PHIL 1200 Chapter 13: Topic 11

• School: University of Manitoba
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1200
• Professor: David R.Hampton

Document Summary

We generally tend to feel resentment towards others when they do things that harm us (and gratitude when they benefit us) Such feelings are an important and indispensable part of human interaction, and life in general. For example, when people harm us involuntarily, we usually withhold our resentment. What effect would, or should, the acceptance of the general truth of determinism have upon these reactive attitudes (resentment, gratitude, etc. The pessimist might think that determinism should make us reconsider our attitudes, or even abandon them. Strawson doesn"t think we could, or should, abandon these attitudes. After all, impersonal entities like (cid:498)the state(cid:499) or (cid:498)the law(cid:499) (and those who represent them judges, politicians, etc. ), pass moral judgment without experiencing any interpersonal attitudes. But, when we suspend our attitudes of resentment or gratitude and replace them with an objective attitude, we do not do so because of the fact that the actions we are judging are determined.