Examples Of Alternate Possibility

There are two standard requirements for free will: alternate possibilities and ultimate responsibility. Alternate possibilities mean that the metaphorical path before any agent must be one with forking paths. In terms of alternate possibilities, free will requires the ability to do otherwise. In other words, open futures are necessary for free will to exist. This leads to the second condition for free will: ultimate responsibility. The basis of ultimate responsibility is that in order for an agent to be responsible for an action, that agent must also be responsible for anything that is “a sufficient reason, cause, or motive for the actions occurring” (Kane 121). In order to state that free will exists, an agent must be the true origin of his actions …show more content…
Ultimate responsibility would entail that there must be at least some moments in an agent’s life in which an agent has a truly free choice- an alternate possibility. However, alternate possibilities alone are not sufficient to prove free will. Philosopher J. L. Austin provides several examples in which there is an alternate possibility but no free will. In one example involves a golfer who, due to a twitch, misses his putt (Kane 125). In this example, an alternate possibility clearly exists: the golfer could have not missed the putt; however he could not have freely chose either action. His twitch prevented the golfer from choosing to make the putt. Because of this, onlookers would claim that the golfer is not responsible for missing the putt even though he had the possibility to make it. This action does meet the alternate possibility requirement; however it does not meet the ultimate responsibility requirement. Although alternate possibilities are necessary for free will, they are not sufficient on their own. Agents need both alternate possibilities and ultimate responsibility to have free