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    P.F. Strawson's reactive attitudes account grounds moral ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Not just any causally undetermined, agent-caused, or randomly generated choice qualifies as a free choice for which the agent is morally responsible.

    P.F. Strawson's reactive attitudes account grounds moral responsibility in interpersonal relationships of holding and being held to account, not in agent-internal rational capacities.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Moral responsibility practices are fundamentally social: we only hold others accountable within communities where reciprocal expectations exist.
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    • 2.Rational capacity accounts struggle to explain why we hold the cognitively disabled responsible for some acts but not others.
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    • 3.Reactive attitudes like resentment and gratitude constitute what responsibility *is*, rather than merely expressing it.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Grounding responsibility in social practices cannot explain why some communities' responsibility attributions are deeply unjust.
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    • 2.Reactive attitudes depend on agents having rational capacities to understand and respond to criticism—making capacities foundational, not derivative.
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    • 3.A purely relational account struggles to justify responsibility suspension when relationships fail (coma, dementia) but rational capacity persists.
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    Key Terms

    Agent-internal rational capacities(what Strawson's account does NOT rely on)
    Mental abilities that exist inside a person's own mind, like the ability to reason, think logically, or understand right from wrong.
    Holding to account(how interpersonal relationships ground responsibility)
    Treating someone as responsible for their actions by responding to them emotionally or socially—like blaming them when they hurt you or praising them when they help.
    Interpersonal relationships(where Strawson locates the source of moral responsibility)
    The connections and interactions between people—how people relate to and treat each other.
    P.F. Strawson(as the author of 'Freedom and Resentment')
    A 20th-century British philosopher famous for analyzing how we actually think and talk about everyday things like freedom and blame, rather than abstract theories.
    moral responsibility(The author argues for a pluralistic understanding rather than a Kantian-exclusive one)
    A normative concept whose scope is contested; the passage implies it encompasses at least Kantian notions (centered on individual rational agency) and other notions (potentially sociological, collective, or non-individualist in character)
    reactive attitudes(Blame is given as the paradigm case of a reactive attitude)
    Attitudes that agents have towards other agents in response to those agents' behavior

    Connections

    2 topics

    Eternal Conscious Torment1 linkedAfterlife & Death1 linked

    Related

    A purely relational account struggles to justify responsibility suspension when ...Grounding responsibility in social practices cannot explain why some communities...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Moral responsibility practices are fundamentally social: we only hold others acc...
    Not just any causally undetermined, agent-caused, or randomly generated choice q...
    +3 moreShow less
    Rational capacity accounts struggle to explain why we hold the cognitively disab...Reactive attitudes depend on agents having rational capacities to understand and...Reactive attitudes like resentment and gratitude constitute what responsibility ...