In Freedom and Resentment, Peter F. Strawson attempts to provide an alternative approach, a reconciliation, of the compatibility of causal determinism – the idea that all events including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will such as the laws of nature – and moral responsibility. Traditionally, there is a presupposition that moral responsibility requires control or freedom and that freedom in this sense, is incompatible with causal determinism. However, according to Strawson’s essay, Strawson finds it a mistake to think that moral responsibility requires any independent condition to be satisfied, specifically the condition of freedom. As such, this paper will explore Strawson’s approach and argument by first defining and understanding what he means by “participant reactive attitudes,” by understanding what the two conditions are that lead us to suspend them, and whether Strawson believes that determinism shows either of these two conditions holds generally.
Participant reactive attitudes, as Strawson coins it, are attitudes such as resentment, love, anger, forgiveness, and gratitude that belongs to an involvement or participation with others in interpersonal human relationship. The idea behind the introduction of this term is to show that the practices encompassing moral responsibility, such as punishment and reward, express these very reactive attitudes. But more importantly, the underlying assertion here is that these attitudes are moral responsibility and to justify moral responsibility beyond its framework is a mistake. That is, it is a mistake to justify the entire framework of moral responsibility by an independent theoretical condition; namely, and in this case, freedom. To put this in perspective, consider the following example: perhaps you are walking down a street and a person is walking in front of me, facing towards me. Without acknowledging both your surroundings, you both collide. At that moment, you have a reactive attitude of resentment towards him/her for bumping into you. Likewise, he/she too, feel the same sort of resentment. Now, consider the following circumstances: if during the moment of collision, you fall and he/she don’t and he/she reaches for your hand out to help you get up and apologize, that feeling of resentment towards him/her may be, not necessary gone away completely, but reduced. Thus, it is sufficient to say, that as human beings, in relation to moral responsibility, we expect a certain basic standard of good will and concern to those around us to be met and when it is not met, we feel some certain reactive attitudes towards them. Now, we may also take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the objective picture. Strawson coins this attitude the objective attitude. When we are looking at circumstances through an objective stance to the person. We view the action objectively. Suppose the following case: like the earlier case, you bump into a person collectively. The person does not help you up nor does he or she apologizes. At first, you feel a certain degree of resentment towards him or her but at soon as you find out that the person who bumped into you is an older person with Alzheimer’s, your reactive attitude towards him or her changes. Instead of feeling resentment, you feel that the person is excused in his or her action and in fact you believe she requires medical attention. Perhaps, you may even feel sympathetic enough to help her find her way afterward. It is these attitudes that Strawson believes are constitutive of the framework of moral responsibility and the practicality is something that cannot be answered by the implementation of an independent theoretical condition.
At this point, it is important that we define and understand the correlation between the two conditions that we use to suspend our reactive attitudes and the acceptance of the truth of determinism. According to Strawson, there are two conditions that we tend to refer to when we suspend our reactive attitudes: an excuse based condition and an exempt based condition. An excuse based condition is a condition that does not change our attitude towards the person but only towards the what he or she did – consider the earlier example of the person colliding into you, helping you and apologizing to you. The person “did not mean to” bump into you and so we may suspend our reactive attitudes towards them. An exempt based condition is a condition that suspends a certain type of attitude towards the person and adopts the objective stance or attitude towards them. Consider the earlier example of the older person with Alzheimer’s. The moment you realized that she was mentally ill, you decided to suspend your reactive attitude of resentment and exempted them for being mentally ill. Now, again, throughout his essay, Strawson, the question regarding the correlation between the two conditions and the truth in determinism is this: Does determinism ultimately affect the two conditions as well as our participant reactive attitudes? Simply put, Strawson’s answer is no. Strawson argues that determinism does not affect our reactive attitudes or the two conditions that we use to suspend them because it would be a mistake to say that a pure theoretical conviction would be able to change our overall framework for moral responsibility. To illustrate Strawson’s point consider Strawson’s following argument:
P1: If determinism is assumed to be true, then reactive attitudes will all be equally determined.
P2: If determinism is directly correlated to the suspension of our reactive attitudes then it would suggest that this suspension of our reactive attitudes be applicable universally.
P3: There are only two conditions that result in the suspension of our reactive attitudes: excuse based and exempt based conditions.
P4: Since these are the only two conditions, determinism would suggest that either one or both conditions are always applicable.
P5: Determinism cannot suggest that either of these two are always applicable because:
1) Determinism would suggest that the truth of itself is directly correlated to any reference to the use of excuse based conditions. In other words, determinism would suggest that itself implied that every action caused would be a result of ignorance or accident. However, that is not the case since references to the use of excuse based conditions are made from those who have goodwill and want to excuse others.
2) Determinism would suggest that the truth of itself is directly correlated to any reference of the use of exempt based conditions. In other words, determinism would suggest that itself implied that every action caused would be a result of psychologically abnormal people. However, that is not the case since the people we exempt are not necessarily always abnormal.
Conclusion: Therefore, determinism does not affect our reactive attitudes nor does it affect the two conditions that we use to suspend them.
As one can see, according to Strawson, determinism does not generally hold the two conditions to be valid always.
In conclusion, the overarching theme of Strawson’s position is to provide an alternative approach to reconciling determinism and moral responsibility. More specifically, Strawson asserts that moral responsibility and determinism are not directly related, as one, is a practical application and the other is a theoretical conviction.