Graduate 112: Moral Responsibility 04

Galen Strawson. "On 'Freedom and Resentment'". From Freedom and Belief. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.)

[1] Galen Strawson takes quite a different view from that of P.F. Strawson on the question of and debate over the compatibility of determinism with responsibility. Overall, I find his treatment much more compelling although there are a few points at which I differ with even him. One of the main thrusts of Galen Strawson's paper involves the suggestion "that it [i.e. P.F. Strawson's treatment] may mislocate the true centre of our commitment [to true responsibility] in our interpersonal rather than inour self-regarding attitudes." (67)

He then invites the reader to, "Consider a man who becomes a determinist. He is often pictured as being faced first and foremost with the problem of what he is to make of other people, given his new belief. But of course, his judgement of determinedness extends also, and far more immediately, to himself." (68) This seems right to me. As I pointed out, in my treatment of P.F. Strawson's paper, it is not impossible (or even prohibitively difficult) to imagine a world in which I am the only person that is truly responsible—a world in which every other person (because of some psychopathic disorder to which I, alone, am immune, for instance) is not truly responsible for his or her actions. But when I try to imagine, myself, thinking and deliberating in a world where I am aware that determinism is true--that is a puzzle and seemingly insurmountable challenge.

One of Galen Strawson's concerns in this paper is to answer P.F. Strawson's claim that our natural commitment to the reactive attitudes undercuts the pessimist's (incompatibilist's) commitment to their (the reactive attitudes') incompatibility with determinism. In Galen Strawson's view, this claim only works because the commitment in question is taken to be non-rational. "So the products of the pessimists' excogitations, although properly called beliefs, simply fail to connect with our non-cognitatively natural belief in responsibility in such a way that they and it can be assessed (with the negative result) for mutual consistency." (70) But for this very same reason, one may question (and Galen does question) whether the pessimist's position has really been dissolved or only cleverly bypassed.

[2] Galen Strawson is concerned to take seriously all of our intuitions about moral responsibility. So, he notes that if there are one set of intuitions that seem to yield an inderacinable commitment to the reality of moral responsibility, it still remains the case that we also possess a set of equally strong intuitions from which follow the conclusion that the truth of causal determinism poses a serious challenge to that very same sense of moral responsibility. There is a real conflict, on his view and attempts to dissolve the tension have proven problematic. One such attempt, made by P.F. Strawson, involves drawing a comparison between our natural commitment to moral responsibility and our commitment to the validity of inductive belief-formation. Galen Strawson shows the flaw in this comparison in the following: "The correct sceptical objection to commitment to the validity of inductive belief-formation is not that it involves a demonstrably false belief, but only that it involves a belief that cannot be shown to be true, and in that sense cannot be justified, although it may in fact be true (it may in fact be true that there is a real material world governed by certain fundamental forces that are intrinsic to the very constitution of matter, a world in which everything takes place in accordance with what one may perfectly well call 'natural necessity'). The sceptical objection to belief in true responsibility, however, is that it is a belief that is apparently demonstrably false." (72)

P.F. Strawson also tries to argue that there can be no single 'rational' course of action that follows from the truth of determinism and that the debate is, therefore, vacuous. But Galen Strawson insists: "it does not follow, from the fact that the truth of determinism cannot by itself make it rational to try to adopt the objective attitude, or from the fact that there is no single rational choice to be made in this case, that the correctness of the objective attitude does not in some sense follow from the truth of determinism." (74) In other words, the debate is still open.

[3] But what sense can be made of the idea that one ought to alter one's beliefs to conform to some fact like the truth of determinism? One's initial thought might run something like this: "…according to what one could call the 'natural causality of reason'… if one genuinely believes that the propriety of certain of one's feelings presupposes the correctness of certain beliefs, and if one then comes to think that these beliefs are false, then this may understandably cause one to cease to have these feelings; it may cause them to change or weaken, at least." (75) But even this principle does not make clear how one would go about imposing an 'obligation' on someone to alter his or her beliefs--or what the form of such an obligation would even look like. It's not clear that changing attitudes is something that one does--as opposed to something that happens to a person. Galen Strawson suggests: "If a change in one's feelings and attitudes were produced in this way by one's coming to believe in determinism, this would be something that happened to one, not something one did." (75-76)

Part of what is being questioned here is the relationship between beliefs and actions, as well as whether the causal connection is one that is willfully voluntary or somehow involuntary. Part of what is troubling about considerations of the possibility of determinism and its implications is that a positive belief in the determinism does not seem to entail, automatically, a change in one's treatment of or attitudes toward other people. This being the case, is the rational thing to do (1) setting about intentionally altering one's behaviour to conform to this belief or (2) accepting that one's actions, as they stand, are compatible with the determinist thesis.

There do seem to be cases in which intentional action is a necessary and appropriate course of action for bringing one's actions into sync with the facts of reality. For instance, a person, who grew up in a house lit by gas lanterns that just had electric lights installed, would not necessarily automatically assume a disposition toward his altered environment that is consistent with the experienced availability of electrical power. His first inclination might still be to light the lantern as opposed to flipping the switch. Or consider the individual who learns that one of his favorite snack foods is very unhealthy for him and that he must abstain from it in the future. Without even thinking about it, he may find himself reaching for the bag of snacks and it may require very great effort on his part to overcome that natural tendency and habit that have developed. Now there are many ways in which one might account for these kinds of scenarios, not all of which would find parallel application in the moral responsibility/determinism case. But Galen Strawson makes the excellent point that the question, itself, cannot be sidestepped by appealing to fatalism or by otherwise ruling the question out as impossible or inconceivable in some significant way.

[4] Indeed, the challenge is most pressing in one's own case. I have suggested, previously, that it is not very difficult to imagine being in a world where everyone else lacks the capacity for genuine moral responsibility. But what could that mean when applied to one's own case? What would it be like to truly believe that "My own actions are completely causally determined" and then to act?

[It would be helpful, along these lines, to learn how psychopaths, neurotics, schizophrenics, and others deemed to lack responsibility in some important respect perceive their own capacity for genuine agency? If they do still see themselves as genuine moral agents, then we must think carefully about the basis upon which we judge them to be morally incompetent. If they do not, then this may give some clue as to what the experience of the determined individual might be.]

Galen Strawson offers a thought experiment intended to show just how difficult it is to adopt such a view. When one attempts to do so, one thoughts tend to oscillate between two poles. "At one pole, the freely deciding and acting 'mental someone' somehow goes out of existence altogether. At the other pole, the mental someone continues to exist, but one cann no longer see oneself as a freely deciding and acting being in any way. One's thought is likely to oscillate around this second pole when the thought-experiment has not been engaged with full force, and is not having its full effect of strangely dissolving the (sense of) self." (79) But this dissolution or repudiation of the self does strike as a strange move. One may wonder whether it really can be done? More commonplace ways in which we tend to think of ourselves as determined (by environment, for instance, or upbringing) are not strong enough to capture the force of this puzzle. "A person may theoretically fully accept that he, or she, is wholly a product of his or her heredity and environment--many of us do--and yet, in everyday life, have nothing like the kind of self-conception that is here required of the genuine incompatibilist determinist (non-self-determinationist). In fact such a self-conception seems scarcely possible for human beings. It seems to require the dissolution of any recognizable human sense of self. Certainly one cannot adopt such a radically 'objective' attitude to oneself at will." (81) But does that mean that the question really is 'unreal'?

[5] If one wishes to retain the sense of self, it seems that action becomes impossible, for the idea of one's acting (nonsense in a determinist world) paralyzes one. The only way out of it seems to be to fall back into the exigencies of life. "It seems, then, that a genuine belief in determinism or non-self-determinationism, uneasily coupled with an unreconstructed conception of self, may produce a total paralysis of all purposive thought as it is ordinarily conceived and experienced." (84) But that is the mistake of fatalism. Galen Strawson observes, on the other hand, that "We are all effortlessly capable of the magnificent inconsistency of beliefs and attitudes that this appears to involve." (85) Other factors would have to be taken in consideration if one were to set about a program of reforming one's attitudes towards people.

[6] Galen Strawson turns to a slightly different set of considerations at this point. He observes: "Our sense of self and of freedom is in many respects profoundly libertarian in character. But it is also naturally and unhesitatingly compatibilistic in many other respects. And since this natural compatibilism is part of what underlies our commitment to belief in freedom, it deserves some consideration at this point." (86) But this exploration of natural compatibilism does not bear as much fruit as one might hope, as far as the current debate is concerned. Galen Strawson asserts at one point, I think--controversially, that there is a strong pre-philosophical inclination to accept histories that are totally determined and to deny even the possibility of genuine self-determination. I don't know what to make of this (empirical) claim except that it seems to capture only one side of the issue. He describes most people as committed to a kind of freedom wherein they are able to act in accordance with their character, beliefs, commitments, within certain contexts, etc. But it seems to me that we very naturally think that we could act in ways contrary to our character, beliefs, and commitments. We might not be able to do so for very long, but the ability to do any number of mundane or shocking things at just about any particular moment seems to be open to us, and that requires more than Strawson seems to grant to the 'normal person's' intuitions.

So I think he is wrong when he offers the following as one of the strongest points in defense of compatibilism: "Behind the whole compatibilist enterprise lies the valid and important insight that, from one centrally important point of view, freedom is nothing more than a matter of being able to do what one wants or chooses or decides or thinks right or best to do, given one's character, desires, values beliefs (moral and otherwise), circumstances, and so on." (90)

[7] Galen Strawson does offer a set of points in favor of incompatibism. Interestingly it seems to be certain natural compatibilist intuitions that give rise to the incompatibilist position. For the compatibilist implicitly embraces a distinction between attitudes and thoughts that are his own and those that are essentially foreign to him. But it is this very division, even though the compatibilist is supposed to be willing to grant that his ideas are, in a sense, not his own, that allows the incompatibilist to demand that we account for the ideas that are our own.

[Galen Strawson speaks more here on the relationship between our sense of freedom and our belief in the existence of other minds as well as our use of language and the role of the social environment in developing our self-concept.]

[8] He concludes by painting a picture of a Buddhist monk and the regimen of exercises (including meditation) through which he goes in order to purge the 'false view of individuality'. Indeed, similar challenges seem to manifest themselves in this case as in the determinism case. And, indeed, it may be possible that once one has crossed a certain threshold, the appearance of the world will be radically altered. Whereas one might adopt such a program for certain rational reasons, those reasons might play no part in one's life and action once one has reached a certain level. This kind of situation is not inconceivable and, in my opinion, presents the most compelling picture of how the adoption of such an objective attitude toward the world might be developed. It is interesting, however, how Galen Strawson concludes and betrays his own bias. "But there is no reason to think that they need to be inhuman in any pejorative sense; and whatever nirvana is supposed to be life, it is clear that adoption of the objective attitude is in no way incompatible with compassion." (100)

[0] One final set of general observations about the readings up to this point: I think that part of what makes the determinism/moral responsibility puzzle so difficult to resolve is that we have accepted a view of reality where that allows for a substantial disconnect between 'the way things are' and 'how we act'. Even atheists may concede that believing in God is 'helpful' for some people even though it is false. And some people would be attracted to something like Nozick's experience machine. The difficulty comes in trying to articulate why one should not enter the machine, or why one should not believe in a God that doesn't exist, or why one should not continue to treat people as if they are responsible in a determined universe. It is not persuasive to say, "Because it's not true," or "Because it's not real." We are willing to accept any number of falsehoods into our lives so long as things go well. But what sense, then, can be made of the idea of life 'going well'?

We have come to accept, what would seem to be, an arbitrary "norm" of life. We continue to hold on to that norm even when its philosophical underpinnings are removed by the 'death of God'. We continue to hold on to it even though its philosophical underpinnings are dissolved by the truth of determinism. And all is well and good and everybody is happy--until something goes wrong. And because we have 'killed God' and denied the Stoic route, we find ourselves convulsed by forces beyond our control.

Why do we guard this norm if it is, indeed, arbitrary? The point is, of course, that it isn't arbitrary. There is a reason why our way of living works (more or less) but we cannot hope to truly live well until we connect that way of living to facts about the world. Vague notions about continuing to accept reactive attitudes in spite of the truth of determinism will not, ultimately, help anybody.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.