states that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. Its exact meaning is a subject of controversy, particularly concerning whether someone who accepts it is thereby committed to believing that moral responsibility and determinism are incompatible. Practically no one, however, seems inclined to deny or even to question that the principle of alternate possibilities (construed in some way or other) is true. It has generally seemed so overwhelmingly plausible that some philosophers have even characterized it as an a priori truth. People whose accounts of free will or of moral responsibility are radically at odds evidently find in it a firm and convenient common ground upon which they can profitably take their opposing stands.

But the principle of alternate possibilities is false. A person may well be morally responsible for what he has done even though he [830] could not have done otherwise. The principle’s plausibility is an illusion, which can be made to vanish by bringing the relevant moral phenomena into sharper focus.

In seeking illustrations of the principle of alternate possibilities, it is most natural to think of situations in which the same circumstances both bring it about that a person does something and make it impossible for him to avoid doing it. These include, for example, situations in which a person is coerced into doing something, or in which he is impelled to act by a hypnotic suggestion, or in which some inner compulsion drives him to do what he does. In situations of these kinds there are circumstances that make it impossible for the person to do otherwise, and these very circumstances also serve to bring it about that he does whatever it is that he does.

However, there may be circumstances that constitute sufficient conditions for a certain action to be performed by someone and that therefore make it impossible for the person to do otherwise, but that do not actually impel the person to act or in any way produce his action. A person may do something in circumstances that leave him no alternative to doing it, without these circumstances actually moving him or leading him to do it – without them playing any role, indeed, in bringing it about that he does what he does.

An examination of situations characterized by circumstances of this sort casts doubt, I believe, on the relevance to questions of moral responsibility of the fact that a person who has done something could not have done otherwise. I propose to develop some examples of this kind in [10] Eine Untersuchung von Situationen, in denen solche Umstände herrschen, erweckt meiner Ansicht nach Zweifel daran, dass es für die Frage nach der moralischen Verantwortung relevant ist, ob eine Person, die etwas getan hat, nicht auch anders hätte handeln können. Ich werde ei [11] nige Beispiele dieser Art im Kontext einer Diskussion von Nötigung entwickeln und dafür plädieren, dass unsere Intuitionen bezüglich dieser Beispiele das Prinzip alternativer Möglichkeiten tendenziell entkräften. Sodann werde ich das Prinzip auf allgemeinere Weise diskutieren, erklären, was ich daran für falsch halte, sowie knapp und ohne weitere Begründung darlegen, wie es zweckmäßig revidiert werden könnte. the context of a discussion of coercion and to suggest that our moral intuitions concerning these examples tend to disconfirm the principle of alternate possibilities. Then I will discuss the principle in more general terms, explain what I think is wrong with it, and describe briefly and without argument how it might appropriately be revised.