G. C. Goddu

The derivation of the generally held Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), roughly ‘you are morally responsible only if you could do otherwise’, from an even more generally held moral principle, K (for Kant), that roughly speaking ‘ought implies can’, has recently been the focus of significant debate. In this paper I shall argue that by focusing on PAP interpreted in terms of commissions alone an alternative derivation of PAP interpreted in terms of omissions is being overlooked. The advantage of the new derivation is that it avoids many of the criticisms directed at the original derivation. Key Words: alternative possibilities • blameworthiness • moral responsibility • omissions.

Some philosophers argue that any attempt to model changing the past will either be contradictory or really model avoiding the past. Using Nicholas Smith's (1997) argument as a basis, I formulate a generic version of this Avoidance Argument. I argue that the Avoidance Argument fails because (i) it involves an equivocation of what is meant by ‘bifurcation of the time of an event’ and (ii) resolving the equivocation results in the falsity of at least one of the premises. Hence, the Avoidance Argument will not support the claim that changing the past is logically impossible

In previous work I argued against (i) the likelihood of finding a theoretically sound foundation for the linked/convergent distinction and (ii) the utility of the distinction even if a sound theoretical basis could be found. Here I subject Douglas Walton’s comprehensive discussion of the linked/convergent distinction found in Argument Structure: A Pragmatic Theory to careful scrutiny and argue that at best Walton’s theory remains incomplete and that attempts to fill out the details will run afoul of at least one of the problems adduced above—i.e., result in either a theoretically unsound distinction or a theoretically sound, but unnecessary distinction