David Widerker

In a recent article, David Hunt has proposed a theological counterexample to the principle of alternative possibilities involving divine foreknowledge (G-scenario). Hunt claims that this example is immune to my criticism of regular Frankfurt-type counterexamples to that principle, as God’s foreknowing an agent’s act does not causally determine that act. Furthermore, he claims that the considerations which support the claim that the agent is morally responsible for his act in a Frankfurt-type scenario also hold in a G-scenario. In reply, Icontest Hunt’s symmetry claim and also raise a worry whether, given theological fatalism, the agent’s act in a G-scenario can be deemed a free act in the libertarian sense. Finally, I offer an independent argument why in a G-scenario the agent should not regarded morally blameworthy for his act.

Recently, John Fischer has proposed a novel account of the hard/soft distinction which is an entailment account. At its basis is the idea that a fact about a time T as a soft fact about T if it entails a fact about a time later than T; and a fact about a time T as a hard fact about T if it does not do so. Elsewhere, I have expressed serious doubts whether an entailment account of the hard/soft fact distinction can succeed. Thus, it is surprising that Fischer's new account, too, turns out to be inadequate, or so at least I shall argue.

Recently, Widerker has attacked Fischer’s contention that one could use Frankfurt-type counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities to show that even from a libertarian viewpoint an agent might be morally responsible for a decision that he could not have avoided. Fischer has responded by: (a) arguing that Widerker’s criticism presupposes the falsity of Molinism and (b) presenting a version of libertarianism which avoids Widerker’s criticism. Here we argue that: (i) Fischer’s first response is unconvincing and undermines Molinism itself; (ii) the version of libertarianism he presents is fallacious, and (iii) even on the version of libertarianism he proposes, avoid ability remains a necessary condition for moral responsibility.

In a recent paper, John Fischer develops a new argument against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) based on a deterministic scenario. Fischer uses this result (i) to rebut the Dilemma Defense - a well-known incompatibilist response to Frankfurt-type counterexamples to PAP; and (ii) to maintain that: If causal determinism rules out moral responsibility, it is not just in virtue of eliminating alternative possibilities. In this article, we argue that Fischer's new argument against PAP fails, thus leaving points (i) and (ii) unsupported