The Principle of Alternate Possibilities
The principle of alternate possibilities forms part of an influential argument for the incompatibility of responsibility and causal determinism, as detailed below:
- PAP: An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent is free.
- An agent is free only if causal determinism is false.
- Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.
Traditionally, compatibilists (defenders of the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, like Alfred Ayer and Walter Terence Stace) try to reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when they would have done otherwise had they wanted to do otherwise. Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.
Read more about this topic: Libertarianism (metaphysics), Harry Frankfurt
Famous quotes containing the words principle and/or alternate:
“Country people do not behave as if they think life is short; they live on the principle that it is long, and savor variations of the kind best appreciated if most days are the same.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Germany is a queer country: one can’t regard it dispassionately. I alternate between hating it thoroughly, stick, stock and stone, and yearning over it fit to break my heart. I can’t help feeling it a young and adorable country—adolescent—with the faults of adolescence.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)