QuestionsAre we free?Responsible without being able to do otherwise: Frankfurt cases
Are we free?Free without absolute free will

Responsible without being able to do otherwise: Frankfurt cases

Frankfurt cases (Jones and Black)

Harry Frankfurt 1929 · 2023One can be responsible without having been able to do otherwise; being free is wanting what one wants to want.
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What it claims

The principle of alternate possibilities ("one is responsible only if one could have done otherwise") is false.

Why

Jones acts on his own, though Black would have forced the same act: he is responsible without being able to do otherwise.

The same idea through history
Robert NozickFrankfurt says in a footnote that Robert Nozick had already devised, in lectures several years before, an example of the same kind against the principle of alternate possibilities.
Harry Frankfurt1969Frankfurt publishes the Jones and Black example and concludes that the principle "one is responsible only if one could have done otherwise" is false.
In short

"Responsible without being able to do otherwise: Frankfurt cases" is an argument by Harry Frankfurt ("Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility", 1969, 1969) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: free without absolute free will). Its claim: The principle of alternate possibilities ("one is responsible only if one could have done otherwise") is false. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 3 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

"Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility", 1969
Valid

For centuries, almost everyone thought we can only be blamed for what we could have avoided doing. If that were true, a fully determined world would rule out responsibility. In 1969, Harry Frankfurt offers a short story to show that this principle is false: a man can be responsible for what he does even if he could not have done otherwise. If he is right, the old argument against freedom in a determined world loses its base.

P1Black wants Jones to do a certain action. He waits until Jones is about to make up his mind, and he intervenes only if he sees that Jones is going to decide something else; in that case he makes sure (by a threat, a drug or a direct action on the brain) that Jones decides what Black wants and does it.
P2With Black ready to intervene, Jones cannot do anything other than what Black wants: whatever Jones is inclined to decide, Black will get his way.
P3Jones decides on his own, for his own reasons, and does the action. Black never needs to intervene. Jones is then just as responsible as if Black had not been there: the fact that he could not have done otherwise played no role in what led him to act.
P4 · implicit premiseIf the principle of alternate possibilities were true, someone who could not have done otherwise would not be responsible for what he did.
Therefore the principle of alternate possibilities ("one is responsible only if one could have done otherwise") is false.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, one could accept the whole story and keep the principle, by saying that Jones has hidden alternatives or is not really responsible. That is exactly what the critics claim.
The argument is valid. P1 and P2 give: Jones could not have done otherwise. P3 says he is responsible. With P4, the principle of alternate possibilities would be contradicted by this case, so it is false. The whole debate is about P2: does Jones really have no alternative at all?
Analogy. A guard locks the door of a room, but Mary had decided to stay. She could not have left, and yet she stayed of her own accord. We would not tell her: "It is not your doing, the door was locked."

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

R
Robert Kane and David Widerker 1995 · attacks premise 2

How does Black know what Jones will decide? He needs a sign before the decision. Either the sign guarantees Jones's decision (the world is determined): then those who think responsibility requires indeterminism will not grant that Jones is responsible. Or the sign does not guarantee it: then Jones could have chosen otherwise, and not just as a mere flicker, but as a real choice. Either way, the case proves nothing against the principle.

Frankfurt replies
Harry Frankfurt 1969 · 1969 note, written before the objection
Frankfurt imagines that Black predicts thanks to a sign, for example a twitch of Jones's face when he is about to choose A. He says that this assumption does not force us to suppose determinism: it is enough that decisions have earlier phases causally related to later ones, without those earlier phases being themselves deterministically related to still earlier events.
D
Derk Pereboom 2001
Even with a sign that determines nothing, a case without alternatives can be built. Joe wonders whether to cheat on his taxes. Only a strong moral reason could change his mind, and it does not always occur. A neurosurgeon has installed a device that, if it detected such a reason, would force Joe to cheat. No moral reason appears, Joe cheats on his own and the device is never used. Joe seems responsible, even for a believer in indeterminism, and yet he could not have chosen otherwise.
See the rest of the debate (2)
C
Carl Ginet, Stewart Goetz, David Widerker 2002
One may worry that the absence of a moral reason in Joe is itself, in practice, causally sufficient for his deciding to cheat. Then we are back on the first horn of the dilemma: the sign determines the decision.
A
Alfred Mele and David Robb 1998
The sign can be removed. Black has set up in Jones's brain a process that, at the time of the decision, will make Jones vote for the wanted candidate, unless Jones decides to do so on his own at that time. The process looks for no sign and does not interfere with Jones's deliberation. When Jones decides on his own, he seems responsible, though he could not have decided otherwise.
The debate goes on (our summary) The debate goes on. Kane replied in 2003 to the Mele and Robb cases, and the literature on "no-sign" or "buffer" cases is huge. Frankfurt's supporters hold that these carefully built cases are enough; his critics hold that, once the case is precise enough, Jones either keeps a real alternative or loses his responsibility. Neither side has won.
Peter Naylor, then John Martin Fischer (who names the "flickers of freedom") 1984 · attacks premise 2

Jones does have an alternative: Black stays idle only because he sees that Jones will decide on his own what Black wants. Jones could have refrained from deciding it on his own, and Black would have intervened. This is a small alternative, a "flicker of freedom", but it is enough for the principle to hold.

Frankfurt replies
John Martin Fischer 1994
Frankfurt's allies may concede these flickers, but deny that they are "robust" enough to ground a judgment of responsibility. In the other scenario, Jones does not choose: Black, through the device, causes the "choice". An alternative in which Jones does not act, where he is Black's puppet, cannot be the one that matters for his actual responsibility.
F
Flicker theorists
"Robust" or not, this alternative may be the only kind that supporters of the principle need: if what Jones would do in the other scenario counts as a "doing" in a broad sense, then there is a sense in which he would have done otherwise.
The debate goes on (our summary) Frankfurt did not claim that his cases remove every difference between what happens and what could have happened. He holds that not being able to do otherwise plays no role in what makes Jones act. Critics answer that this distinction holds only if one already accepts that only the actual causes matter.