<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> The advent of Frankfurt-style counterexamples in the early 1970s posed a problem not merely for incompatibilists, but for compatibilists also. At that time compatibilists too were concerned to hold that the presence of alternative possibilities was necessary for moral responsibility. Such a classical compatibilism, I argue in this paper, should not have been left behind. I propose that we can use a Kratzer-style semantics of ‘can’ to model ‘could have done otherwise’ statements in such a way that the truth of such expressions is both (i) evidently consistent with determinism, and (ii) clearly such that Frankfurt-style counterexamples do not count as cases where the agent could not have done otherwise.</p></abstract>

The advent of Frankfurt-style counterexamples in the early 1970s posed a problem not merely for incompatibilists, but for compatibilists also. At that time compatibilists too were concerned to hold that the presence of alternative possibilities was necessary for moral responsibility. Such a classical compatibilism, I argue in this paper, should not have been left behind. I propose that we can use a Kratzer-style semantics of ‘can’ to model ‘could have done otherwise’ statements in such a way that the truth of such expressions is both (i) evidently consistent with determinism, and (ii) clearly such that Frankfurt-style counterexamples do not count as cases where the agent could not have done otherwise.

A Modest Classical Compatibilism

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"A Modest Classical Compatibilism"}

The advent of Frankfurt-style counterexamples in the early 1970s posed a problem not merely for incompatibilists, but for compatibilists also. At that time...

A Modest Classical Compatibilism

Published Online: Mar 06, 2018

Page range: 265 - 285

Received: Jul 27, 2017

Accepted: Feb 11, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0007

Keywords
Classical compatibilism, Angelika Kratzer, alternative possibilities, moral responsibility, Frankfurt-style counterexamples

© 2018

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

A Modest Classical Compatibilism

Published Online: Mar 06, 2018

Page range: 265 - 285

Received: Jul 27, 2017

Accepted: Feb 11, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0007

KeywordsClassical compatibilism, Angelika Kratzer, alternative possibilities, moral responsibility, Frankfurt-style counterexamples

© 2018

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Classical compatibilism, Angelika Kratzer, alternative possibilities, moral responsibility, Frankfurt-style counterexamples