Forgiveness and Consequences

2021 ◽  
pp. 285-308
Author(s):  
Richard Arneson
Keyword(s):  
Reactive Attitudes

When should you forgive a wrongdoer? This chapter develops an act-consequentialist approach to answering this question with a view to exhibiting its attractiveness. The act consequentialist holds that one ought always to do whatever would bring about the best reachable outcome, impartially assessed. So this approach conflicts with common beliefs. A second, independent aim of this chapter is to urge the usefulness of a spare idea of what forgiveness is. On the spare account, forgiveness is the extinguishing of certain negative reactive attitudes in a person toward another, these attitudes being directed at what is perceived to be that individual’s wrongdoing or at least subpar behavior that constitutes a wrong or offense either to the person harboring the attitudes or to others with whom that person specially identifies. Forgiving someone, then, may be something that happens to the forgiver, not something she does.

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.

Communal Values and Character-Oriented Reactive Attitudes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett W. Helm
Keyword(s):  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Gary Watson

Whereas most accounts of the reactive attitudes and of responsibility focus on norms of action, we must also consider norms of character: norms that govern the kind of person we can or must be. We are bound by norms of character and so responsible to fellow members for who we are in the same way as for norms of action: via the interpersonal rational patterns in our reactive attitudes. Accordingly, this Chapter develops an account of pride, shame, esteem, and contempt as character-oriented reactive attitudes, clarifies the sense in which these are globalist emotions, distinguishes between personal and social forms of pride and shame, and provides a partial defense of the value of shame and contempt. The result both illuminates the distinction between guilt and shame and, more fundamentally, provides a unified account of responsibility without dividing it into aretaic and accountability faces as Gary Watson does.

Responsibility, Authority, and the Bindingness of Norms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett W. Helm
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Recognition Respect

In having reactive attitudes, we hold each other responsible to the norms of a community. Doing so appropriately presupposes both that one has the requisite authority and that the other is bound by that norm. We can understand this by turning to communities of respect and the patterns of reactive attitudes discussed in Chapter 3. As a member of a community of respect, one is party to a joint commitment, constituted by interpersonal rational patterns of reactive attitudes, to the import of that community and thereby to the import of its members and norms. This joint commitment binds one to those norms and makes one be responsible to them. Likewise, to have authority is to have dignity as a member of such a community and so be a fit object of recognition respect by others who thereby normally ought to respond to the “call” of one’s reactive attitudes.

Respect and the Reactive Attitudes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett W. Helm
Keyword(s):  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Reactive Attitude ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Recognition Respect

The nature of both respect and the reactive attitudes is illuminated by understanding the reactive attitudes to be a class of emotions distinguished by their forming a distinctively interpersonal pattern of rationality. In feeling a reactive attitude such as resentment, one holds the wrongdoer responsible by “calling on” him to feel guilt and on witnesses to feel disapprobation or indignation; other things being equal, one’s resentment is unwarranted if that “call” is not taken up by others. This call and its uptake are made intelligible through the community members’ joint background commitment to the value of the community and its norms, and to the dignity of its members as members—a commitment undertaken and reaffirmed in their reactive attitudes. The resulting interpersonal rational patterns of reactive attitudes constitute their joint recognition respect for its norms and for each other as a part of their joint reverence for the community.

Robots to Blame?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Babushkina
Keyword(s):  
Social Robots ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Reactive Attitude ◽  
Attribution Of Responsibility ◽  
Attitudes And Practices

My concern is the preservation of rationally justifiable moral practices, which face challenges because of the increasing integration of social robots into roles previously occupied exclusively by persons. I will focus on the attribution of responsibility and blaming as examples of such practices. I will argue that blaming robots (a) does not satisfy the rational constraints on the reactive attitude of blame and other related reactive attitudes and practices such as resentment, forgiving, and punishment, and (b) is by itself morally wrong.

Strategies for Agent-Based Negotiation in E-Trade

2012 ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Raja Al-Jaljouli ◽  
Jemal H. Abawajy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Negotiation Strategy ◽  
Proper Action ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Negotiation Strategies ◽  
Decision Making Factors ◽  
Market Status ◽  
Short Time

E-negotiation handles negotiation over the Internet without human supervision and has shown effectiveness in concluding verifiable and more favorable agreements in a reasonably short time. In this chapter, the authors discuss the negotiation system and its components with particular emphasis on negotiation strategies. A negotiation strategy defines strategic tactics, which advise on the proper action to select from a set of possible actions that optimizes negotiation outcomes. A strategy should integrate negotiation goals and reactive attitudes. Usually, a fixed strategy is implemented during the course of negotiation regardless of significant decision-making factors including market status, opponent’s profile, or eagerness for a negotiated goods/service. The chapter presents the main negotiation strategies and outlines the different decision-making factors that should be considered. A strategy uses a utility function to evaluate the offer of an opponent and advises on the generation of a counter offer or the best interaction. The authors finally discuss different utility functions presented in the literature.

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