Dear Professor Strawson,
In light of two anonymous referee reports, we have decided against publishing your paper “Freedom and Resentment” in Top Peer-Reviewed Journal. We wish you the best of luck moving forward.
See below for attached referee reports.
Referee 1
@’s paper, “Freedom and Resentment” attempts to solve the free will/determinism debate in favor of compatibilism (or a sufficiently modified form “optimism” as @ calls it). Ultimately, however, as I’ll argue below, it fails to make any headway in this debate. Indeed, as far as I can tell, @ does not even clearly understand what’s at stake between “the disputants.”
Compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree about whether the kind of freedom or control required for moral responsibility is possible in a causally deterministic world. It’s not enough, then, to do as @ does and simply argue that in ordinary circumstances, the thesis of causal determinism isn’t relevant to cases in which we refrain from resenting those who have acted poorly (i.e., violated “the basic demand” that we show others reasonable regard). After all, the incompatibilist doesn’t claim an accidental or unintentional harm, or the sort of harm caused when an agent is “forced” or “pushed” is excused because those harms are determined. Rather, the incompatibilist claims that the properties of those particular actions that renders them the improper objects of resentment are also present in the case of causally determined actions. So @’s attempt to show that no ordinary cases of excuses entail or in any way imply the truth of the thesis of determinism is not germane to the real debate that occurs between compatibilists and incompatibilists.
Another problem with the paper is that the main argument is either unclearly argued or rests on an obvious non-sequitur. In short, @ 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 (an aside: what is this anyway: the categorical imperative?). As @ states it, this looks like a clearly fallacious inference since a normative claim (i.e., we are justified in resenting, etc.) cannot follow from purely descriptive one (i.e., it is “practically impossible” that we don’t resent, etc.). Maybe @ has something else in mind here, such that there is an enthymematic premise or even some attempt at a Kantian magic trick, going from what’s necessary for us as practical agents to some conclusion about what we have reason to do. But if so, it would be helpful for @ to make this explicit. (Since it’s not at all clear to me how this could be done, I think a rejection is a more plausible verdict than a revise and resubmit).
Finally, just a word on @’s tone. In a number of places @ is extremely dismissive towards his philosophical opponents. This is all too common these days (I blame Wittgenstein and his ilk), but common or not, it has no place in Top Peer-Reviewed Journal or in the philosophical community more generally.
I recommend a rejection, even though some of “Freedom and Resentment” was of interest.
Referee 2
The author’s (AU) paper is called “Freedom and Resentment,” though it very well could have been called “Resentment,” since it’s quite light on any discussion of freedom in any sense.
No matter, AU’s paper isn’t just inaptly titled, it’s also inaptly argued. AU fails to put forward anything that resembles straightforward argument—i.e., one that really makes clear what’s going on in the debate (cf. Professor Strawson’s discussion of Russell’s theory of definite descriptions (though to be fair, AU is not unique in the fact that he or she can’t match Professor Strawson’s clarity and erudition)). Instead, in “Freedom and Resentment” we get some meandering ruminations about “optimists” and “pessimists”; “commonplaces” about human relationships but no real explanation how this connects to the larger argument (surely, after all, I can be free and responsible independently of my relationships); some more careful (but still not entirely motivated) discussion of the so-called “reactive attitudes” and the conditions under which it’s necessary to withhold these attitudes; and finally, an apparently table-pounding insistence that because we can’t give these attitudes up, the thesis of determinism is irrelevant to their justification. None of this constitutes a very strong case against the pessimist (or incompatibilist).
Even worse, we see in AU’s paper the least plausible elements of (what I suspect are) the philosophical antecedents that AU is borrowing from: Hume’s theory of induction (see fn 7); Kant’s antinomies (see the initial set up of the paper and AU’s proposed “solution”; Wittgenstein’s tendency to obfuscate the real issues.
A paper in this shape is in no position to be published in TPRJ. Though I do admit, AU’s take-down of libertarians as being committed to an “obscure and panicky metaphysics” and as clinging to “pitiful … trinket[s]” left my doubled over in laughter. Those views are implausible and need to be addressed as such. Perhaps if AU applied his clever wit to argumentation …
p.s. For those confused, see "A Brief History of Bad Sports Writing" and then, for more laughs, see Andrew Sharp's #hotsporttakes
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.
Posted by: David Shoemaker | 10/30/2014 at 10:05 AM
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.
Posted by: Neal Tognazzini | 10/30/2014 at 11:46 AM
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...)
Posted by: John Fischer | 10/30/2014 at 06:30 PM
Slow clap.
Posted by: bwarmke | 10/31/2014 at 11:37 AM
By the way: Congratulations to Justin for a wonderful month of blogging--full of original and interesting ideas!
Posted by: John Fischer | 10/31/2014 at 02:39 PM
You seem to agree with these reports a little too much...
Posted by: Tamler Sommers | 10/31/2014 at 04:42 PM
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
Posted by: Justin | 10/31/2014 at 04:57 PM
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"...
Posted by: John Fischer | 10/31/2014 at 05:49 PM
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)
Posted by: Joe | 10/31/2014 at 07:35 PM
Oops! "But this is NOT something Strawson would say."
Posted by: Joe | 10/31/2014 at 07:38 PM
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).
Posted by: Eddy Nahmias | 11/01/2014 at 11:02 AM