Revisiting Strawsonian Arguments from Inescapability

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

Strawsonian approaches to responsibility, including more recent accounts such as Dennett's and Wallace's, face a number of important objections. However, Strawsonian theories can be recast along revisionist lines so as to avoid many of these problems. In this paper, I explain the revisionist approach to moral responsibility, discuss the concessions it makes to incompatibilism (including the point that compatibilists may not fully capture our commonsense understanding of responsibility), why it provides a fruitful recasting of Strawsonian approaches, and how it offers an alternative to the pattern of dialectical stalemates exhibited by standard approaches to free will and determinism.

Ethics , 1992

In this article I am concerned with a central strand of Strawson's well-known and highly influential essay "Freedom and Resentment.". One of Strawson's principal objectives in this work is to refute or discredit the views of the "Pessimist." The Pessimist, as Strawson understands him (or her), claims that the truth of the thesis of determinism would render the attitudes and practices associated with moral responsibility incoherent and unjustified. Given this, the Pessimist claims that if determinism is true, then we must abandon or suspend these attitudes and practices altogether. Against the Pessimist Strawson argues that no reasoning of any sort could lead us to abandon or suspend out "reactive attitudes". That is to say, according to Strawson responsibility is a "given" of human life and society--something which we are inescapably committed to. In this article I will argue that Strawson's reply to the Pessimist is seriously flawed. More specifically, I argue that Strawson fails to distinguish two very different forms or modes of naturalism and that he is constrained by the nature of his Own objectives (i.e., the refutation of Pessimism) to embrace the stronger and far less plausible form of naturalism. On this basis I conclude that while there is something to be said for Strawson's general approach to these matters, we nevertheless cannot naturalize responsibility along the specific lines that he suggests. ___________ Reprinted in: (a) John M. Fischer, ed., Free Will: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, 4 Vols. (Routledge, 2005), Vol. 1, Free Will: Concepts and Challenges; (b) M. McKenna & P. Russell, eds, Free Will and Reactive Attitudes: Perspectives on Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (Ashgate: 2008). (c) Reprinted in and translated as: 'A felelősség strawsoni naturalizálása,' In: Readings in Free Will and Moral Responsibility, edited by Anna Réz, translation by Mate Veres. Budapest: Gondolat (2013): 305-322.

2008

Discusses and defends Peter Strawson’s argument in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ that our practice of holding agents responsible for their actions is not something that can be given a justification or stands in need of one, since it is not something we could choose to give up. Part 1 outlines Strawson’s arguments and replies to some recent criticisms. Part 2 argues that despite our inability entirely to relinquish blaming and holding responsible, there are considerations about the role of acquired perspectives in the initiation of wrongful actions that give us reason to question whether these are ever appropriate responses to wrongdoing. Part 3 attempts to identify and diffuse the impulse to seek a justification for holding agents responsible. Part 4 goes on to argue that the real force of the problem of moral responsibility lies in a tension in our moral sentiments about whether to blame or to try to understand particular instances of wrongdoing, and that, while there is no general philosophical resolution of this tension, we need not be faced with an irresolvable dilemma about whether to blame or to attempt to understand whenever we are confronted with wrongdoing.

Philosophical Studies, 2011

Against its prominent compatiblist and libertarian opponents, I defend Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility. Against John Martin Fischer, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that an agent can be responsible for an action only if he is responsible for every factor contributing to that action. Against Alfred Mele and Randolph Clarke, I argue that it is absurd to believe that an agent can be responsible for an action when no factor contributing to that action is up to that agent. Against Derk Pereboom and Clarke, I argue that the versions of agent-causal libertarianism they claim can immunize the agent to the Basic Argument actually fail to do so. Against Robert Kane, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that simply the presence of indeterministic factors in the process of bringing an action about is itself what rules out the agent’s chance for being responsible for that action.

Galen Strawson has offered, with his modification of the Basic Argument, an intriguing argument with a deceptively simple appearance for the refutation of moral responsibility and ultimately free will. It seems to stand up to a great deal of criticism. Nevertheless, it seems also to presume a great deal with regard to the metaphysical origin of morality, particularly in the notion of the moral agent and in his notion of "desert." I investigate the terms and notion of causality used in his argument and attempt to demonstrate that it does not apply to an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical and ethical frame.

Ethics, 2021

There are few who would deny that P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) ranks among the most significant contributions to modern moral philosophy. Although any number of essays have been devoted to it, Pamela Hieronymi’s 'Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals' is the first book-length study. The aim of Hieronymi’s study is to show that Strawson’s “central argument” has been “underestimated and misunderstood.” Hieronymi interprets this argument in terms of what she describes as Strawson’s “social naturalism”. Understood this way, Hieronymi maintains, “the argument is powerful”. In what follows I argue that while Hieronymi’s discussion is stimulating and provides valuable insights into “Freedom and Resentment,” neither the interpretation advanced nor the social naturalist position that it describes is convincing.

International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, 2017

This is an explication and defense of P. F. Strawson’s naturalist theory of free will and moral responsibility. I respond to a set of criticisms of the view by free will skeptics, compatibilists, and libertarians who adopt the core assumption: Strawson thinks that our reactive attitudes provide the basis for a rational justification of our blaming and praising practices. My primary aim is to explain and defend Strawson’s naturalism in light of criticisms based on the core assumption. Strawson’s critiques of incompatibilism and free will skepticism are not intended to provide rational justifications for either compatibilism or the claim that some persons have free will. Hence, the charge that Strawson’s “arguments” are faulty is misplaced. The core assumption resting behind such critiques is mistaken.

Neuroethics, 2020

People who judge that a wrongdoer's behaviour is determined are disposed, in certain cases, to judge that the wrongdoer cannot be responsible for his behaviour. Some try to explain this phenomenon by arguing that people are intuitive incompatibilists about determinism and moral responsibility. However, Peter Strawson argues that we excuse determined wrongdoers because judging that someone is determined puts us into a psychological state - 'the objective stance' - which prevents us from holding them responsible, not because we think that determined wrongdoers cannot be responsible. Two studies were completed to test the claim that the objective stance prevents us from judging wrongdoers responsible. Implicit association measures revealed that participants primed in the objective stance appraised a wrongdoer more positively, but as no less blameworthy, than those neutrally primed. These findings raise doubts about Strawson's explanation of our tendency to excuse determined wrongdoers.

The debate about the relationship between free will and moral responsibility has been a longstanding one in action theory and moral philosophy. In recent years however, advances in neuroscience, social psychology, and criminology seem to have provided more fodder for the moral responsibility skeptic's cannon. In this paper, we will examine a new approach to moral responsibility skepticism in the form of a recent book: Bruce Waller's The Stubborn System of Moral Responsibility . 1 As Waller notes in the beginning of his book, he does not advance any new arguments against the moral responsibility system. Rather he aims to show that "the deep fixity of belief in moral responsibility is explained by factors other than the existence of good reasons to believe in moral responsibility" (263). Thus, we can interpret Waller as providing an error theory for moral responsibility: why is the belief in moral responsibility so pervasive,widespread, and persistent, given the weakness and faults in arguments for its existence? Waller persuasively argues that the false belief in a just world, deeply rooted but morally tenuous "strike-back" emotions, the false belief in the power of reason or self-awareness to provide volitional control, and a robust scaffolding system of institutions all support the belief in moral responsibility without providing genuine reasons for doing so.

P.F. STRAWSON AND HIS LEGACY, 2022

“Responsibility After ‘Morality’: Strawson’s Naturalism and Williams’ Genealogy” Although P.F. Strawson and Bernard Williams have both made highly significant and influential contributions on the subject of moral responsibility they never directly engaged with the views of each other. On one natural reading their views are directly opposed. Strawson seeks to discredit scepticism about moral responsibility by means of naturalistic observations and arguments. Williams, by contrast, employs genealogical methods to support sceptical conclusions about moral responsibility (and blame). This way of reading their views depends, however, on the assumption that the concept of responsibility that Strawson aims to defend is the same as Williams aims to discredit. The conception of responsibility that Williams aims to discredit is one that is based around the assumptions and aspirations of “the morality system”. This paper argues that while there is a plausible way of interpreting Strawson’s naturalism that uncouples it from the assumptions of “the morality system”, there remain significant differences between Strawson and Williams. More specifically, even if Strawson’s understanding of moral responsibility abandons the (narrow) assumptions of “morality”, Strawson is still committed to “conservative” and “optimistic” conclusions about moral responsibility that cannot be sustained. [March 2022]