PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Moral Responsibility, Incompatibilism, Compatibilism
Document Summary
Freedom of the will: 1] a capacity of an agent to 2] choose according to her preferences 3] from amongst a set of relevant alternatives such that 4] she is responsible for that choice or action. Incompatibilism: an agent who is coerced or manipulated is (typically) not morally responsible for her actions: moral responsibility and coercion are incompatible. Frankfurt on alternate possibilities: coercion and pap. When we excuse a person who has been coerced, we do not excuse him because he was unable to do otherwise. Jones decides for reasons of his own to do something, then someone threatens him with a very harsh penalty (so harsh that any reasonable person would submit to the threat) unless he does precisely that, and jones does it. I think this will depend on the roles we think were played, in leading him to act, by his original decision and by the threat (frankfurt 831)
