著者

吉原 雅子

出版者

昭和女子大学

雑誌

學苑 (ISSN:13480103)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.796, pp.14-23, 2007-02-01

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A person is morally responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise. This principle (the Principle of Alternative Possibilities) has been widely accepted, but Harry Frankfurt presented a counterexample to this principle, which radically altered the direction of debate on free will and moral responsibility, and compatibility of these two with determinism. Frankfurt proposed to replace the principle with "a person is not morally responsible for what she has done if she did it only because she could not have done otherwise". But I think this revision is not convincing for three reasons. (1) Frankfurt uses the expression 'because' ambiguously. (2) He doesn't succeed, in explaining why it is. necessary to use the expression 'only because' instead of 'because'. (3) We can think up counterexamples to this revised version too.