ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a counterexample to what Harry Frankfurt dubbed ‘the principle of alternate possibilities’ (PAP): A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. An important alleged problem with Frankfurt’s story may be stated in the form of a dilemma. The chapter discusses a Frankfurt-style case that avoids the Robert Kane/David Widerker line of objection. Kane starts from a picture of deliberation informed by current neuroscience and by the libertarian theory of freedom he has defended in several places. Some philosophers have objected that blockage defeats the purpose of a Frankfurt-style case. In order for a Frankfurt-style case to present a genuine IRR-situation and be effective, the agent’s actual choice must not be caused by the circumstances that make it inevitable. In Frankfurt-style cases, the ‘intervener’ is a merely counterfactual intervener.
