NDLI: The Kane-Widerker Objection to Frankfurt Examples

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Cain, James
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	I will argue that the Kane-Widerker objection to Frankfurt examples is much weaker than is generally recognized. The Kane-Widerker objection holds that proponents of Frankfurt examples beg the question against incompatibilist accounts of free and responsible action by constructing examples that tacitly assume a compatibilist account of moral responsibility; that is, they assume that one can have non-derivative responsibility for choices that were not undetermined prior to their occurrence. The notion of an event, E, being ‘undetermined prior to its occurrence’ is ambiguous. It can mean either (1) with respect to each time t $_{ 0 }$ prior to E’s occurrence, it is not the case that at t $_{ 0 }$ E’s occurrence is determined to take place, or it can mean (2) with respect to the whole collection of times prior to E’s occurrence, E’s occurrence is not determined to take place. Kane’s argument shows that (under certain constraints) if a choice is to be undetermined (in the second sense) prior to its occurrence, then a prior-sign Frankfurt example cannot be successful. But he fails to show that prior-sign Frankfurt examples cannot be constructed in which the choice is undetermined (in the first sense) prior to its occurrence, and he would need to do so in order to sustain his charge that those using Frankfurt examples beg the question against traditional incompatibilist accounts of responsibility. Widerker’s argument avoids the above problem, but at the cost of only applying to a rather restricted set of Frankfurt examples.
Starting Page	949
Ending Page	957
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00483893
Journal	Philosophia
Volume Number	42
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15749274
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2014-07-10
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Frankfurt example Free choice Kane/Widerker objection Principle of alternate possibilities Moral responsibility Undetermined action Philosophy Epistemology Ethics Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Mind Philosophy of Science
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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