Summary Of Alternate Possibilities And Moral Responsibility By Harry Frankfurt

Harry Frankfurt’s paper titled Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility makes an argument in opposition to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities. His viewpoints alter the perception of philosophical concepts like determinism and free will, and under what circumstances a person is morally responsible for their actions depending on the assumption they had options to make another choice. The principle that Frankfurt disputes is that of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, in which it is asserted that a person can only be held morally responsible for their actions if they could have chosen to do otherwise. Common issues with the principle reside in its potential to expunge individuals of moral responsibility in instances where

For example, if person X holds hateful views toward a group of people, and their hateful rhetoric results in Y person to harm themselves, then person X is still morally responsible, even though maybe not intentionally or directly, of hurting person Y. Their actions and desires corresponded to a set of influences on another person's actions, thus they are responsible in some way. Additionally, Frankfurt’s contributions do not make room for instances where Jones4 reasoning for doing an action ‘A’ might coincide with Black, but he decides to do something else, action ‘B’, which results in Black forcing him to do ‘A’. In this instance, should Jones be exempt from moral responsibility even though he originally had reason to do that very action? This is why I make the distinction that in order for someone to be exempt from the moral implications of an action, they would have to be aware of their options, or lack thereof. For example, in the argument of Jones4, if Jones’s desire and consequent decision did not align with Black, it would be changed, but if he were fully informed of his actual lack of option, he could not be applied moral responsibility whether he agreed with Black or