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10/29/2014

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Brilliant, Justin. Although, as we know from Lucy Allais, "Freedom and Resentment" was really just a first draft, so perhaps Strawson could have learned something from these learned referees in the second pass.

Love it. And everyone knows that since "Freedom and Resentment" doesn't include any numbered premises, or acronymized principles, it doesn't contain any reasoning.

HA!! Yes, Justin, this is GREAT.

And I agree with Neal that one doesn't need regimentation to have an argument!

But. One thing I was left with after Neal's wonderful conference in honor of "Freedom and Resentment", was that lots of folks there didn't know exactly what Strawson's argument was, but they DID know they fully and enthusiastically agreed!

I found this somewhat puzzling--I was, I might go so far to say it, bumfuzzled!

Happy Halloween! (I'm smiling like a Jack-o-Lantern...)

Slow clap.

By the way: Congratulations to Justin for a wonderful month of blogging--full of original and interesting ideas!

You seem to agree with these reports a little too much...

I agree with these objections to the same degree I agree with Sharp's claim that Notre Dame and the Cowboys are "saving" football: http://tinyurl.com/nscv32n

I think that "Freedom and Resentment" is indisputably an amazing, deep, and great article. There are aspects of it that are genuinely brilliant.

But: I have often thought it could have benefited from an "R&R"!! The imaginary referees were a bit harsh--as referees can be. But honestly the paper could have benefited from greater clarity about what the arguments really are, and a less snide and dismissive attitude toward libertarianism. Sometimes I think that the reconstructions, interpretations, and literature inspired by Strawson is even better than the original article. (Of course, this material stems from the original article and owes a great deal to it.) Speaking of which, a guy named Justin Coates needs to get his draggy ass to the computer and finish his extraordinary paper on "Freedom and Resentment"...

Wow! I'm taken aback by the number (and quality) of philosophers jumping on the anti-Strawson bandwagon! Let me play devil's advocate, since it is Halloween. I’m only responding to the first referee.

Was Strawson primarily attempting to solve the compatibility problem in “Freedom and Resentment”? That is doubtful since he frames the problem that he wants to try to solve as a contrast between the optimist and the pessimist, both of whom are in turn contrasted with the skeptic. Skepticism entails but is broader than free will skepticism, pessimism is just libertarianism, but optimism is not just compatibilism. Optimism is a particular kind of compatibilism, popular in the day and championed by Moritz Schlick, e.g., the social regulation view, which “point(s) to the efficacy of the practices of punishment, and of moral condemnation and approval, in regulating behaviour in socially desirable ways” (F&R).

In F&R, Strawson is not trying to solve the problem of free will and determinism. He is trying to reach a compromise between the optimist and the pessimist, and to do so in a way that avoids skepticism. In the end, he says that both are right about one thing yet wrong about another. His response turns out to be a kind of compatibilism but it is best to see him as trying to reach a compromise between two popular (for the early 60s) views of free will. And he spells this out pretty clearly in Section I of F&R.

Further, you mischaracterize Strawson’s supposed argument for compatibilism. I admit that it is unclear just what Strawson’s argument is, or even how many arguments he gives, or what he is arguing for, if anything. Noa Latham thinks that there are 4 distinct arguments for compatibilism in F I don’t think there are any. You write:

[Strawson] argues that because it is “practically impossible” that we abandon responsibility judgments and responsibility-bearing attitudes like resentment and gratitude, we are justified in resenting people for their violations of the so-called basic demand …

But this is something Strawson would say. Strawson’s point is much more subtle. For one thing, in order to better appreciate F&R, you should take a look at Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties (1985). In S&N, Strawson puts the problem of free will skepticism – and the problem of free will and determinism – in a much broader context, as one of a family of skeptical arguments including both arguments for epistemological skepticism (no one knows anything) and arguments for metaphysical skepticism (there is no external world, for instance).

Strawson’s main point in S&N is that there is no rational response to the skeptic. There is no justification for believing that I have a hand as opposed to that I am a brain in a vat. The reasons are all the same, which is what makes skeptical arguments so seductive. You should not respond to the skeptic with a counterargument. Strawson writes:

The correct way with the professional skeptical doubt is not to attempt to rebut it with argument, but to point out that it is idle, unreal, a pretense; and then the rebutting arguments will appear as equally idle; the reasons produced in those arguments to justify induction or belief in the existence of body are not, and do not become, our reasons for these beliefs; there is no such thing as the reasons for which we hold these beliefs. We simply cannot help accepting them as defining the areas within which the questions come up of what beliefs we should rationally hold on such-and-such a matter. (S&N, 19–20)

You might wonder whether this is the point he was trying to make in F&R but I think it was. For he writes:

Inside the general structure or web of human attitudes and feelings of which I have been speaking, there is endless room for modification, redirection, criticism, and justification. But questions of justification are internal to the structure or relate to modifications internal to it. The existence of the general framework or attitudes itself is something we are given with the fact of human society. As a whole, it neither calls for, nor permits, an external ‘rational’ justification. Pessimist and optimist alike show themselves in different ways unable to accept this. (F&R)

Oops! "But this is NOT something Strawson would say."

What?! These referees are crazy. That paper should totally be accepted because it would have a huge influence on the field in the possible universes where it is published.

Charles will help us understand possible worlds.

Justin, thanks for helping us understand responsibility better (and finishing off with this hilarious post).

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