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Igniting the Flicker of Freedom: Revisiting the Frankfurt Scenario

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Abstract

This paper aims to challenge the view that the sign present in many Frankfurt-style scenarios is insufficiently robust to constitute evidence for the possibility of an alternate decision, and therefore inadequate as a means of determining moral responsibility. I have amended Frankfurt’s original scenario, so as to allow Jones, as well as Black, the opportunity to monitor his (Jones’s) own inclination towards a particular decision (the sign). Different outcome possibilities are presented, to the effect that Jones’s awareness of his own inclinations leads to the conclusion that the sign must be either (a) a prior determinate of the decision about to be made, (b) prior and indeterminate (therefore allowing for a contra-inclination decision to be made), or (c) constitutive of a decision that Jones has made but is not yet aware of. In effect, this means that, prior to the intervention of Black, Jones must have decided to do otherwise or could have so decided. Either way, although Frankfurt’s conclusion, that Jones could not have done other than he did, is upheld, the idea that he could not have decided otherwise must be rejected, and with it the view that the sign is nothing more than a flicker of freedom insufficient for assigning morally responsibility.

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Notes

  1. Fischer and Ravizza (1998), for example, claim that moral responsibility is dependent upon the type of control condition that the protagonist is subject to – be it guidance (responsible) or regulative (not responsible). For detailed discussion on this and other aspects of Fischer and Ravizza’a position, see Haji (2005).

  2. Adapted from Schnall (2001).

  3. If by reliable indicator we mean that it indicates only what is likely to occur, then we are left to wonder: How likely is likely? If, on the other hand, the reliable indicator cannot indicate anything other than what the decision will be then this is suggestive of determinism. It also returns us to the question I posed earlier: What is the difference between Jones knowing what he is about to decide and knowing his actual decision if one necessarily follows from the other?

  4. For a detailed discussion on such capricious, forced-choice conditions, see Balaguer (2004).

  5. Even though, under these conditions, this rationalisation makes no difference to the decision, perhaps it provides us with a sense of freedom. This is compatible, I believe, with Korsgaard’s (1996) Kantian claim that in order to do anything, we must decide what to do as if we are free (p.163).

  6. Once again we are left to consider whether such an eventuality leads us towards determinism.

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Young, G. Igniting the Flicker of Freedom: Revisiting the Frankfurt Scenario. Philosophia 35, 171–180 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9058-8

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