Getting to the Core of Alternate Possibilities and Compatibilism
friendlyostrich
Principle of Alternate Possibilities (AP) forever. AP says that one
must have been able "to have done otherwise" to be morally responsible
for his or her actions. Frankfurt cut to the heart of AP, paring it
down by a degree.
His argument is that AP is convincing to some because it sounds like
coercion, that is that a person could not have done otherwise because
he was somehow compelled to act as he did, for example if he or she
were under "mind-control." A person could have wanted to do what he or
she was forced to do, in which case he or she could be held morally
responsible for the action, in Frankfurt's writing.
He does cut some confusion out of the AP argument against
compatibilism, but I have found that he has left a problem equal to the
one he sought to rectify -- more important, in fact, because his clear
argument does not solve this problem I have found. Granted, one might
still be held responsible for something he or she was forced to do but
wanted to do anyway. However, this is false because the person could
not have WANTED to do otherwise. Compatibilism is therefore not saved
through Frankfurt's effort.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwCompatFrankfurt.htm
Harry Frankfurt's paper aiming to save compatibilism
PureAI
committing, we first need to understand what we are asking. People
like to point responsibility for actions because it gives them a method
of judging people's character and assigning punishments or rewards.
We can always move responsibility off of the individual onto external
factors like poverty, genetics, parents, education, and society. All
human action is based on some set of circumstances that led up to the
situation. I believe that can do whatever we want to do of our own
free will and choice, but that our own free will and choice is
completely dictated by our structure (genetics, soul, mind, etc), and
our environment. When assigning responsibility to people's actions
we need to understand our goal. Consciously and subconsciously, we
often rationalize punishments and responsibility based on our ideas of
vengeance. I believe people have a build in sense of fairness. Many
people also have a built in desire for power, popularity, and greed
which often outweighs their sense of fairness. When people harm us or
people we care about we often like to see the same or greater harm
inflicted upon them. Our primary goal should not be to deal out
vengeance. Inflicting vengeance is satisfying for a moment but
doesn't satisfy the lasting problems. Instead we need to look at the
broader problems and fix them. I'm not saying that we should let a
murderer go free because society is to blame, and not the murderer,
what I am saying is that we should fix the problem in the best way we
can. Both the murderer and society is to blame and we should fix them
both. It's best for everyone if we try to help the murderer not
murder people, and help society not create murderers.
I think to really understand which actions people are responsible for
committing, we first need to understand what we are asking. People
like to point responsibility for actions because it gives them a method
of judging people's character and assigning punishments or rewards.
We can always move responsibility off of the individual onto external
factors like poverty, genetics, parents, education, and society. All
human action is based on some set of circumstances that led up to the
situation. I believe that can do whatever we want to do of our own
free will and choice, but that our own free will and choice is
completely dictated by our structure (genetics, soul, mind, etc), and
our environment (parents, society, government, etc). So if we take
people out of the picture, then who is to blame? Our environment is
the way it is because of a progression of decisions and events that
occurred throughout the course of history which all are based on
decisions and events that occurred before them. So where did it all
start? Some people would say by God, others would say by some
semi-random set of circumstances of particles bumping into other
particles. If you go with the God approach, they God also must have
some motivations for actions (either internal or external whatever they
are), which could led down the same path into particles bumping into
particles. Therefore I could conclude that we should all put our blame
on the semi-random uncontrollable events thought the history of the
universe.
When assigning responsibility to people's actions we need to
understand our goal. Consciously and subconsciously, we often
rationalize punishments and responsibility based on our ideas of
vengeance. I believe people have a build in sense of fairness. Many
people also have a built in desire for power, popularity, and greed
which often outweighs their sense of fairness. When people harm us or
people we care about we often like to see the same or greater harm
inflicted upon them. Our primary goal should not be to deal out
vengeance. Inflicting vengeance is satisfying for a moment but
doesn't satisfy the lasting problems. Instead we need to look at the
broader problems and fix them. I'm not saying that we should let a
murderer go free because society is to blame, and not the murderer,
what I am saying is that we should fix the problem in the best way we
can. Both the murderer and society is to blame and we should fix them
both. It's best for everyone if we try to help the murderer not
murder people, and help society not create murderers.