Weak reasons-responsiveness meets its match: in defense of David Widerker’s attack on PAP

Philosophical Studies 150 (2):271-283 (2010)
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Abstract

David Widerker, long an opponent of Harry Frankfurt’s attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, has recently come up with his own Frankfurt-style scenario which he claims might well be a counterexample to PAP. Carlos Moya has argued that this new scenario is not a counterexample to PAP, because in it the agent is not really blameworthy, since he lacks weak reasons-responsiveness, a property that John Fischer has argued is a necessary condition of practical rationality, and hence of moral responsibility. I argue that in Widerker’s scenario the agent is indeed blameworthy, even though he lacks WRR; and that therefore this scenario is a counterexample not only to PAP, but also to Fischer’s claim that WRR is necessary for blameworthiness.

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Actual Control - Demodalising Free Will.David Heering - 2020 - Dissertation, University of Leeds

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References found in this work

Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1998 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Mark Ravizza.
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829-839.
Living Without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Living without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (211):308-310.

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