PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

330 RELIGION, MORALITY, FAITH, AND REASON

sending the letter, Mary is also (in accord with (PA*))

praiseworthy for not sending it.

Here there is no requirement that Mary causes her choice not to send the letter;
she simply chooses so. The most recent version of the Principle of Alternative
Possibilities read:

(PA*) If person S is morally responsible for having performed action
A at time T in context C, then (i) S could have refrained from
having performed action A at time T in context C, or (ii) there
is some action B that S performed such that S could have
refrained from performing B, and S’s performing B, at T and
in C, is sufficient for S’s performing A.

Perhaps in the light of Move 5 we should recast this as follows:

(PA**) If person S is morally responsible for having performed action
A at time T in context C, then (i) S could have refrained from
having performed action A at time T in context C, or (ii) there
is some action B that S performed such that S could have
refrained from performing B, and S’s performing B, at T and
in C, is sufficient for S’s performing A; minimally, the
alternatives will be freely performing A or something
sufficient for A and not freely performing A or something
sufficient for A.^20

Part of what has unfortunately made some philosophers think more of the
alleged counterexamples than they should is their focusing only on the contrast
between such things as freely choosing to send the letter versus freely choosing
not to send the letter while ignoring such things as freely choosing to send the
letter versus not freely choosing to send the letter.
Since (PA**) is true of Mary even in Case 3, the compatibilist has not
presented a case in which the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is false and yet
the agent in the case is morally responsible for what the agent does. The
incompatibilist can thank the compatibilist for helping to clarify the content of a
proper statement of the principle, but has been given no reason to abandon
incompatibilism.

The fuller map of counterexamples

The range and subtlety of purported counterexamples to the Principle of
Alternative Possibilities are greater than we have yet considered, and