Robust Alternatives and Responsibility
Abstract The Principle of Robust Alternatives (PRA) states that an agent is responsible for doing something only if he/she could have performed a ‘robust’ alternative: another action having a different moral or practical value. Defenders of PRA maintain that it is not refuted by a ‘Frankfurt case’,...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2004
|
| In: |
Journal of moral philosophy
Year: 2004, Volume: 1, Issue: 1, Pages: 21-29 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Abstract The Principle of Robust Alternatives (PRA) states that an agent is responsible for doing something only if he/she could have performed a ‘robust’ alternative: another action having a different moral or practical value. Defenders of PRA maintain that it is not refuted by a ‘Frankfurt case’, given that its agent can be seen as having had such an alternativeprovided that we properly qualify that for which she is responsible. I argue here against two versions of this defense. First, I show that those who maintain that a ‘Frankfurt agent’ is responsible forvoluntarily performing his/her action must attach moral significance to his/her luck. I proceed to discuss Carl Ginet's strategy of temporally qualifying ascriptions of responsibility, arguing that his counterexample to the principle that ‘If an agent is responsible for doing A @ t, then he/she is responsible for doing Asimpliciter’ is disanalogous to a Frankfurt case. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1745-5243 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of moral philosophy
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/174046810400100104 |