ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses primarily upon the freedom-relevant condition. In conversation, Gary Watson has convinced him that there are arguably other conditions – perhaps pertaining to psychological complexity or ‘normative competence’ – that are not naturally subsumed under the epistemic or freedom-relevant categories. The author has developed the most powerful challenge to the conclusion typically drawn from the Frankfurt-type cases that alternative possibilities are not required for moral responsibility: the flicker-of-freedom strategy. He argues that this strategy fails, in all its various forms. The basic problem is that the flicker of freedom it posits is too weak to ground our moral-responsibility ascriptions. The alternative possibilities envisaged are essentially irrelevant to the intuitive view that the agents in the Frankfurt-type cases are morally responsible for their actions. Finally, the author suggests that guidance control is the freedom-relevant condition sufficient for moral responsibility. That is, guidance control is all the freedom required for moral responsibility.
