Lazy Larry: The Principle Of Alternate Possibilities

Philosophy is a field that attempts to discover answers to various concepts pertaining to human life. One major concept focuses on the question of moral responsibility. The Principle of Alternate Possibilities is one such theory that tries to answer the question of when an individual should be held responsible for their actions. However, this principle falls short in explaining certain situations. Some situations fall into a grey area for this principle, where an individual can be responsible or not. Even in scenarios such as these, proponents of the principle can still argue for how it can work. Although these arguments can be utilized, I do not feel that they are strong enough to fully redeem the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. The Principle of Alternate Possibilities discusses scenarios

This scenario states that if Larry turns in his final paper than aliens will instantly kidnap him. In the most basic terms the scenario appears to follow the principle well enough. However, there exist some glaring differences: Lazy Larry doesn’t know that the aliens will abduct him once he turns in his lab report and do to this he unwittingly does not have the option to do otherwise. He made the decision to not turn in his assignment on his own on time, however this does not matter to the aliens. Larry will be abducted whenever he turns the paper in, therefore he has no other choice but to never turn in the assignment. Furthermore, the aliens wouldn’t be the initial influence to not turn in the assignment. He does not know that it will happen until it does, or so it appears from the prompt. Therefore, no outright coercion exists to stop Larry from doing otherwise, but because of the alien’s plans he cannot do anything else but keep his assignment. Even in scenarios such as these, there are individuals who will be able to attempt to defend the Principle of Alternate