The Principle of Alternative Possibilities
The principle of alternative possibilities forms part of an influential argument for the incompatibility of responsibility and causal determinism, as detailed below:
(1) PAP: An agent is responsible for an action only if said agent could have done otherwise.
(2) An agent could have done otherwise only if causal determinism is false.
(3) Therefore, an agent is responsible for an action only if causal determinism is false.
Traditionally, compatibilists (defenders of the compatibility of free will and determinism, like Alfred Ayer, Walter Terence Stace and Daniel C. Dennett) reject premise two, arguing that, properly understood, free will is not incompatible with determinism. According to the traditional compatibilist analysis of free will, an agent is free to do otherwise when he would have done otherwise had he wanted to do otherwise (Ayer, 1954). Agents may possess free will, according to the conditional analysis, even if determinism is true.
Read more about this topic: Frankfurt Cases
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