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.

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.

The Radical Demand in Løgstrup's Ethics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Stephen Darwall ◽  
Ethical Demand

This book focuses on the ethics of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup (1905–81), and in particular on his key text The Ethical Demand (1956). The first part of the book provides a commentary on The Ethical Demand. The second part contains chapters on Løgstrup as a natural law theorist; his critique of Kant and Kierkegaard; his relation to Levinas; the difference between his position and the second-person ethics of Stephen Darwall; and the role of Luther in Løgstrup’s thinking. Overall, it is argued that Løgstrup rejects accounts of ethical obligation based on the commands of God, or on abstract principles governing practical reason, or on social norms; instead he develops a different picture, at the basis of which is our interdependence, which he argues gives his ethics a grounding in the nature of life itself. The book claims that Løgstrup offers a distinctive and attractive account of our moral obligation to others, which fits into the natural law tradition.

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.

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.

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