Abstract

The ‘Frankfurt View’ (FV) alleges that the ‘principle of alternate possibilities’ (PAP) is undermined by ‘Frankfurt cases,’ cases in which the agent could not have done otherwise and yet is morally responsible for what he or she has done. In this paper I provide a partial defense of PAP—partial because it applies only to responsibility for acts and omissions; I endorse FV’s claim that PAP fails with regard to responsibility for decisions. But I accept FV’s claim that Frankfurt agents are responsible for their decisions, acts, and omissions; I argue not merely that my proposed version of PAP for acts and omissions is compatible with this claim, but that by including an appeal to PAP so construed we can provide a defense of this claim that is superior to those standardly provided by FV’s supporters. I argue further that the account presented does a superior job of defending intuitively correct results in related cases, such as Fischer and Ravizza’s ‘Penned-In Sharks’ case and McIntyre’s ‘Princess’ case.