Moral Responsibility Does Not Require the Power to Do Otherwise, But It Does Require at Least One Alternative Possibility

David Hunt’s “Blockage Argument” is designed to improve upon Frankfurt’s argument against Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) by removing the counterfactual intervener altogether and replacing it with a “wall” – a complete absence of any alternative possibilities. Some philosophers believe that Frankfurt successfully refuted PAP. The triumph of the Flicker Strategy over the Blockage Argument initially seems to lend some support to incompatibilism over compatibilism. Both determinism and blockage arguably lead to the same result: there is only one possible action available at any given time. The fact that moral responsibility requires at least one alternative possibility does not tip the balance in favor of incompatibilism over compatibilism. It would have if blockage and determinism were equivalent. Unlike blockage, determinism is compatible with certain counterfactuals that traditional compatibilists believe the ability to do otherwise reduces to.