ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the objections raised against it by David Widerker, because they are clear, forceful and representative of the general idea that has occurred also to others. A standard strategy for trying to show false the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) – the principle that alternative possibilities for action are required for moral responsibility – is what has come to be known as a Harry Frankfurt-style counterexample or a Frankfurt story, after Frankfurt’s well-known kind of counterexample to PAP. Although Frankfurt originally presented such a counterexample to PAP as part of an argument for compatibilism, it has come to seem to some philosophers as if Frankfurt stories teach a different lesson. In the course of attacking Frankfurt stories in which it appears that the victim has no alternative possibilities and yet has formed an indeterministic act of will for which he is responsible, Widerker attempts also to give a positive argument for PAP.
