PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN PERSON

Philosophy of Human Person

Philosophy of Human Person

Strawson on Free Will and Reactive Attitudes

Strawson distinguishes two main camps in the free will dispute, labeling them “optimists” and “pessimists” respectively. Optimists are compatibilists who hold that our attitudes and practices associated with moral responsibility would in no way be discredited or dislodged by the truth of the thesis of determinism. The Pessimist, by contrast, is the libertarian who holds that moral responsibility requires the falsity of determinism and the possession of some form of “contra-causal freedom” (Strawson 1962: 73,74,92). A third position distinguished by Strawson is that of the “moral sceptic”, who holds that our “notions of moral guilt, of blame, of moral responsibility are inherently confused” whether determinism is true or false. Strawson's aim is to “reconcile” the Pessimist and Optimist positions (Strawson 1962: 72). More specifically, he aims to show that while the “Pessimist” is correct in holding that the Optimist's account of moral responsibility leaves out “something vital” (Strawson 1962: 73), what is needed to fill the gap in the Optimist's account is not any form of the “obscure and panicky metaphysics of libertarianism” (Strawson 1962: 93). So considered, the position Strawson seeks to defend is a modified compatibilist view. Although he firmly rejects the metaphysics of libertarianism, he also rejects any compatibilist strategy that that rests upon forward-looking, utilitarian consideration as a basis for justifying and defending our (human) commitment to the attitudes and practices associated with moral responsibility.

Assessing Strawson's Arguments

Having described the core arguments that feature in Strawson's strategy, we may now assess them for their strengths and weaknesses (see also Haji 2002; Kane 2005: Chp.10). All of the three core arguments we have described - the rationalist, the naturalist, and the pragmatic - encounter serious difficulties, if they are not fatally flawed. Let us consider, first, Strawson's rationalist argument. The key objective, for the success of this argument, is to show that, even if determinism is true, none of the standard excusing and exempting conditions can be generalized or said to hold universally (i.e. in virtue of the truth of this metaphysical thesis). More specifically, a crucial aspect of this argument involves showing that we have no reason to suppose, contrary to the Pessimist/sceptic, that exempting conditions apply to everyone if determinism is true. Critics, as well as some followers of Strawson, have found his argument unconvincing (see, e.g., Watson 1987: 262-3; Russell 1992; and also Nagel 1986: 124-6). According to Strawson,

the participant attitude, and the personal reactive attitudes in general, tend to give place, and it is judged by the civilized should give place, to objective attitudes, just in so far as the agent is seen as excluded from ordinary adult human relationships by deep-rooted psychological abnormality - or simply by being a child. But it cannot be a consequence of any thesis which is not itself self-contradictory that abnormality is the universal condition. (Strawson 1962: 81)

The weakness in this argument is that it plainly equivocates between being “abnormal” ...