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The causal structure of Frankfurt‐ and PAP‐style cases

The causal structure of Frankfurt‐ and PAP‐style cases Frankfurt‐style cases suggest that an agent's moral responsibility for an action supervenes on the causal history of that action—at least when epistemic considerations are held constant. However, PAP‐style cases suggest that moral responsibility does not supervene on causal history, for judgments concerning an agent's responsibility for an action are also sensitive to the presence of alternative—and causally idle—possibilities. I appeal to the causal modeling tradition and the definitions of actual causation that derive therefrom in an attempt to resolve this contradiction. I show that even the weakest definitions of actual causation proposed in the literature establish that some PAP‐style cases constitute genuine counterexamples to the supervenience thesis. I consider several responses to these counterexamples on behalf of the defenders of supervenience and show that they fail. Our best current thinking on causation thus appears to be inconsistent with an intuitive and widely held claim concerning the nature of moral responsibility. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Analytic Philosophy Wiley

The causal structure of Frankfurt‐ and PAP‐style cases

Rellihan, Matthew
Analytic Philosophy , Volume Early View – Mar 8, 2023
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24 pages

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
ISSN
2153-9596
eISSN
2153-960X
DOI
10.1111/phib.12296
Publisher site
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Abstract

Frankfurt‐style cases suggest that an agent's moral responsibility for an action supervenes on the causal history of that action—at least when epistemic considerations are held constant. However, PAP‐style cases suggest that moral responsibility does not supervene on causal history, for judgments concerning an agent's responsibility for an action are also sensitive to the presence of alternative—and causally idle—possibilities. I appeal to the causal modeling tradition and the definitions of actual causation that derive therefrom in an attempt to resolve this contradiction. I show that even the weakest definitions of actual causation proposed in the literature establish that some PAP‐style cases constitute genuine counterexamples to the supervenience thesis. I consider several responses to these counterexamples on behalf of the defenders of supervenience and show that they fail. Our best current thinking on causation thus appears to be inconsistent with an intuitive and widely held claim concerning the nature of moral responsibility.

Journal

Analytic Philosophy – Wiley

Published: Mar 8, 2023

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