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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    The idea that we are responsible is to be understood by t... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The idea that we are responsible is to be understood by the practice of reactive attitudes, not the other way around.

    Moral Responsibility
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.There is no independent notion of responsibility that explains the propriety of the reactive attitudes.
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    • 2.It is not that we hold people responsible because they are responsible; rather, expressing our concerns and demands about our treatment of one another constitutes the practice from which the idea of responsibility derives.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation presuppose judgments of desert that have normative content independent of the practice itself.
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    • 2.If practices constituted responsibility rather than tracking it, we could not distinguish legitimate reactive attitudes from mere social coercion or prejudice.
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    • 3.P.F. Strawson's own account requires distinguishing 'objective' from 'participant' stances, a distinction that smuggles in a pre-practical criterion of responsible agency.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Fischer and Ravizza's reasons-responsiveness account demonstrates that moral responsibility is grounded in an agent's capacity to recognize and respond to moral reasons, a capacity that is conceptually prior to any social practice.
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    • 2.If responsibility derives solely from reactive practices, then communities with systematically distorted practices—punishing the innocent, excusing the powerful—would thereby constitute genuine responsibility, which is a reductio of the view.
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    Topics

    Moral Responsibility

    Related

    Fischer and Ravizza's reasons-responsiveness account demonstrates that moral res...If practices constituted responsibility rather than tracking it, we could not di...If responsibility derives solely from reactive practices, then communities with ...It is not that we hold people responsible because they are responsible; rather, ...
    +3 moreShow less
    P.F. Strawson's own account requires distinguishing 'objective' from 'participan...Reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation presuppose judgments of deser...There is no independent notion of responsibility that explains the propriety of ...

    Similar

    There is no independent notion of responsibility that explains the pro...88%It is not that we hold people responsible because they are responsible...85%The message conveyed by reactive attitudes is a moral one.80%We can only be held responsible for actions if we know the beliefs and...80%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: moral-responsibility
    Strawson's view, as presented by Watson 1987
    View source passageHide passage
    In Strawson’s view, there is no such independent notion of responsibility that explains the propriety of the reactive attitudes. The explanatory priority is the other way around: It is not that we hold people responsible because they are responsible; rather, the idea (our idea) that we are responsible is to be understood by the practice, which itself is not a matter of holding some propositions to be true, but of expressing our concerns and demands about our treatment of one another. (Watson 1987 [2004: 222]; emphasis in original; see Bennett 1980 for a related, non-cognitivist interpretation ...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The premises accurately capture Strawson's view as presented in the passage—that reactive attitudes are explanatorily prior to responsibility rather than the reverse—and together they logically support the conclusion that responsibility is to be understood through the practice of reactive attitudes.

    Confidence: The argument structure is clearly presented: Strawson denies an independent grounding for responsibility and reverses the explanatory priority.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit