Abstract

MOYA, CARLOS J. Alternatives, Responsibility, and Reasons-Responsiveness. Ideas y Valores [online]. 2009, vol.58, n.141, pp.45-65. ISSN 0120-0062.

This paper is intended to defend the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PPA) against two recent putative counterexamples to it, inspired by the one that Harry Frankfurt designed forty years ago. The first three sections provide a summary of the state of the art. In the remaining sections, the counterexamples to pap of Widerker's (“Brain-Malfunction-W”) and Pereboom's (“Tax Evasion”) are successively presented and discussed. We hold that both examples breach at least one of two conditions that are required in order to refute pap, namely, (1) that the agent is morally responsible for his/her decision and (2) that s/he lacks any morally significant (“robust”) alternatives to it. Regarding (1), the examples face several problems concerning the “reasons-responsiveness” of the agent's mechanism of deliberation and decision making, which throws doubts upon his/her moral responsibility. Regarding (2), we try to show that the respective agents have robust alternatives within their reach. We conclude, then, that pap is not refuted by these examples.

Keywords : moral responsibility; Principle of Alternative Possibilities; Frankfurt cases; reasons-responsiveness; robust alternatives; Widerker; Pereboom.

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