122 Alternative Possibilities and Frankfurt Cases
Suggestions for Further Reading
Like the Consequence Argument, the secondary literature devoted to Frankfurt’s
argument against the alternative- possibilities requirement on moral responsib-
ility is enormous. Here we only offer a small sampling of some of the most
important pieces on the topic. See:
Fischer, John Martin. 2010. “The Frankfurt Cases: The Moral of the Stories.” Philosophi-
cal Review 119: 315–36.
Fischer, John Martin. 1994. “Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities.” In The Meta-
physics of Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers: chapter 7.
Frankfurt, Harry. 1969. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.” Journal of
Philosophy 66: 829–39.
Ginet, Carl. 1996. “In Defense of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities: Why I
Don’t Find Frankfurt’s Argument Convincing.” Philosophical Perspectives 10:
403–17.
McKenna, Michael. 2008b. “Frankfurt’s Argument against Alternative Possibilities:
Looking Beyond the Examples.” Noûs 42: 770–93.
McKenna, Michael. 2003. “Robustness, Control, and the Demand for Morally Significant
Alternatives.” In David Widerker and Michael McKenna, eds., Moral Responsibility
and Alternative Possibilities. Aldershot: Ashgate Press 201–18.
Mele, Alfred, and David Robb. 1998. “Rescuing Frankfurt- Style Cases.” Philosophical
Review 107: 97–112.
Naylor, Marjory. 1984. “Frankfurt on the Principle of Alternate Possibilities.” Philosoph-
ical Studies 46: 249–58.
Pereboom, Derk. 2000. “Alternate Possibilities and Causal Histories.” Philosophical Per-
spectives 14: 119–38.
Sartorio, Carolina. 2016. Causation and Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stump, Eleonore. 1996. “Libertarian Freedom and the Principle of Alternative Possibil-
ities.” In Daniel Howard- Snyder and Jeff Jordan, eds., Faith, Freedom, and Ration-
ality. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield: 73–88.
van Inwagen, Peter. 1983 “What Our Not Having Free Will Would Mean.” In An Essay
on Free Will. Oxford: Clarendon Press: chapter 5.
Widerker, David. 1995. “Libertarianism and Frankfurt’s Attack on the Principle of
Alternative Possibilities.” Philosophical Review 104: 247–61.
For an anthology devoted just to the dispute over Frankfurt’s argument, see:
Widerker, David, and Michael McKenna, eds., 2003. Moral Responsibility and Altern-
ative Possibilities. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
Notes
1 For another interesting reply to Widerker’s W- Defense, see Capes (2010).
2 For an argument resisting Pereboom on this point, see Capes (forthcoming). Capes
argues that a slightly more permissive notion of robustness allows that an alternative
course of action can be robust for a person if she is cognitively sensitive to the fact
that, by availing herself of it, she would be at least temporarily blameless.