The PAP Smear & the Death of Compatibilism

The core claim of compatibilism—that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism—is crushed under the pressure of a simple but inescapable argument. If a person is morally responsible, then it must be the case that the person could have chosen otherwise. This is the essence of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). But if exhaustive divine determinism is true, no one ever could have chosen otherwise, for every choice would be the inevitable result of divine decree and causal necessity. Therefore, if exhaustive determinism is true, no one is morally responsible. Yet people clearly are morally responsible—this is both scripturally affirmed and intuitively self-evident. It follows that exhaustive determinism is false, and thus, theological incompatibilism is true.¹ This is a textbook case of a valid modus tollens:

1. If determinism is true, then no one can choose otherwise.

2. If no one can choose otherwise, then no one is morally responsible.

3. People are morally responsible.

4. Therefore, people can choose otherwise.

5. Therefore, determinism is false.

6. Therefore, moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism (i.e., incompatibilism is true).²

Attempts to salvage compatibilism by smearing PAP often invoke Frankfurt-style cases. But these cases only succeed by making a category mistake—specifically, by conflating the ability to 

do

 otherwise with the ability to 

choose

 otherwise. In these cases, an agent (commonly Jones) is being covertly monitored by a manipulator (Black) who is ready to intervene should Jones make the "wrong" choice. In the standard presentation, Black never actually intervenes, because Jones chooses what Black wanted all along. The conclusion drawn is that Jones is morally responsible despite not being able to do otherwise, since Black would have intervened to ensure the desired outcome had Jones tried to deviate.³ The fatal problem here is moral responsibility properly concerns 

choices

, not merely external actions. Scripture affirms that God evaluates the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and Jesus taught that the intent to commit sin incurs guilt even if the deed is not performed (Matthew 5:28).⁴ Moral evaluation begins and ends with what the will proposes, not merely with what the agent accomplishes. Therefore, the precise formulation of PAP should be: a person is morally responsible for a 

choice

 only if they could have 

chosen

 otherwise. The common phrasing—

could have done otherwise

—is misleading and imprecise. Once this is understood, the flaw in Frankfurt’s logic becomes clear. If Jones could not have chosen otherwise, Black’s intervention protocol would be meaningless. The whole scenario only works if there is a real possibility that Jones might make the wrong choice. The intervener’s surveillance is predicated on that very possibility. Thus, the scenario presupposes the very freedom it is supposed to disprove. Even if Black intervenes to prevent Jones from acting on a forbidden choice, that does not eliminate the fact that Jones 

chose

 it. So long as the capacity for alternative choice exists, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities for moral responsibility remains intact. The Frankfurt strategy, then, is self-defeating: its internal logic requires the modal freedom it seeks to defeat.⁵

The argument:

1. Moral responsibility concerns the ability to choose otherwise, not merely to act otherwise.

2. Frankfurt-style cases involve intervention only after the agent has made a contrary choice.

3. Therefore, Frankfurt-style cases presuppose that the agent can choose otherwise.

4. If an agent can choose otherwise, PAP is not refuted.

5. Therefore, Frankfurt-style cases do not refute PAP.⁶

Moreover, the supposed elegance of Frankfurt's example conceals a deeper incoherence. Frankfurt's case is designed to eliminate alternative possibilities while preserving moral responsibility, but it can only do this by treating choice as irrelevant to moral evaluation—a move that destroys the very foundation of moral judgment. For if what matters is merely the actual outcome or behavior, then moral responsibility is reduced to behavioral compliance. The will becomes irrelevant. But if moral judgment depends on the will, as scripture and moral intuition insist, then it matters whether the agent had any real power to choose differently. Frankfurt attempts to bypass this by imagining a counterfactual intervener, but this merely hides the problem behind hypothetical mechanics.⁷ John Martin Fischer has attempted to rescue Frankfurt-style reasoning by introducing a refined framework he calls semi-compatibilism. He argues that moral responsibility does not depend on the ability to do otherwise, only on whether the agent's action flows from the actual causal sequence issuing from their own internal psychological states—desires, beliefs, intentions.⁸ But this position only exchanges one fallacy for another. First, Fischer's view denies the necessity of moral origination. If an agent's mental states are themselves the product of external determining causation, then the agent is not the author of those states, but merely a passive conduit. Genuine moral responsibility requires that the agent be the originator of the choice—not merely the final link in a deterministic causal chain. Without origination, responsibility evaporates. Second, Fischer’s refined Frankfurt cases still presuppose the agent's capacity to choose otherwise. The intervener monitors for signs that the agent is veering toward an undesired decision. But if the agent were literally incapable of choosing otherwise, the monitoring mechanism would be incoherent and unnecessary. The entire scenario once again smuggles in what it claims to disprove.⁹ Third, Fischer's notion of freedom redefines the will in terms of passive alignment with pre-determined desires. But desires that were not freely formed cannot be a ground of moral credit or blame. A will that is determined is not a free will in any morally significant sense. It is a mechanical will—predictable, inevitable, and impersonal. A conduit is not morally accountable for what flows through it.¹⁰ Finally, Fischer's view is incompatible with scripture. The biblical record consistently portrays human beings as responsible moral agents who are commanded to choose between good and evil (Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15, Isaiah 1:19–20). The entire covenantal and judicial structure of scripture presupposes the meaningfulness of alternative choices. God’s judgment is grounded in what a person 

could

 have chosen, not merely in what their determined psychology happened to produce. The command to choose implies the ability to choose. The warning of judgment implies the ability to avoid it. Without genuine choice, the biblical moral landscape is reduced to absurdity.¹¹

Fischer’s semi-compatibilism therefore fails on all fronts:

1. It denies the agent's role as the moral originator of the will.

2. It relies on Frankfurt scenarios that implicitly affirm the very freedom they aim to deny.

3. It redefines freedom in a way that eliminates any basis for moral praise or blame.

4. It contradicts the plain teaching and moral structure of scripture.¹²

Frankfurt-style objections do not refute the Principle of Alternative Possibilities for moral responsibility, because they never actually eliminate the capacity for alternative choice. And without that, compatibilism becomes incoherent nonsense. The necessity of libertarian freedom for moral responsibility remains unshaken. Determinism, whether naturalistic or theological, renders moral responsibility an illusion. If we are to speak meaningfully of guilt, virtue, praise, blame, justice, repentance, or forgiveness, we must affirm that people can, and often should, choose otherwise. Only then can moral language retain its meaning, and only then can divine justice retain its integrity.

Notes

1. Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, 29–33.

2. Derk Pereboom, Living Without Free Will, 1–4.

3. Harry Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility", Journal of Philosophy 66, no. 23 (1969): 829–39.

4. See 1 Samuel 16:7 and Matthew 5:28.

5. Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will, 115–120.

6. Timothy O’Connor, Persons and Causes, 84–90.

7. Kevin Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology, 142–150.

8. John Martin Fischer, Responsibility and Control, 23–35.

9. Eleonore Stump, Atonement, 141–147.

10. Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, 160–165.

11. Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; Isaiah 1:19–20.

12. William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God, 79–85