Putting psychology before metaphysics in moral responsibility: Reactive attitudes and a “gut feeling” that can trigger and justify them

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-387
Author(s):  
Robert Schroer ◽  
Jeanine Weekes Schroer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Reactive Attitudes

Reactive Attitudes Revisited: A Modest Revision

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Deigh
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Reactive Attitudes

The essay offers an interpretation of P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” on which attributions of moral responsibility presuppose a practice of holding people morally responsible for their actions, and what explains the practice is our liability to such reactive attitudes as resentment and indignation. The interpretation is offered to correct a common misinterpretation of Strawson’s essay. On this common misinterpretation, attributions of moral responsibility are implicit in the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation, and consequently our liability to these attitudes cannot explain these attributions. The reason this is a misinterpretation of Strawson’s essay is that Strawson’s compatibilist solution to the free will problem requires that our liability to the reactive attitudes be conceptually prior to our attributions of moral responsibility.

Learning from Psychopaths

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
T. M. Scanlon
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Gary Watson ◽  
Associated Conditions

The chapter examines arguments offered by Gary Watson, drawing on the case of psychopaths, for broadening the conditions of moral responsibility that are required for reactive attitudes such as resentment. These broader conditions include what Watson calls accountability as well as attributability. Focusing mainly on ‘negative’ reactive attitudes, of which a few examples are given, there is an examination of associated conditions of responsibility, and in some depth, of Watson’s argument for accountability as a condition for responsibility; the case of psychopaths is the vehicle for this examination.

scholarly journals "Freedom and Resentment" and Consequentialism

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Stephen Darwall

In The Second-Person Standpoint, Stephen Darwall offers an interpretation of P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” according to which the essay advances the thesis that good consequences are the “wrong kind of reason” to justify “practices of punishment and moral responsibility.” Darwall names this thesis “Strawson’s Point.” I argue for a different reading of Strawson, one according to which he holds this thesis only in a qualified way and, more generally, is not the unequivocal critic of consequentialism that Darwall makes him out to be. In fact, I contend, Strawson’s account of the reactive attitudes can potentially be a useful resource for consequentialists.

Humanitarian Intervention and Moral Responsibility

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Ronnie Hjorth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
International Society ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Conflict ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Political Approach

This essay investigates the moral aspects of humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention involves the balancing of at least three sometimes contradictory principles – the autonomy of states, the prohibition of war and the reduction of harm and human suffering – and hence requires not merely a legal and political approach to the matter but renders a moral viewpoint necessary. It is argued that P.F. Strawson’s concept Moral Reactive Attitudes MRA) contributes to analysing the moral dilemmas and priorities involved. First, MRA underlines the moral aspects of international society that are essential for dealing with the moral conflict inherent in international society. Secondly, MRA helps to balance between competing claims of justification and legitimacy in cases of humanitarian intervention.

scholarly journals Moral Diversity and Moral Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRIAN KOGELMANN ◽  
ROBERT H. WALLACE
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Cheap Talk ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Moral Diversity ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Costly Signals

AbstractIn large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising, and resenting—we communicate a desire to maintain good will to those in the community we are imbedded in. Participating in such practices alone will not get the job done, though, for expressions of our reactive attitudes are often what economists call cheap talk. But when we praise and blame in cases of moral diversity, expressions of our reactive attitudes act as costly signals capable of solving our social dilemma.

scholarly journals Statistically responsible artificial intelligences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Smith ◽  
Darby Vickers
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Machine Ethics ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Strong Ai ◽  
The Right

AbstractAs artificial intelligence (AI) becomes ubiquitous, it will be increasingly involved in novel, morally significant situations. Thus, understanding what it means for a machine to be morally responsible is important for machine ethics. Any method for ascribing moral responsibility to AI must be intelligible and intuitive to the humans who interact with it. We argue that the appropriate approach is to determine how AIs might fare on a standard account of human moral responsibility: a Strawsonian account. We make no claim that our Strawsonian approach is either the only one worthy of consideration or the obviously correct approach, but we think it is preferable to trying to marry fundamentally different ideas of moral responsibility (i.e. one for AI, one for humans) into a single cohesive account. Under a Strawsonian framework, people are morally responsible when they are appropriately subject to a particular set of attitudes—reactive attitudes—and determine under what conditions it might be appropriate to subject machines to this same set of attitudes. Although the Strawsonian account traditionally applies to individual humans, it is plausible that entities that are not individual humans but possess these attitudes are candidates for moral responsibility under a Strawsonian framework. We conclude that weak AI is never morally responsible, while a strong AI with the right emotional capacities may be morally responsible.

scholarly journals Taking the Straight Path. P.F. Strawson's Later Work on Freedom and Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin De Mesel
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Straight Path ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
Knowledge Condition ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility ◽  
Ability To Do Otherwise

I highlight three features of P.F. Strawson’s later, neglected work on freedom and responsibility. First, in response to a criticism by Rajendra Prasad, Strawson explicitly rejects an argument put forward in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ against the relevance of determinism to moral responsibility. Second, his remarkable acceptance of Prasad’s criticism motivates him to take the ‘straight path’, that is, to be straightforward about the relation between determinism, freedom, the ability to do otherwise and the conditions of responsibility. He claims that the ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition of responsibility and provides a list of additional conditions, including a knowledge condition. Third, he clarifies the relation between responsibility, quality of will and the reactive attitudes. The latter do not figure essentially in his answer to the question, ‘What are the conditions of responsibility?’, but they do play an essential role in his answer to the question, ‘Why do we have the concept of responsibility?’ We have it, Strawson suggests, because of our natural concern about the quality of will with which people act, a concern expressed in our reactive attitudes. I argue that, although Strawson’s later work definitely involves a shift of emphasis when compared to ‘Freedom and Resentment’, his overall account of freedom and responsibility is coherent. The later work helps to better understand the nature and significance of Strawson’s contribution, and to identify problems with common interpretations of and objections to ‘Freedom and Resentment’. 

P. F. Strawson’s Free Will Naturalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Rational Justification ◽  
The Core ◽  
Free Will Skepticism

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.

Strawson’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Russell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Attitudes And Practices

In “Freedom and Resentment” P. F. Strawson interprets the “Pessimist” as one who claims that if determinism is true then the attitudes and practices associated with moral responsibility cannot be justified and must be abandoned altogether. Against the pessimist Strawson argues that no reasoning of any sort could lead us to abandon or suspend our “reactive attitudes.” He claims that responsibility is a “given” of human life and society—something which we are inescapably committed to. This chapter argues that Strawson’s reply to the pessimist is seriously flawed. In particular, he fails to distinguish two very different forms or modes of naturalism and 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.

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