Abstract
In a fascinating recent article, Michael Otsuka seeks to bypass the debates about the Principle of Alternative Possibilities by presenting and defending a different, but related, principle, which he calls the “Principle of Avoidable Blame.” According to this principle, one is blameworthy for performing an act only if one could instead have behaved in an entirely blameless manner. Otsuka claims that although Frankfurt-cases do undermine the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, they do not undermine the Principle of Avoidable Blame. In this brief paper, we offer a critical discussion of the core of Otsuka’s argument, especially the claim that his favored principle cannot be refuted by Frankfurt-cases. We do not believe that Otsuka has offered good reason to suppose that the Principle of Avoidable Blame—and the related incompatibilism—fares any better than the original Principle of Alternative Possibilities.
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Notes
For a helpful selection, see McKenna and Widerker (2003).
Otsuka (1998).
Otsuka (1998, pp. 687–688).
Otsuka (1998, p. 688).
Someone might be tempted to interpret the relevant phrase in an even stronger sense. According to this “super-strong” sense, not only must the agent initiate the alternative sequence voluntarily, but she also must end up behaving voluntarily in the alternative sequence. This sense, however, would make (PAB) clearly vulnerable to Frankfurt-examples, since Jones does not end up behaving voluntarily in the alternative sequence in which Black forces him to kill Smith. Otsuka does not endorse this “super-strong” sense (see footnote 9, below).
Otsuka (1998, p. 688).
Importantly, not every bit of behavior in the counterfactual sequence must be voluntary. The agent may well “end up” behaving involuntarily, but for PAB to be satisfied, the causal chain leading to the counterfactual upshot must at least have been initiated voluntarily. Otsuka says explicitly that although it must have been in the agent’s voluntary control whether or not she ended up behaving in a blameless manner, “I need not claim that the behavior itself must have been voluntary” (Otsuka 1998, p. 688). This shows that Otsuka clearly does not endorse what we called the “super-strong” sense in footnote 7. We are grateful to Otsuka for helping us understand this point.
Otsuka (1998, p. 691).
Otsuka cites Frankfurt (1969, p. 835), which reads as follows: “The assumption that Black can predict what [Jones] will decide to do does not beg the question of determinism. We can imagine that [Jones] has often confronted the alternatives—A and B—that he now confronts, and that his face has invariably twitched when he was about to decide to do A and never when he was about to decide to do B. Knowing this, and observing the twitch, Black would have a basis for prediction. This does, to be sure, suppose that there is some sort of causal relation between [Jones’s] state at the time of the twitch and his subsequent states. But any plausible view of decision or of action will allow that reaching a decision and performing an action both involve earlier and later phases, with causal relations between them, and such that the earlier phases are not themselves part of the decision or of the action. The example does not require that these earlier phases be deterministically related to still earlier events.” It is not clear that this passage posits that the twitch is caused by some thought-process or other, of which we then might wonder whether it is in the agent’s control. In particular, it is unclear whether, in speaking of distinct “phases,” Frankfurt was thinking of phases of the causal process leading to action or perhaps phases of practical reasoning. If the former, then no thought processes need be involved at all.
Otsuka (1998, p. 694).
Otsuka (1998, p. 696).
Otsuka (1998, p. 696).
To see why this sort of alternative possibility lacks robustness, consider the following account of robustness from Pereboom (2001, p. 26):
Robustness For an alternative possibility to be relevant to explaining why an agent is morally responsible for an action, it must satisfy the following characterization: she could have willed something different from what she actually willed such that she understood that by willing it she would thereby be precluded from moral responsibility for the action.
According to this account of robustness, the relevant agent in a Frankfurt case does not have a robust alternative possibility. If we interpret PAB according to the “weak” interpretation, then, it is puzzling how the proponent of PAB could support the claim that the agent in a Frankfurt case is blameworthy.
For this point in the context of an assessment of (PAP), see Fischer (1994, pp. 131–159, 1999a, 2002).
Otsuka (1998, pp. 698–700).
In personal correspondence, Otsuka has suggested that he could modify his dilemma by focusing more generally on the events that precede the twitch, whatever they happen to be, rather than insisting that those events must be thought-processes. Interpreted in this way, we would accept the second horn of his dilemma, according to which the events that precede the twitch are not under Jones’s voluntary control. Otsuka goes on to argue (Otsuka 1998, p. 692) that this horn is problematic because in order for Black to intervene in such a way that Jones could not have behaved blamelessly, Black would have to set things up such that he would literally force Jones to commit the murder in the alternative sequence. Otsuka then observes that Jones would not be blameworthy for the murder in this circumstance, and he concludes that PAB is thus safe from counterexample. But a successful counterexample against PAB does not require that Jones is blameworthy in the alternative sequence; rather, blameworthiness in the actual sequence is sufficient. We thus do not see any reason to think that taking the second horn of his dilemma (when the focus is on the events that precede the twitch) is problematic.
Here we have focused primarily on Otsuka’s intriguing suggestion that (PAB) can side-step the problems (especially those posed by the Frankfurt cases) for (PAP). Otsuka concedes that the Frankfurt cases do indeed show the falsity of (PAP). There are various objections to the contention that the Frankfurt cases successfully refute (PAP), including the vexing “dilemma defense” presented by Kane (1996, pp. 142–145); Widerker (1995) and Ginet (1996). A discussion of such objections is clearly beyond the scope of this critical evaluation of Otsuka. For a preliminary discussion of some of the objections, see Fischer (1999b). It should be noted that placing the prior-signs before any of the thought-processes raises worries pertinent to the Dilemma Defense; but we believe that such worries can be answered, and, in any case, we are here focusing on whether Otsuka has a distinct approach to defending incompatibilism—an approach not identical to or reducible to the invocation of the Dilemma Defense on behalf of (PAP).
References
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Fischer, J.M., Tognazzini, N.A. Blame and Avoidability: A Reply to Otsuka. J Ethics 14, 43–51 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9056-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9056-0