Harry Gordon Frankfurt
1929-2023 · Analytic Ethics · Prominent
Frankfurt was an American philosopher of free will and moral psychology who put freedom one level up from wanting: you are free when you want the desires that move you to act, a wanting about your own wanting, and a creature that never asks the question he called a wanton. He also built cases in which a person could not have acted otherwise and is still to blame, which unsettled a long consensus.
Signature
The position Frankfurt is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- leans Constructed
- Agency
- Compatibilism / Hierarchical Will
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (71 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Brain Only (25 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (25 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Truth
- leans Objective (84 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ethics
- leans Means (71 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (25 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Frankfurt refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Highest Good
- Love
What is the highest good? - Ethics Basis
- Relational / Intention
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism / Hierarchical Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Human Nature
- Other
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Beloved
What is your primary bond and loyalty?