Experiment #42 · Thought experiment

Frankfurt Cases

Moral responsibility without alternative possibilities

Harry Frankfurt · 1969 · Free will, moral responsibility

First published: H. Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility", *J. Phil.* 66 (1969): 829–839.

Black secretly wants Jones to do X. If Jones is about to choose otherwise, Black will intervene — but Jones chooses X on his own. Is Jones responsible?

Frankfurt undercut the long-standing assumption that moral responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. Imagine a neuroscientist Black who can monitor Jones's deliberation and intervene if Jones is about to make a choice Black dislikes. In fact Jones chooses what Black wanted, without intervention. Jones could not have done otherwise (Black would have stopped him), but his choice was his own. Frankfurt concludes that responsibility does not require alternative possibilities — only that the action flow from the agent's own deliberative process. The case decoupled compatibilism from any commitment to could-have-done-otherwise, and it remains the standard pressure point on libertarian theories of agency.

Formulation

Agent Jones deliberates and decides to do X. Observer Black, unbeknownst to Jones, would have intervened to force X had Jones been about to decide otherwise. Black does not intervene. Question: is Jones morally responsible for doing X, despite lacking the genuine ability to refrain?

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Dimensions Engaged

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Observer

Targets Observer · Agency: is agency constituted by the actual structure of one's deliberation, or by the counterfactual availability of alternatives?

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Time

Bears on Time · Freedom: if responsibility does not require alternative possibilities, libertarian free will loses one of its central motivations.

Responses — How Schools Engage

Affirms / takes the bait 3

Determinism

Vindicates compatibilist determinism: agency and responsibility do not require indeterminism. Frankfurt cases free the determinist from the awkward project of explaining away the "could have done otherwise" intuition.

Naturalism

Modern compatibilism (Fischer, Watson) treats Frankfurt as definitive: responsibility tracks actual sequence agency, not modal availability of alternatives.

Reformed / Calvinist Theology

Compatible with Reformed compatibilism: God's sovereignty determines all outcomes, yet humans are morally responsible for actions arising from their own wills. Frankfurt cases secularise an old theological insight.

Denies / rejects the premise 1

Existentialism

The case misdescribes what choice is. Genuine freedom is not about counterfactual alternatives but about the lived experience of taking up a possibility — which Black's counterfactual presence does not touch.

Reframes the question 1

Catholic/Thomistic

Aquinas's view of voluntary action emphasises the rational structure of the choice, not the abstract modal alternatives; Frankfurt's conclusion is congenial, though Catholic moral theology retains a libertarian element for sin and grace.

Holds it inconclusive 1

Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism

Libertarians have produced sophisticated replies (the "flicker of freedom" strategy, agent-causation variants). The case is the central battleground; consensus is partial at best.