PHIL 1611 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sui Generis, Glendon College
9 Mar 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Principle of alternate possibilities (pap): a person is morally responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise. Main thesis: this principle as it stands is false: a person can be morally responsible even if she could not have done otherwise. Mistake to conflate, confuse, coercion with the principle: they are distinct. Jones has decided and is about to throw a rock at a window. A person then puts a gun to his head and tells him to throw a rock at the window. Jones1: the threat exerted no influence on jones: he acts the way he wants indifferent to everything else. He would have done it anyway, regardless of the threat. The threat exerted absolutely no influence on him, he does what he wants to do no matter what the cost. thus, the threat was no sufficient for jones1 to perform the action.
