Frankfurt examples

[cih1355]

Frankfurt examples are hypothetical situations that demonstrate that a person is morally responsible for his choices even though he does not have the ability to choose otherwise. Some compatibilists use these examples to show that being morally responsible for one's actions does not require one to have the ability to choose otherwise.

Here is an example of a Frankfurt example. Suppose there is a neurosurgeon who implants a device in someone's brain and that person does not know about it. Suppose that he is at the voting booth. Suppose he always acts according to his desires. If he does not have the desire to vote Republican, the device will change his desire and cause him to have the desire to vote Republican. If he already has the desire to vote Republican, the device will not do anything. Suppose he already has the desire to vote Republican and he actually does vote Republican. The device did not do anything because he already had the desire to vote Republican. He freely chose to vote and he was morally responsible for his action. He was not forced to vote. He was in a situation where could not have chosen otherwise. If he did not have the desire to vote Republican, the device would have changed his desires. He freely chose to vote Republican even though he could not have done otherwise. The device did not force him to vote Republican. In fact, the device did not do anything. He was guaranteed to vote Republican, but he was still morally responsible for his actions.

What do you think of this example?

 

[Hungus]

Technically they are Frankfurt Style Counterexamples or Frankfurt-style cases and they are called that because of their relation to PAP (principle of alternative possibilities). It is a pretty classic rendition, what specifically are you looking for? Edwards, Luther and Augustine held better arguments and I personally only resort to FSCs when forced to by modern or post modern philosophy. Without PAP, FSC is basically meaningless because you need not pass older philosophies. Of course I am a soft determinist or compatibilist.


If you have not yet done so, look at the frankfurt articles on STEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Compatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

At issue here is if a person with no choice can be considered morally responsible for their own actions. In the case of FSC the use of the counterfactual intervener is introduced to remove the possibility of actual choice (the neurosurgeon and his device in your example) Scripturally I see no evidence that we have any sort of libertarian free will, rather free will should be defined as Edwards/Sproul have most lately espoused it wherein we are always free to choose that which we most desire at any given moment and nothing else. Of course we would never choose anything else so man cannot contradict this. Can man be held accountable in this? certainly he can be held accountable via his own character and actions and even choices as though freely made even though there was no real choice in them. We are judge-able first and foremost because our Creator says we are and we cannot forget that no matter the example given, the rest simply becomes hypothetical.