Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will.
Strawson’s Argument
Before we get into the specifics of his paper, we should note that Strawson has a slightly idiosyncratic compatibilist position. Unlike other compatibilists, he does not identify as a determinist. In fact, he denies that he even understands the thesis of determinism. Instead he argues that even if determinism were correct, that still would not take away our sense of moral responsibility, since for Strawson the question of the justification of moral responsibility is internal to “the general structure or web of human attitudes and feelings” (‘Freedom and Resentment’).
On the other hand, how does that, for all practical purposes, actually manifest itself in our interactions with others? After all, for any number of determinists, our "sense of reality" is no less wholly compelled by our brains than is our "sense of moral responsibility".
Alluding once again to those mysterious "internal components" [which may well exist], but how do these intrinsic, integral aspects/functions of the brain --
chemically and neurologically and electrically -- become intertwined
in “the general structure or web of human attitudes and feelings”? It's like finally pinning down once and for all where God ends, and mere mortals begin. Or where a Divine pantheist universe stops, and mere mortals start. Or pinning down in an indisputable manner where genes and nature give way to memes and nurture.
Or, perhaps, is Buddhism a more...reasonable approach here? How about monads?
To demonstrate this point, Strawson puts aside ideas of moral condemnation, approval, and the like, which are commonly used in the debate over free will and determinism, and instead invites his readers to focus on something much simpler and common to all human agents, that he calls ‘reactive attitudes’. These are the emotions people experience when involved in interactions with each other, and include resentment, contempt, sympathy and gratitude, among many others.
Here [click] I come back to the argument many advocates of free will make...that "somehow" our emotions and our intuitions are "different" from the purely rational components of human brains interacting in sync objectively with others in the either/or world. "Somehow", instead, our most deep-seated emotional reactions to things like abortion and nihilism and human sexuality simply "transcend" mere laws of matter. "Somehow" they put us in touch with that crucial Intrinsic, Spiritual, Natural...Real Me.
As I've noted before, even given free will, the way we think about conflicting goods is almost always in close proximity to how we feel about them...How we react to them "in our gut".
After all, how many people here think/believe philosophically and ethically what they do about abortion, moral nihilism and human sexuality, but feel/intuit quite the opposite?
Someone arguing, "I believe that abortion is deontologically justified, but deep down inside me I feel it is mass-murder." And then those fractured and fragmented as "I" am?
Or: "I believe that human autonomy is clearly a reasonable assessment of the human condition, but my gut tells me it's all on automatic pilot."
How do you know what it's thinking?