ABSTRACT
The critical issue concerning principle of alternative possibilities (PAP), then, is not whether it is always possible that an agent who is morally responsible for performing a certain action might have acted differently. David Widerker challenges another assumption upon which he believes case against principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) depends: that is, that if a fact is irrelevant to the explanation of why an agent performed a certain act, then this fact has no bearing on the agent’s moral responsibility for the act. Widerker regards the following as an even stronger counterexample to IRRB: Suppose that Green harms another person for some selfish reason, knowing very well that in doing so he is acting immorally. The fact that Green knew that he was acting immorally certainly does have a bearing, as Widerker suggests, on our considering him to be blameworthy for his act.
