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A paradox concerning Frankfurt examples

  • S.I.: Real Possibilities, Indeterminism and Free Will
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Abstract

The set with the following members is inconsistent: F-Lesson: A person can be blameworthy for performing an action even though she cannot refrain from performing it. Equivalence: ‘Ought not’ is equivalent to ‘impermissible.’ OIC: ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’ and ‘ought not’ implies ‘can refrain from.’ BRI: Necessarily, one is morally blameworthy for doing something only if it is overall morally impermissible for one to do it. Since Equivalence seems unassailable, one can escape the inconsistency by renouncing any one of the other members. I first argue against BRI and then motivate a replacement for it that ties blameworthiness to belief in impermissibility.

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Notes

  1. There is an excellent collection of papers on Frankfurt examples in Widerker and McKenna (2003).

  2. Endorsers of BRI include Smith (1991, p. 271), Widerker (1991, p. 223), (Fields 1994, pp. 408–409), Copp (1997, 2003, pp. 286–287), Fischer (2006, p. 218), Arpaly (2006, p. 91, n. 3), Campbell (2011, pp. 33–34.) In both BRI and OIC, ‘ought’ and ‘impermissibility’ express overall obligation and overall impermissibility respectively and not prima facie obligation (or impermissibility). Obligation statements are agent and time relativized, but I will for the most part suppress these indices.

  3. Against F-Lesson, see, e.g., van Inwagen (1983), Ginet (1996), Kane (1996), and Widerker (2003). Against OIC, see, e.g., Williams (1965), Stocker (1971), White (1975), Lemmon (1987), Sinnott-Armstrong (1988), and Widerker (1991).

  4. In favor of F-Lesson, see, e.g., Fischer and Ravizza (1998), Pereboom (2001), Mele and Robb (1998), and Haji (1998, 2016). In defense of OIC, see, e.g., Zimmerman (1996), Vranas (2007), Streumer (2007), and Haji (2002).

  5. I have not come across any argument for BRI.

  6. See also Urmson (1958), Feldman (1978, p. 48), Heyd (1982), and Mellema (1991, p. 17, pp. 125–129).

  7. See also, e.g., Chisholm (1963), Mellema (1991), and Driver (1992).

  8. Kevin Reinhart, emphasizing the age-old roots of discouraged and recommended acts and their prevalence in everyday life, reports that ‘It is noteworthy that Anasri (1972) finds that the five-fold system is implied in texts which predate the formal development of the system. It is reasonably clear, in any case, from the grammatical forms used (passive participle) that most of the terminology of the five-fold system is extra-Quaranic’ (1983, p. 201, n. 21).

  9. If one has qualms about the category of the amoral, this principle can be modified in this way: Other things equal, one is more blameworthy for doing something that it is impermissible for one to do (if one does it while nonculpably believing that it is impermissible for one to do it) than for doing something that it is not impermissible for one to do (while nonculpably believing that it is impermissible for one to do it).

  10. An indirectly free action derives its freedom from the freedom of other actions to which it is suitably related. A directly free action is free independently of inheriting its freedom from the freedom of other events.

  11. Zimmerman also favors a principle of this sort. See, e.g., Zimmerman (1988, 1997, 2014).

  12. Further refinements to a principle of this sort, having to do with the possibility of suberogatory actions, may be found in Haji (2016).

  13. I’ve responded to various other concerns with BRBI in, e.g., Haji (2012, 2016).

  14. The prerequisites principle here may be formulated, roughly, in this way: If you ought to do something, A, and you can’t do A without doing B because B is a necessary prerequisite to doing A, then you ought to do B too (see, e.g., Feldman (1986, pp. 41–42), and Zimmerman (1996, p. 73; 2014, pp. 52–56).

  15. Capes (2012, pp. 428–430), in the end, rejects BRI too by invoking what he considers an effective counterexample.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to two anonymous referees for this journal for their comments and suggestions. This paper was written during my tenure of a fellowship awarded by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities (CIH) at the University of Calgary. I’m grateful to the CIH for its generous support.

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    Ishtiyaque Haji

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Haji, I. A paradox concerning Frankfurt examples. Synthese 196, 87–103 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1025-0

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