FREE WILL AND REACTIVE ATTITUDES The philosophical debate about free will and responsibility has been of great importance throughout the history of philosophy. In modern times this debate has received an enormous resurgence of interest and the contribution in 1962 by P.F. Strawson with the publication of his essay “Freedom and Resentment” has generated a wide range of discussion and criticism in the philosophical community and beyond. The debate is of central importance to recent developments in the free will literature and has shaped the way contemporary philosophers now approach the problem. This volume brings together a focused selection of the major contributions and reactions to the free will and responsibility debate inspired by Strawson’s contribution. McKenna and Russell also provide a comprehensive overview of the debate. This book will be of great value to scholars of Strawson and those interested in the free will debate more generally. This page intentionally left blank Free Will and Reactive Attitudes Perspectives on P.F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” Edited by MICHAEL MCKENNA Florida State University, USA PAUL RUSSELL University of British Columbia, Canada © Michael McKenna and Paul Russell 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Michael McKenna and Paul Russell have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-4405 Surrey GU9 7PT USA England Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Free will and reactive attitudes : perspectives on P.F. Strawson’s Freedom and resentment 1. Strawson, P.F. Freedom and resentment 2. Free will and determinism I. McKenna, Michael, 1963– II. Russell, Paul, 1955– 123.5’092 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Free will and reactive attitudes : perspectives on P.F. Strawson’s Freedom and resentment / edited by Michael S. McKenna and Paul Russell. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-7546-4059-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Strawson, P.F. Freedom and resent- ment. 2. Free will and determinism. I. McKenna, Michael, 1963– II. Russell, Paul, 1955– B1667.S383F7433 2007 123’.5--dc22 2007002612 ISBN: 978 0 7546 4059 2 Contents List of Contributors vii Acknowledgements xi Introduction: Perspectives on P.F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” Michael McKenna and Paul Russell 1 1 Freedom and Resentment Peter Strawson 19 2 Free Will and Rationality A.J. Ayer 37 3 Accountability (II) Jonathan Bennett 47 4 The Importance of Free Will Susan Wolf 69 5 On “Freedom and Resentment” Galen Strawson 85 6 Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme Gary Watson 115 7 Strawson’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility Paul Russell 143 8 Emotions, Expectations and Responsibility R. Jay Wallace 157 9 Blaming, Understanding and Justification: A Defence of Strawson’s Naturalism about Moral Responsibility Kevin Magill 187 10 The Limits of Evil and the Role of Moral Address: A Defense of Strawsonian Compatibilism Michael McKenna 201 11 Revising the Reactive Attitudes Derk Pereboom 219 12 Free Will: From Nature to Illusion Saul Smilansky 235 vi Free Will and Reactive Attitudes 13 Thinking with your Hypothalamus: Reflections on a Cognitive Role for the Reactive Emotions David Zimmerman 255 14 Doing without Desert Erin Kelly 273 15 Responsibility and the Aims of Theory: Strawson and Revisionism Manuel Vargas 297 Suggested Further Readings 319 Index 323 List of Contributors P.F. Strawson (1919–2006) spent most of his academic career at Oxford University, where he was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics from 1968 to 1987. His wide- ranging and influential writings include Introduction to Logical Theory (1952), Individuals (1959), and The Bounds of Sense (1966). P.F. Strawson was also the author of a number of highly influential papers on topics covering logic, language, mind, as well as several other areas of philosophy. Among his many honours, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (1960) and knighted (1977). His contribution, “Freedom and Resentment,” which is the centerpiece of this volume, originally appeared in the Proceedings of the British Academy, 48 (1962), 187–211. A.J. Ayer (1910–1989) was Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University from 1959 to 1978. He was the author of many well-known philosophical works, including Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and Problem of Knowledge (1956). He was knighted in 1970. His contribution, “Free-will and Rationality,” originally appeared in Zak van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical Subjects (Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 1–13. Jonathan Bennett has taught at Cambridge University, the University of British Columbia, and Syracuse University. Since 1997 he has lived in retirement on an island near Vancouver, BC, preparing student-friendly versions of the classics of early modern philosophy and placing them at www.earlymoderntexts.com. The most recent of his books are Learning from Six Philosophers (Oxford University Press, 2001) and A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals (Oxford University Press, 2003). His contribution, “Accountability II,” is an original piece that has not previously appeared in print. It is, however, based upon his highly influential paper, “Accountability,” which appeared in Zak van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical Subjects (Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 14–47. Erin Kelly is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. Her research interests are in moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of law, with a focus on questions about justice, the nature of moral reasons, moral responsibility and desert, and theories of punishment. Her publications include, “The Burdens of Collective Liability,” in D. Chatterjee and D. Scheid (eds), Ethics and Foreign Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and “Personal Concern,” published in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Her contribution, “Doing without Desert,” originally appeared in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 83 (2002), 180–205. Reprinted with kind permission of Blackwell Press. viii Free Will and Reactive Attitudes Michael McKenna is Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. Until recently, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College and also held a position as a visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College. He has published several articles, mostly on the topics of free will and moral responsibility. He has also co-edited Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities (Ashgate Publishing, 2003). His contribution, “The Limits of Evil and the Role of Moral Address: A Defense of Strawsonian Compatibilism,” originally appeared in Journal of Ethics, 2 (1998), 123–42. Reprinted with kind permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kevin Magill is Associate Dean and a member of the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author of Freedom and Experience: Self-Determination Without Illusions (MacMillan, 1997) and “The Idea of a Justification for Punishment,” Critical Review Of International Social And Political Philosophy, 1 (1998). His contribution, “Blaming, Understanding, and Justification: A Defense of Strawson’s Naturalism about Moral Responsibility,” is excerpted from Freedom and Experience: Self-Determination Without Illusions. Reprinted with kind permission of Palgrave MacMillan. It also appeared as a freestanding piece in T. van den Beld (ed.), Moral Responsibility and Ontology (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 183–97. Reprinted with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media. Derk Pereboom is Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. On free will and moral responsibility he has published a number of articles, including “Determinism al Dente” (Noûs, 1995), a book, Living Without Free Will (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and, more recently, he is one of the contributors to Four Views on Free Will: A Debate with John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, and Manuel Vargas (Blackwell, 2007). He has also published articles in philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. His contribution, “Revising the Reactive Attitudes” is excerpted from his book Living Without Free Will, pp. 90– 100, and 199–207. Reprinted with kind permission of the publisher and the author. Paul Russell is Professor in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he has been teaching since 1987. He has held visiting positions at Virginia (1988), Stanford (1989–90) and Pittsburgh (1996–97). In 2005 he was a Visiting Professor (Kenan Distinguished Visitor) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His principal research interests include problems of free will and moral responsibility and the history of early modern philosophy. He is the author of Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 1995) and The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion (Oxford University Press, 2008). He is currently working on a book The Limits of Free Will: A Critical Introduction to the Contemporary Debate (Blackwell). His contribution, “Strawson’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility,” originally appeared in Ethics, 102 (1992), 287–302. Reprinted with kind permission of The University of Chicago Press. All Rights Reserved. List of Contributors ix Saul Smilansky is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. He is the author of Free Will and Illusion (Oxford University Press, 2000), Ten Moral Paradoxes (Blackwell, 2007), and numerous articles on moral philosophy. His contribution, “Free Will: From Nature to Illusion,” originally appeared in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,101 (2001), 71–95. Reprinted with kind permission of Blackwell Press. Galen Strawson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at City University of New York Graduate Center. He is an editorial consultant at the Times Literary Supplement. In 1993 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. In 1997 he was a Visiting Professor at New York University, and in 2000 a Visiting Professor at Rutgers University. He is the author of books on free will, causation, and the philosophy of mind: Freedom and Belief (Oxford University Press, 1986; reprinted 1991), The Secret Connexion: Realism, Causation, and David Hume (Oxford University Press, 1989; revised edition 1992), and Mental Reality (MIT Press, 1994). His contribution, “On ‘Freedom and Resentment’,” is excerpted from his book Freedom and Belief, pp. 84–120. Reprinted with kind permission of Oxford University Press. Manuel Vargas is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and at the California Institute of Technology, as well as an Acting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. He has published articles on practical rationality, free will, moral responsibility, and various topics in Latin American philosophy. He is one of the authors of Four Views on Free Will: A Debate with John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, and Derk Pereboom (Blackwell, 2007). He received a Joint Ph.D. in Philosophy and Humanities from Stanford University in 2001. His contribution, “Responsibility and the Aims of Theory: Strawson and Revisionism” originally appeared in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85 (2004), 218–41. Reprinted with kind permission of Blackwell Publishers. R. Jay Wallace is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (Harvard University Press, 1994) and Normativity and the Will. Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Practical Reason (Oxford University Press, 2006). His contribution, “Emotions, Expectations, and Responsibility,” is excerpted from his book Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments, pp. 18–40, 51–2, and 62–83. Reprinted with kind permission of the publisher and the author. Gary Watson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has published numerous essays on human action, free agency, and moral philosophy. He is the author of Agency and Answerability (Oxford University Press, 2004). His contribution, “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme,” originally appeared in F. Schoeman (ed.), Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions (1987), pp. 256–86. Reprinted with kind permission of the author and Cambridge University Press.