Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility - Essay Example

A person’s actions are influenced by certain coercive forces, which may be external or internal, and in certain cases, his circumstances may prompt a person to do an action in a particular way without any other alternative. However, if the circumstances were not the reason why a person chose to do something in a particular way, then he does hold moral responsibility for the action. So in an instance where a person is issued a threat his decision to act in a certain way need not necessarily be influenced by the threat and hence he holds moral responsibility since he was not deprived of alternatives. On the other hand, it is also possible that the person was profoundly impacted by the threat and his action was completely out of fear of dire consequences. But this impact was what compelled him to make his decision and therefore in relative terms his moral responsibility for his action still remains. Yet another possibility would be that the person’s choice of action was predetermined and any threat issued to him only coincided with his decision. Since the threat in this situation is irrelevant to the decision-making process, he remains morally responsible for his action
The author’s argument is therefore a logical understanding of the principle’s plausibility and its failure as an a priori truth.