Igniting the Flicker of Freedom: Revisiting the Frankfurt Scenario |
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Authors: | Garry Young |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Psychology, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, Yorkshire, LS29JT, UK |
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Abstract: | This paper aims to challenge the view that the sign present in many Frankfurt-style scenarios is insufficiently robust to
constitute evidence for the possibility of an alternate decision, and therefore inadequate as a means of determining moral
responsibility. I have amended Frankfurt’s original scenario, so as to allow Jones, as well as Black, the opportunity to monitor
his (Jones’s) own inclination towards a particular decision (the sign). Different outcome possibilities are presented, to
the effect that Jones’s awareness of his own inclinations leads to the conclusion that the sign must be either (a) a prior
determinate of the decision about to be made, (b) prior and indeterminate (therefore allowing for a contra-inclination decision
to be made), or (c) constitutive of a decision that Jones has made but is not yet aware of. In effect, this means that, prior
to the intervention of Black, Jones must have decided to do otherwise or could have so decided. Either way, although Frankfurt’s
conclusion, that Jones could not have done other than he did, is upheld, the idea that he could not have decided otherwise must be rejected, and with it the view that the sign is nothing more than a flicker of freedom insufficient for
assigning morally responsibility.
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Keywords: | Free will Determinism Self-monitoring Moral responsibility |
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