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-- Principle of Alternative Possibilities...For the Philosophy/Morality dorks among us.

Principle of Alternative Possibilities...For the Philosophy/Morality dorks among us.

The Principle of Alternative Possibilities states that one is morally responsible for their actions *only if* they could do otherwise. For example, it would state you're not morally responsible for, say, kicking a puppy if someone holds a gun to your head and says "kick that fuckin' puppy!" because, at least logically, you have no other choice but to kick said puppy. The principle is associated with the proposition that coercion excuses moral responsibility in that when one is coerced to do something, their freedom to act otherwise is taken away, which I can't say I necessarily agree with. ANYway...

Harry Frankfurt speaks in his essay "Alternate Possibilities & Moral Responsibility" on this idea. Throughout, he shows how he feels the principle is ultimately false, but I'm not going to get into that; At least not right now...

In the beginning of his essay he brings up 4 different Jones'. Think of each Jones as a different individual with completely different personalities, wills, world-views etc.

-> Jones1 is a strong-willed individual and can make up his own mind. Someone come along and threatens him with some consequence unless he does precisely what the issuer of the threat says. In this case however Jones1 has already decided on his own to do the same action that the issuer of the threat asks him to do before being threatened, thus rendering the threat meaningless. It has no effect whatsoever on what Jones1 decides to do.

-> Jones2 is a very weak-willed individual. He gives into the slightest bit of pressure regardless of how he decides beforehand. Someone comes along and threatens him with something he finds unacceptable and he gives into the threat.

-> Jones3 is neither scared by the threat nor indifferent to it. He is "impressed" by it so that if he had not already made his mind up to do some action that coincided with the threat, the threat would coerce him to act in that way. It wasn't the threat that made him act a certain way, although he would have acted that way had he not already provided himself enough reason to do so. (Lets assume for the sake of discussion you can tell that he's acting from his own decision-making as it would be hard to distinguish in reality what the actual motivating factor is).

-> Jones4 knows a person called Black. Black has an agenda which includes an act he wants Jones4 to perform. Black will go to any length to ensure that Jones4 follows through with what Black wants but Black will only intervene if Jones4 decides to act in a way opposed to Black's wishes. Jones decides on his own to perform the action that Black wants without any notion of a threat from Black, if Jones4 is so inclined to act otherwise.




yay! visual aid:

X = Applies, O = Does not apply



My point of discussion is obviously to agree or disagree with anything posted or if you can think of any cases where, perhaps one is causally efficacious and morally responsible but has no other possibilities or where one is causally efficacious and there are alternate possibilities but one isn't morally responsible.

Discuss plz.

Can you give us a link to his essay? I just found this e-print, but it's not purchasable

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Can you give us a link to his essay? I just found this e-print, but it's not purchasable

I feel bad, what with it being copyrighted and all...


[[ LINK REMOVED ]]

I think the argument is flawed in that it presupposes that once a threat is made the threatened individual no longer has a choice. This is incorrect, the threatened person has a choice; they can choose to commit the immoral act or they can choose to risk having the threat executed. The moral choice would be to abstain from the immoral action and risk the execution of the threat. I find it funny that people are rarely willing to accept that some times maintaining one's moral or otherwise personal convictions has consequences and often involves sacrafice.

quote:

Originally posted by D-res I feel bad, what with it being copyrighted and all... [[ LINK REMOVED ]]

True that, I'm used to stuff being in the public domain, sorry

(By the way, can any of you use megaupload? It says there's no bandwidth for non-premium users You can take the file down if you prefer, by the way)

quote:

Originally posted by Moral Hazard I think the argument is flawed in that it presupposes that once a threat is made the threatened individual no longer has a choice. This is incorrect, the threatened person has a choice; they can choose to commit the immoral act or they can choose to risk having the threat executed. The moral choice would be to abstain from the immoral action and risk the execution of the threat. I find it funny that people are rarely willing to accept that some times maintaining one's moral or otherwise personal convictions has consequences and often involves sacrafice.

That was my first impression as well, reason why I'd like to read the real thing. I don't think his argument is that weak... at least, I'd rather believe it isn't

quote:

Originally posted by Moral Hazard I think the argument is flawed in that it presupposes that once a threat is made the threatened individual no longer has a choice. This is incorrect, the threatened person has a choice; they can choose to commit the immoral act or they can choose to risk having the threat executed. The moral choice would be to abstain from the immoral action and risk the execution of the threat. I find it funny that people are rarely willing to accept that some times maintaining one's moral or otherwise personal convictions has consequences and often involves sacrafice.

I agree the Principle is flawed in that respect however I feel it's not necessarily about not having the ability to choose otherwise, but rather, choosing otherwise could be illogical depending on the circumstances, which are endless.

If you're presented with the option of killing one person or have your whole family slaughtered, the logical choice would be to simply kill the one person, although this of course delves into individual morality and will.

If a person doesn't give a shit about their family, however one threatens them with the death of their family, unknowing of their careless attitude and then attempts to coerce the person into killing their friend to save their family, you run into a wall. The person who cares little or none about their family sees saving their friend as the logical choice, even if say, their friend is a deaf, blind, quadriplegic who contributes nothing to society. The utilitarian would beg that they just off the cripple, but I seem to be getting into a whole 'nother ballpark.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira True that, I'm used to stuff being in the public domain, sorry (By the way, can any of you use megaupload? It says there's no bandwidth for non-premium users You can take the file down if you prefer, by the way)

works fine for me, I'm not premium. Just type in the 3 letters, wait for the 40-odd seconds to count down and you should be all set.

quote:

Originally posted by D-res If you're presented with the option of killing one person or have your whole family slaughtered, the logical choice would be to simply kill the one person, although this of course delves into individual morality and will.

Not really.

Let's suppose, in this scenario, that if you don't kill an individual, your whole family is annihilated by someone else. The fact that someone else decided to exterminate your family is not a decision of yours, so it's illogical to believe the fault would fall upon you and that your action will have a direct impact on this.

The person who's threatening you could be lying: your family might not get killed even if you don't give in to the threats, and your family could be slaughtered in spite your obedience.

quote:

Originally posted by D-res works fine for me, I'm not premium. Just type in the 3 letters, wait for the 40-odd seconds to count down and you should be all set.

It probably works only in North America

Edit: w00t!　

quote:

Originally posted by Lira Not really. Let's suppose, in this scenario, that if you don't kill an individual, your whole family is annihilated by someone else. The fact that someone else decided to exterminate your family is not a decision of yours, so it's illogical to believe the fault would fall upon you and that your action will have a direct impact on this. The person who's threatening you could be lying: your family might not get killed even if you don't give in to the threats, and your family could be slaughtered in spite your obedience.

But if you refuse to follow through and your family dies would you not feel guilt and is to be guilty not to be morally responsible?

sonix would not approve of Jones4 being named Black.

quote:

Originally posted by D-res But if you refuse to follow through and your family dies would you not feel guilt and is to be guilty not to be morally responsible?

By refusing to kill the person you were instructed to you have committed a moral act. If the threatening individual follows through with their threat then they have committed an immoral act; however, their immorality does not negate your morality. You have remained true to your moral convictions... you made that choice, i8t may not be the logical one but morals are often opposed to logic. You likely would suffer from crippling guilt; however, this is the cost of your morallity. Like I said earlier, holding to principle has consequences, in the situation you describe this one of the consequences.

quote:

Originally posted by D-res But if you refuse to follow through and your family dies would you not feel guilt and is to be guilty not to be morally responsible?

Unless your family is killed by the person you were supposed to kill, I fail to see a direct link between both actions; and, also, I don't see how moral responsibility and guilt could be intrinsically related.

Here in Brazil, prisoners (who have managed to get hold of mobile phones) phone common citizens, pretending someone in their family was kidnapped and is now being held at gunpoint.
Let's use this in our first thought experiment: Jones⁵ has just received a phone call from one of these despicable fellows, and was told the following:

"Jones, we've just kidnapped your mother, and we're going to kill her if you don't pay us 20,000 dollars. If you call her, we'll kill her right away."

I wish I could have found the full text of the example I wanted to bring into this discussion, but short of typing it out myself, it doesn't look as though it will happen.

None-the-less, in his critique of Utilitarianism, Bernard Williams discusses this kind of idea of "negative responsibility", and though it's framed in a slightly different light, I think the example can help elucidate this issue more fully.

This is lifted directly from Wikipedia, and is (in my opinion) an adequate summary of Williams objection as it appears in Utilitarianism: For & Against:

quote:

One of Williams' famous arguments against utilitarianism centres on Jim, a scientist doing research in a South American country led by a brutal dictator. Jim finds himself in the central square of a small town facing 20 rebels, who are captured and tied up. The captain who has defeated them says that, if Jim will kill one of the rebels, the others will be released in honour of Jim's status as a guest. But if he does not, they will all be killed.

I want to first make clear that these are the complete details of the situation - there is no room for speculation regarding other possibilities. Either Jim kills one or twenty are killed by the dictator - there's no middle ground here.

For this discussion the problem that seems to arise is one of integrity with respect to one's personal projects. If it were simply a matter of calculated responsibility, it would be a non-issue, and the principle of utility would dictate our course of action. Unfortunately, it seems as though it really becomes an issue of Jim's integrity, and there are two options I see as readily apparent here:

1. Jim understands that killing one saves 20 and chooses to sacrifice his own integral project of "not killing others" for what sees as the morally right choice (saving 20).

2. Jim is so committed to his own project of pacifism that he cannot kill even one, and so it would follow that all the rebels are killed.

It might not seem odd to suggest that Jim would feel some measure of guilt should he choose the first option (he did still, after all, kill a man), but it might seem very odd to suggest that should he have chosen the second option, he may feel no guilt at all. In either situation Jim is making a decision that will end the lives of either one or twenty people, but that initial choice of whether or not anyone will die is something in which he has no agency.

Given this perspective, one may say that in either situation the most base moral act was in the hands of the dictator, and so of the "best of bad choices", should Jim choose to kill the one instead of allowing the twenty to be killed, it seems much more comfortable to say "He made the right choice." This, however, is only a comfortable solution for those who believe that morally right action can be derived entirely from logic/reason. In my experience, this rarely seems to be a plausible expectation - for it seems truly rare to me to encounter individuals who think of/act on moral responsibility based entirely on logical calculation.

Thus the question becomes whether or not you believe the question of moral agency can be resolved entirely to the dictator, or whether Jim can actually make a conclusively and satisfactory "morally right" decision.

And it's specifically because of this idea of integrity to one's own projects that I'm not sure he can. Either choice is going to alienate Jim from himself in some way, shape, or form regardless of the dictators influence.

A question I would raise is what constitutes a threat worthy of moral abdication? Threat of personal death or injury? Threat of blackmail? Threat of personal injury of a loved one? As Moral Hazard points out, there is always a fundamental choice regardless of whatever personal harm a certain decision risks.

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