Alternative possibilities in context
Frankfurt cases are often presented as counterexamples to the principle that one is morally responsible for one’s action only if one could have acted otherwise. But ‘could have acted otherwise’ is context-sensitive; it’s therefore open to a proponent of this principle to reply that although there is...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2021
|
| _version_ | 1797109274968588288 |
|---|---|
| author | Kaiserman, A |
| author_facet | Kaiserman, A |
| author_sort | Kaiserman, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Frankfurt cases are often presented as counterexamples to the principle that one is morally responsible for one’s action only if one could have acted otherwise. But ‘could have acted otherwise’ is context-sensitive; it’s therefore open to a proponent of this principle to reply that although there is a salient sense in which agents in Frankfurt-style cases couldn’t have acted otherwise, there’s another, different sense in which they could have, and it is this latter sense which is relevant to what we are morally responsible for doing. In this paper, I will evaluate the prospects of this contextualist response. I will argue that despite some initial signs of promise, the response fails, for reasons that were clearly anticipated in Frankfurt’s original paper.
|
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:39:30Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:85c28749-d13f-4285-a677-68cdaddbbf42 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:39:30Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:85c28749-d13f-4285-a677-68cdaddbbf422023-04-04T09:51:16ZAlternative possibilities in contextJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:85c28749-d13f-4285-a677-68cdaddbbf42EnglishSymplectic ElementsTaylor & Francis2021Kaiserman, AFrankfurt cases are often presented as counterexamples to the principle that one is morally responsible for one’s action only if one could have acted otherwise. But ‘could have acted otherwise’ is context-sensitive; it’s therefore open to a proponent of this principle to reply that although there is a salient sense in which agents in Frankfurt-style cases couldn’t have acted otherwise, there’s another, different sense in which they could have, and it is this latter sense which is relevant to what we are morally responsible for doing. In this paper, I will evaluate the prospects of this contextualist response. I will argue that despite some initial signs of promise, the response fails, for reasons that were clearly anticipated in Frankfurt’s original paper. |
| spellingShingle | Kaiserman, A Alternative possibilities in context |
| title | Alternative possibilities in context |
| title_full | Alternative possibilities in context |
| title_fullStr | Alternative possibilities in context |
| title_full_unstemmed | Alternative possibilities in context |
| title_short | Alternative possibilities in context |
| title_sort | alternative possibilities in context |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kaisermana alternativepossibilitiesincontext |