Frankfurt cases

Frankfurt cases (also known as Frankfurt counterexamples or Frankfurt-style cases) were presented by philosopher Harry Frankfurt in 1969 as counterexamples to the "principle of alternative possibilities", or PAP, which holds that an agent is morally responsible for an action only if that person could have done otherwise.

The Principle of Alternative Possibilities

The principle of alternative possibilities (acronym PAP) forms part of an influential argument for the incompatibility of responsibility and causal determinism, often called the core argument for incompatibilism. This argument is detailed below:

(1) PAP: An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent could have done otherwise.

(2) An agent could have done otherwise only if causal determinism is false.

(3) Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.

Traditionally, compatibilists (defenders of the compatibility of free will and determinism, like Alfred Ayer, Walter Terence Stace and Daniel C. Dennett) reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional compatibilist analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when he would have done otherwise had he wanted to do otherwise. Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.

Frankfurt's objection

From the PAP definition "a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise", Frankfurt infers that a person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he could not have done otherwise – a point with which he takes issue: our theoretical ability to do otherwise, he says, does not necessarily make it possible for us to do otherwise.

Frankfurt's examples are significant because they suggest an alternative way to defend the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, in particular by rejecting the first premise of the argument. According to this view, responsibility is compatible with determinism because responsibility does not require the freedom to do otherwise.

Frankfurt's examples involve agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. Here is a typical case:

Donald is a Democrat and is likely to vote for the Democrats; in fact, only in one particular circumstance will he not: that is, if he thinks about the prospects of immediate American defeat in Iraq just prior to voting. Ms White, a representative of the Democratic Party, wants to ensure that Donald votes Democratic, so she secretly plants a device in Donald's head that, if activated, will force him to vote Democratic. Not wishing to reveal her presence unnecessarily, Ms White plans to activate the device only if Donald thinks about the Iraq War prior to voting. As things happen, Donald does not think about Iraq prior to voting, so Ms White thus sees no reason to activate the device, and Donald votes Democratic of his own accord. Apparently, Donald is responsible for voting Democratic although, owing to Ms. White's device, he lacks freedom to do otherwise.

If Frankfurt is correct in suggesting both that Donald is morally responsible for voting Democratic and that he is not free to do otherwise, moral responsibility, in general, does not require that an agent have the freedom to do otherwise (that is, the principle of alternate possibilities is false). Thus, even if causal determinism is true, and even if determinism removes the freedom to do otherwise, there is no reason to doubt that people can still be morally responsible for their behavior.

Having rebutted the principle of alternate possibilities, Frankfurt suggests that it be revised to take into account the fallacy of the notion that coercion precludes an agent from moral responsibility. It must be only because of coercion that the agent acts as he does. The best definition, by his reckoning, is this: "[A] person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise."

Legacy

Michael Otsuka provides a more specific answer to proposed problems with Frankfurt's counterexamples. In his article, Otsuka says, "my strategy is to propose that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities be rejected in favor of a different incompatibilist principle," that is, different from Frankfurt's, "that I call the 'Principle of Avoidable Blame'."