Jones and Black

Frankfurt has a series of thought experiments designed to show that PAP is false. We are to imagine Black, an evil genius who is capable of making terrible threats and even of physically controlling the brains of others. Jones has decided for his own reasons to perform some action, such as assassinate the president. After Jones has already decided to do this, Black tries to make sure that Jones will indeed perform this action. In a mild case, we can imagine that Black is merely threatening Jones with something that no reasonable person would want to happen (e.g., Black threatens to murder Jones if he does not kill the president). In an extreme case, we imagine that Black is actually in control of Jones's brain. Depending on how Jones responds to Black's coercion, in some cases Jones will still be morally responsible for his actions even though he could not have done otherwise. Jones 1 is an unreasonable man. He is completely non-responsive to the threats. He continues to perform his action regardless of what threats Black makes. Jones 2 is completely overwhelmed by the threat. Even if he wanted to do the action in the first place, he is so afraid of the threats that they motivate him to perform the action even if he did not have his own reasons for doing so. Jones 3 is a reasonable man. He is responsive to the threats; he takes them seriously. But he still performs the actions for his own reasons. Frankfurt says that Jones 3 is a perfect example of someone performing an action that he had to do, but he is still morally responsible. The important question is whether the coercive force was the reason for his action. In the case of Jones 2, the coercion was certainly the reason for his actions, so he is not morally responsible. But Jones 3 did not act as he did BECAUSE of the coercion. Rather, Jones 3 acted because of his own reasons, so we still hold him morally responsible.