Eleonore Stump has argued that a proponent of libertarian freedom must maintain that an agent is sometimes morally responsible for his mental action and that such moral responsibility is incompatible with that mental action’s being causally determined. Nevertheless, she maintains that this moral responsibility does not require that the agent be free to perform another mental action (act otherwise). In this paper, I argue that Stump fails to make a good case against the view that moral responsibility requires the freedom (...) to act otherwise. (shrink)

Frankfurt-style cases challenge the intuitively plausible “Principle of Alternative Possibilities” (pap), which claims that moral responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. Most such cases have familiar responses by defenders of the pap, most notably the “dilemma defense” levied against traditional Frankfurt-style cases. However, one particular style – buffered alternatives cases – are even more challenging. The ingenuity of these cases lies in the introduction of a necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for doing otherwise, which acts as a buffer between the agent and (...) potential alternatives. I develop a new dilemma for buffered alternatives Frankfurt-style cases which shows that they too fail to constitute counterexamples to the pap. I argue that the buffer, though it may remove certain alternative possibilities, shifts the locus of responsibility to earlier provisional or character-forming decisions. These prior, responsibility-conferring decisions cannot be said to have been made without the ability to do otherwise. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that we ought to accept an agent-causal view of free and responsible action. First, I set the stage for this claim by highlighting our intuitions regarding moral responsibility and freedom, and by ruling out competing positions. I support Harry Frankfurt's claim that responsibility does not require the ability to do otherwise. I go beyond this claim, however, to argue that responsibility requires that one be the true originator of one's action, and that this requires a (...) kind of freedom that is incompatible with determinism. To bolster this last claim, I argue against the compatibilist, “guidance control” view of John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza. I believe the weaknesses of their interesting and compelling view denote potential problems for any compatibilist position. After arguing for incompatibilism, I argue against non-agent-causal incompatibilist views. Specifically, I argue against Robert Kane's “teleological intelligibility theory.” In the final chapters of my project, I lay out my agent-causal view. I argue that agent-causation is possible and coherent if one accepts a realist view of causes. I appeal to Randolph Clarke's idea that the relation between agent and cause is the same relation as that between event and cause. This serves to alleviate the “mysteriousness” of agent-causation. Having shown that it is possible and coherent, and having ruled out competing views in preceding chapters, I am now in position to claim that agent-causation is the correct view. I also demonstrate that it is a compelling position in its own right because it accords with our most basic understanding of ourselves as agents. (shrink)