On Robust Alternate Possibilities and the Tax Evasion Case

In his recent article “Defending Hard Incompatibilism Again,” Pereboom (2008) presents what he calls the “Tax Evasion” case, a Frankfurt-style case designed to show the falsity of the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP). According to Pereboom, PAP requires robust alternate possibilities such that an agent could have acted in a manner in which she knew she would have lacked moral responsibility for her actions. However, according to his “Tax Evasion” case, the tax evader lacks such robust alternate possibilities, and yet is still uncontroversially morally responsible for his actions. Here I argue Pereboom’s account of robust alternate possibilities is deficient, offer a more intuitively plausible account of robust alternate possibilities, and argue that Pereboom’s tax evasion case fails to cut off morally relevant alternate possibilities.