Vihvelin on Frankfurt-Style Cases and the Actual-Sequence View - Original Paper

Aug 26, 2026

Critical discussion of Vihvelin’s book Causes, Laws, and Free Will, focusing on her treatment of Frankfurt-style cases and the actual-sequence view of freedom. The analysis explains the classical compatibilist rationale for why determinism does not threaten the ability to do otherwise, grounded in intrinsic dispositions and suitable environments. It contrasts this with compatibilist approaches that treat alternative possibilities as irrelevant, outlining three themes connecting Frankfurt cases to responsibility and freedom.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Vihvelin on Frankfurt-Style Cases and the Actual-Sequence View

Background: Compatibilism, determinism, and doing otherwise

Actual-sequence vs. alternative-possibilities approaches

Core themes in Vihvelin’s argument

Metaphysical and moral compatibilism

Crim Law and Philos DOI 10.1007/s11572-014-9355-9 ORIGINALPAPER Vihvelin on Frankfurt-Style Cases and the ActualSequence View Carolina Sartorio ! Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract This is a critical discussion of Vihvelin’s recent book Causes, Laws, and Free Will. I discuss Vihvelin’s ideas on Frankfurt-style cases and the actual-sequence view of freedom that is inspired by them. Keywords Vihvelin ! Frankfurt-style cases ! actual-sequence views of freedom Kadri Vihvelin’s Causes, Laws, and Free Will (Vihvelin 2013) is an important defense of the classical compatibilist view concerning determinism and free will: the idea that determinism is compatible with free will, conceived as the ability to do otherwise. It is a fascinating attempt to draw on the metaphysics of dispositions and counterfactuals to develop the classical view and defend it on the face of objections. On Vihvelin’s view, determinism is compatible with free will because causally determined agents can have the relevant (unexercised) powers to do otherwise, by virtue of having the relevant intrinsic dispositions and being placed in favorable, obstacle-free environments. Determinism is no threat to our free will because it doesn’t undermine our power to do otherwise. Vihvelin opposes an increasingly popular form of compatibilism that takes the ability todo otherwise to be irrelevant to the freedom and responsibility of agents: a type of view that had its origins in the so-called ‘‘Frankfurt-style examples’’ (Frankfurt 1969), and that has been developed in recent years by Fischer and Ravizza (1998), Fischer (2006), and others. Following common usage, I will refer to this other type of view as an actualsequence view. This alludes to the fact that views of that kind focus only on the actual sequence of events, instead of on the availability of alternative possibilities. I defend a version of the actual-sequence view elsewhere.1 As an advocate of that kind of view, in this critical piece I focus on three interrelated themes in Vihvelin’s book, all of 1 See Sartorio (manuscript) . C. Sartorio (&) University of Arizona, Social Sciences Bldg. Rm 213, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA e-mail: [Sartorio@arizona.edu](Sartorio@arizona.edu) 1 3 them connected with her discussion of Frankfurt-style examples and the view of freedom inspired by them. They are: 1. Vihvelin’s claim that the difference between her view and the actual-sequence view is the difference between a metaphysical and a moral approach, and between a metaphysical and a moral form of compatibilism. 2. Vihvelin’s argument that Frankfurt-style cases are not a threat to the idea that responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. 3. Vihvelin’s argument that other considerations connected with Frankfurt-style cases fail to cast doubt on the idea that responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise, and fail to motivate an actual-sequence view about freedom/responsibility. In what follows, I take these up in turn. Metaphysical and Moral Compatibilism Vihvelin introduces the distinction between metaphysical and moral compatibilism in Chapter 1 . She explains how the two forms of compatibilism can be seen as different responses to an incompatibilist argument that she takes to capture commonsense thinking. The following is a version of that argument as it applies to moral responsibility (p. 18): 1. If determinism is true, no one is ever able to do otherwise. 2. If no one is ever able to do otherwise, then no one is ever morally responsible. 3. Therefore if determinism is true, then no one is ever morally responsible. Vihvelin calls premise 1 of this argument the metaphysical premise, and premise 2 the moral premise. Accordingly, she calls a form of compatibilism that attacks premise 1 a metaphysical compatibilism, and a form that attacks premise 2 a moral compatibilism. Thus, even if she herself is a compatibilist about determinism and moral responsibil

FAQs

What is the main focus of the discussion of Vihvelin’s book?

The discussion analyzes Vihvelin’s ideas about Frankfurt-style cases and how they relate to an actual-sequence conception of freedom and responsibility.

How does Vihvelin argue that determinism is compatible with free will?

She maintains that causally determined agents can still have the relevant unexercised powers to do otherwise due to intrinsic dispositions and being in favorable, obstacle-free environments.

What does the actual-sequence view emphasize compared with other compatibilist views?

It focuses on the actual sequence of events and does not require alternative possibilities to account for freedom and responsibility.

Aug 26, 2026

Upload by วิน