Category: time-and-causality
Type: thought experiment
Associated thinker(s): Harry Frankfurt
Original publication or approximate period: “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” (1969)
Difficulty: Advanced
Themes: responsibility, alternative possibilities, agency
Related experiments: The Consequence Argument; Buridan’s Ass
Jones decides to perform a wrongful action for Jones’s own reasons. Black secretly wants that same outcome and stands ready to intervene if Jones shows a sign of deciding otherwise. Black’s intervention would ensure the action, but in the actual sequence Jones proceeds independently. Black never needs to intervene.
The proposed contrast is between the actual explanation of Jones’s action and alternatives that Black would have blocked. A successful case needs both features: independent action in the actual sequence and the relevant absence of alternatives. Whether a monitoring arrangement can ensure both without prejudging the issue is disputed.
Can Jones be morally responsible when the action comes from Jones’s own deliberation but an unused backup mechanism blocks doing otherwise?
The case targets a principle about moral responsibility, not every possible definition of freedom. It shifts attention toward how an action actually happens. A condition that would have compelled someone under other circumstances may differ morally from a cause that really did compel the person.
Frankfurt-style response: the unused backup does not explain the actual wrongdoing. If Jones acts from Jones’s own reasons, responsibility may survive despite the blocked alternative.
Flicker-of-freedom objection: an earlier sign, hesitation, or decision may remain an alternative. Defenders ask whether such residual alternatives are substantial enough to ground responsibility.
Dilemma objection: if the sign guarantees the decision, determinism may already be built in; if it does not, Black may lack the promised guarantee. More elaborate cases try to meet this objection, but the simple story does not make it disappear.
The backup device must remain inactive in the actual sequence. If Black actually controls the action, the central contrast is lost. The case also does not by itself prove compatibilism about determinism: absence of alternatives and causal determination are distinguishable claims. Responsibility for an action is not automatically responsibility for every consequence.
Later Frankfurt-style cases refine the triggering mechanism and distinguish decisions from bodily actions. Accounts of guidance control and reasons-responsiveness develop the emphasis on the actual sequence. These are substantive theories, not additional conclusions established by one intuitive example.
The original 1969 paper is the historical reference; the two retrieved SEP entries supply the case and objections. The account is a teaching reconstruction, not an assertion that an actual neural controller can implement the stipulated conditions.
Research check: 2026-10-30. References above were retrieved for the support described; this is an original educational explanation, not a substitute for the primary texts. Additional speculative comparisons are teaching prompts, not established historical variations.