Deny or Deflate?

A friend of mine has long thought that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism. He recently became convinced that indeterminism is no more hospitable. Now he's not sure what to think.

Not surprisingly, my friend is loath to accept that he was wrong all along about responsibility and determinism. But he says he finds it hard to believe that no one's responsible for anything. At least, he says, he can't give up responding to people as though they're responsible--sometimes getting mad at someone, sometimes becoming indignant, sometimes thinking that someone's punishment is deserved.

My friend has heard of a philosophical approach according to which, to determine what, say, responsibility is, we collect the truisms about responsibility and then find the item in the world that best fits them (provided, of course, that something fits well enough). In this way, he's been told, we sometimes learn that things aren't what, in our armchair theorizing, we thought they were. My friend wonders whether, taking this approach, he ought to say that we are, after all, responsible, though perhaps responsibility isn't quite (maybe not even close to) what we thought it was. And he wonders whether, if this is what he should say, he should then say he's now a compatibilist, or instead say that his incompatibilism was, in a way, correct after all, or perhaps say neither of these things.

He's asked me for advise, but, frankly, I don't know what to tell him.

Comments

[James Gibson]

Here is a suggestion, though I am not sure how satisfied he will be with it: become an agnostic autonomist. There are very few people who adopt this description, and those that I know of who categorize themselves in this way are a bright group. It wouldn't be completely unreasonable, I think, given the difficult issues involved, to adopt this position.

[Al Mele]

I agree with James. How many people are in this bright group now, James? Two? BTW, Randy's friend is a good friend of mine.

Al Mele

[Rob]

If your friend came to believe that indeterminism is no more hospitable to moral responsibility than determinism, then in some way he probably recognizes the crippling centrality of self-causation to widely- and deeply-held notions of justice which inform the Western tradition. In other words, he has probably not (at least yet) been persuaded by compatibilism to suppress or in some other way ignore the relevance of questions of ultimacy to those of moral responsiblity. So, it seems to me that Professor Clarke can either recommend to his friend some more promisingly persuasive variety of compatibilism or he can direct him to Nietzsche's agenda of dwelling upon the developmental factors which have led us to this impasse.

[Eddy Nahmias]

I certainly like the idea of looking for the meaning of responsibility by gathering truisms about it (seeing how people use the concept and carry out the relevant practices). But then this sentence of Randy's confused me:
"My friend wonders whether, taking this approach, he ought to say that we are, after all, responsible, though perhaps responsibility isn't quite (maybe not even close to) what we thought it was."
Shouldn't the "we" in the last sentence be "he"? If we take this approach, what *we* thought responsibility was is what we think it is, right? Unless perhaps some aspect of our responsibility practices belies our beliefs about responsibility.

[James Gibson]

Al: including your friend under discussion, as far as I know, there are three. The other is my previous professor, David Ciocchi, though he describes his own agnosticism slightly differently than yourself. On his view, being an agnostic autonomist should only be a temporary position, sometimes a stepping stone from one position to another. However, this is how he described it three years ago to me and his agnosticism is still running strong.(!)

[Eddy Nahmias]

Perhaps some of the truisms we draw will come from our legal institutions and practices. Here's a quotation from a recent article (by Paul Rosenzweig) attacking zero-tolerance policies (e.g., students getting expelled for accidently bringing a tiny GI-Joe gun to school):
"Zero-tolerance policies mock the legacy of Anglo-American jurisprudence. As Roscoe Pound, a preeminent legal scholar of the 20th century, explained, 'Criminal law is based upon the theory of punishing the vicious will. It postulates a free agent confronted with a choice between doing right and doing wrong and choosing freely to do wrong.' Does anyone believe these children chose freely to do wrong?"

Now we're left with the question of whether our legal theory of freedom is committed to the idea of 'self-causation' that Rob mentions above, or whether having a 'vicious will' and 'choosing freely to do wrong' can be cashed out in compatibilist terms (and in a way that jibes with ordinary conceptions or truisms about responsibility).

[Tamler]

Here’s what I would tell him:

“Ok, wait. Before you go back and think “oh oh—I’ve come to the conclusion that robust moral responsibility (RMR) does not exist, I must have missed something,"--before you become an agnostic autonomist, or a sophisticated compatibilist of some kind, at least consider the possibility that the arguments against RMR are sound. And then ask: now what? What are the implications of this fact? Think deeply about this. You say you “can't give up responding to people as though they're responsible--sometimes getting mad at someone, sometimes becoming indignant, sometimes thinking that someone's punishment is deserved.” Ok, that’s natural. It’s adaptive probably, or at least it has been adaptive in ancenstral environments, where retributive attitudes were crucial for protecting mates, food sources, status etc, for discouraging cheating behavior, and for solving commitment and coordination problems. We can’t just eliminate those predispositions overnight. But success in this endeavor is not an all or nothing affair. It’s true we often get visceral feelings of resentment or indignation and these feelings may—I stress may—be an ineradicable part of human nature. But whether these feelings are nurtured, whether we allow them to guide our lives, thoughts, and behavior, is something over which we have more control. (No contradiction—we still wouldn’t be RMR for how or whether we did this.) We don’t have to think like the underground man and assume that the denial of free will or RMR leads to hysteria, dread, despair. It was not that way for Spinoza, the Stoics, the Buddha, Einstein, Darwin, or Diderot. All of these thinkers recognized that the commitment to RMR brings a lot of destructive baggage with it: petty resentments, jealousy, hatred, wounded pride, righteous indignation, anxiety, fear, bitter remorse, and at times an all-consuming need for revenge. Maybe we can never live a life entirely free from these emotions. But we can certainly take the edge of them, soften them, until gradually they become deemphasized. (The analogy of someone who slowly comes to believe that God does not exist might be helpful here. The life transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens.) It’s undeniable that there will be times when it pays to live in accordance with what P.F. Strawson calls “the objective attitude.” And in any case there’s no reason not to further explore the implications of taking this attitude—of denying RMR—especially since you now believe it to be, at least theoretically, the correct attitude to take at all times.”

[Manuel]

Lots of interesting things in this thread . . . but what about Randy's original question?

I'm inclined to think that Randy's friend should call himself "a recovering incompatibilist" until he decides how to sort out the issue of how he thinks of his post-Canberra Plan notion of responsibility.

Whether the post-Canberra Plan friend of Randy is a compatibilist or not seems to turn on whether or not he now believes that we should call the post-Canberra Plan notion "responsibility" or "responsibility*." If he thinks it is responsibility, then he is a compatibilist. If he thinks it is responsibility*, then he is an incompatibilist.

As I've tried to argue elsewhere (in "The Revisionist's Guide to Responsibility" forthcoming in Phil Studies), there are both compatibilist and incompatibilist versions of the view that responsibility ain't exactly like we imagined it to be. This general family of views is what I call "revisionism" and, of course, I recommend it to everyone. Though sadly, the average level of brightness might not be as high as "agnostic autonomists."

[Chris Franklin]

Tamler: I wonder if you have quite understood the worry of Randy's friend (of course Randy could shed more light on this than I). Randy's friend is in a common position as one reflects philosophically on the issues at hand. When he states, "I can't give up responding to people as though they were responsible," I wonder if the force of this "can't" merely refers to the lack of ability. Maybe by "can't" he means that moral responsibility is an obvious fact of the world, and given this epistemic status, he does not believe it is something he can simply begin to deconstruct.

I found your comments about the "baggage" of RMR rather interesting. I might want to add to this list of baggage: adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind. The coin has two sides, both of which must be considered prior to judgment.

[Tamler]

Chris,

I can see how the denial of RMR might rule out certain aspects of gratitude (but only certain aspects). But in what way does the denial of RMR rule out adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind?

Take love. It seems like we love a lot of things and creatures that we don't believe are capable of being morally responsible. Nothing about the denial of RMR prevents us from recognizing, appreciating, cherishing the rich and wonderful qualities of another person.
As for forgiveness, well, in a certain sense, everyone is forgiven. And if you have an all-consuming desire to help mankind, I don't see why denying RMR will get in your way. A lot of people (me included) have a partly consuming desire to save animals on factory farms in America, and no one thinks that they have RMR.

Regarding your first question, can you or Randy's friend really say (undogmatically) that RMR is an obvious fact about the world? That we do things is obvious. But that we are deserving of praise or blame for what we do is not. Not to me, anyhow. The possibility that RMR is an illusion should at least be up for grabs, shouldn't it?

[Chris Franklin]

Tamler,

I suppose I must have misconstrued you comment concerning RMR. You mentioned that a virtue of a denial of RMR would result in mitigating of certain attitudes normally considered to be undesirable. My post meant to point that such a denial of RMR seems to effect our attitudes normally considered to be desirable if it effects the undesirable ones.

I cannot understand what is dogmatic about claiming that RMR is a fact about our world. If by dogmatic you mean "believes it to be undeniably true", then I find nothing wrong this domatic position. If by dogmatic you mean something along the lines of "affirms RMR without reason, or against reason," then I would challenge the claim.

First, I mean this humbly, but the fact that you do not take it to be obvious flies in the face of most the human race for most history. Of course this does not settle the matter, but it should indicate that it is plausible and not dogmatic to think that the many brilliant minds before us were taking about something when they spoke of RMR.

Second, there are many strong theories that are meant to explain how it is that we are responsible. Randy's friend, who might not be sure which theory is true, could still think it probable that one is true and adopt the position of an agnostic automonist.

[Tamler]

Chris, I don't think you misconstrued me. I was saying that denying RMR mitigates certain harmful attitudes. And I was disputing your claim that denying RMR would affect the positive attitudes you mentioned.

I take your point on the dogmatism claim. I would just say this. If you're an atheist, you believe that a lot of brilliant minds were talking about a non-existent thing when they were talking about God. The same goes for an RMR skeptic. The urge to believe in RMR is strong, no one denies that. I even think it's biologically rooted (As opposed to Nietzsche who thought it to be merely an aspect of slave morality.) Now Randy's friend--or is it "friend" I can't tell--seems to be a convinced incompatiblist, and in addition does not see how indeterminism can help. All that's left then is RMR skepticism, it seems to me. Given that, and given that a lot of brilliant minds (Spinoza, Diderot, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Darwin, Einstein etc.) have DENIED RMR, I think it is a bit dogmatic for him to assume that he went wrong somewhere, and fall back onto a position that affirms RMR. At the very least, I think the option to deny RMR should be a live one.

[Robert Allen]

Tamler,

I believe that anger, as opposed to our kinder, gentler emotions, is shortchanged in discussions of this sort. How could someone witness something like 9/11 without becoming very angry towards the perpetrators? To do so, I believe, would be to shed an important part of one’s humanity. Shouldn’t our real concern here be, as Aristotle and Freud thought, to make sure that the objects of one’s anger are appropriate and that they are suitably punished?

Regarding the kinder, gentler side of the reactive spectrum, Derk Pereboom attempts to describe a case in which a teacher fosters learning without thinking that she would deserve credit for her students’ accomplishments. I hope, however, that such selflessness does not become one of my job requirements, as I doubt that I could get myself to seek the Good sans the desire for praise. (You should have seen me about a month ago when I found out that my daughter would be playing in a softball tournament for which an all-star team was going to be selected.) Nor could I deeply love, let alone adore, an adult without thinking of him/her as praiseworthy (and hoping that he/she thought the same of me). More importantly, as the elder Prof. Strawson famously pointed out, I am not unusual in these respects. But your position is that recognition of this fact should not move philosophers to defend free will, belief in which is just a product of natural selection. My metaphilosophical reason for not agreeing with you is the principle that we owe more to those who depend upon the notion of free will to make their lives meaningful. (Actually, I was taught to resist all forms of skepticism out of deference to common sense.)

Or maybe you think that Professor Clarke’s friend should become an “illusionist,” ala Saul Smilansky? “Unillusioned” persons, as Prof. Smilansky maintains in his great book on the subject, could yet feign attributions of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness for the sake of the “Community of Responsibility.” One wonders, however, whether the proposed suspension of disbelief is feasible. It is hard enough to imagine someone completely abdicating the belief that persons are appropriate objects of the reactive attitudes, let alone someone acting as if persons are responsible while acknowledging (at least to himself) that hard determinism is true. My interest in free will is vastly deeper than my interest in sports (speaking of which, your Red Sox are going to regret trading Nomar). Some sage might be able to convince me that henceforth I should only act as if the latter were important. I can’t see myself being a hard determinist, on the other hand, while continuing to outwardly praise or blame others and myself.

[Tamler]

Robert,

A lot to respond to. I'll address the most important point first. We had to trade Nomar. He hated being in Boston. He was playing hard, as usual, but with absolutely no heart. He was poisoning the team morale, and most importantly, the infield defense was the worst I've ever seen--it was taking years off my life. We had to do something. He's a great hitter, I wish we could have gotten more for him--but something had to happen. (What really has to happen is for us to hire a semi-competent manager along with third base coach who's not completely insane, but that's another matter.)

On to your other points. I think you could keep your humanity by feeling enormous sorrow for the victims of 9/11, but not BLAMING anyone. You'd treat the incident like an earthquake. Do you try to root out Al Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden? Absolutely. But you don't do it out of a conviction that they deserve to die or be punished. You do it to protect your country. (As for whether we could do this effectively without a deeply felt retributive impulse--I don't know. But I don't think that's an issue we have to face right now. The people in charge don't seem to be skeptics about moral responsibility.)

Second, do you really only seek the Good so you can be praised for it? I can't believe that. There are so many other good reasons to be kind, helpful, generous, and loving. I take your point about your daughter, but I'll say this: I just had one. She's 4 months old now. I love her more than anything, and I don't think she's praiseworthy for being what she is, for sleeping from 8 to 7:30 every night, and smiling and laughing all day. I think it's just a stroke of wonderful luck and I'm grateful for it. I don't see why that can't continue past the point where she's supposed to be morally responsible for who she is.

And as for love between two adults--I don't understand Strawson (elder), Ekstrom, Wolf, and I guess you. I don't understand why you have to think someone is praiseworthy to love them. I hesitate to bring up the analogy of love for one’s dog or cat, because then opponents will pounce and say “look—he’s comparing profound wondrous Keatsian love for another human being with the love we feel for a pet!” But the analogy can work Ok if we proceed carefully. Those of us who feel reciprocal love for our dogs form this deep bond without in any way viewing them as free or morally praiseworthy. We know that the dogs’ love for us is a result of our having cared for them, played with them, walked them, and fed them since they were puppies. Not only that, we know that dogs have been bred to form deep attachments with human beings—their loyalty and eagerness to please have been both artificially and naturally selected for. We know this, and we don’t care. We still love them, and we view their love for us as genuine.

But now the objection will come: But that’s love for a dog! How can you possibly compare it with the love of two rational mature adults? The answer is that the the two kinds of love are different, but this difference has nothing to do with free will and moral responsibility. The difference is that human beings have far more complex, maddening, and exciting ways of expressing and feeling love for one another. In saying that both human beings and dogs are not morally responsible, I'm not saying that human beings are just like dogs. The love I feel for my wife and daughter is deeper than my love for my dog, just like my love for my dog is deeper than my love for my TiVo (or like my love for TiVo is deeper than my love for my cat.) But it seems to me that nothing about love for human beings requires that we view them as free and morally responsible agents. Maybe I'm strange. Maybe my wife is strange. But we just don't have to think of one another as praiseworthy to love each other. We just have to know how good we are for each other.

So, finally, no. I don't think at all that Randy's friend or any of us should be illusionists. I don't think we need this belief in moral responsibility for the good of the community or to find life meaningful. (I do think we need a third base coach who doesn't send Dave Roberts down by one with no outs in the top of the ninth to get thrown out at the plate by twenty feet. With no outs. When a double play would tie the game if holds Roberts at third. No outs!)

[Rob]

I take one of Tamler's points to be that some of the resistance to envisioning the implications of "RMR skepticism" depends on overestimating the extent to which many of the reactive attitudes actually dependent upon belief in (or committment to) RMR. Nietzsche certainly seems to think that this is so and, moreover, that this overestimation hinders a more realistic -- that is, naturalistic -- understanding of our actual reactive attitudes. One way in which he seems to think that we can emancipate ourselves from our commitment to RMR is by the sort of encounter with the emotional economy of the past he stages in his "Genealogy of Morality" -- that is, before punitive practices became so heavily entangled with the ideology of RMR.

[Kip Werking]

Again, Tamler's posts make a good amount of sense to me. The one point I might take issue with is that that praise/blame (in all senses) are incompatible with denying RMR.

Honderich makes a point which I think does not get enough attention in the literature (Pereboom makes a similar claim, and the general idea goes back to the older Strawson and his distinction between objective and subjective senses of MR), that there are two motivations for punishment: utility and retribution, and if FW does not exist, then we need to get rid of the latter. This claim is what adds all of the drama to the free will controversy and makes free will denial revolutionary instead of trivial.

My point is that very often when considering these issues we have to distinguish between two senses of things, such as punishment for retribution/utility and punishment strictly for utility. These distinction have traditionally been drawn along the lines of compatibilist or incompatibilist (better would be compatible/incompatible with mechanism, not determinism) but the best way to draw the distinction is between those that require free will as described by Galen Strawson, and those that do not. I, for one, feel that no other account quite captures what motivated people such as Darwin, Einstein, Spinoza, etc -- no one ever denied that we have any of the varieties of freedom that compatibilists describe.

So if this is the best way to make these distinction, I think we can also distiguish between praise/blame' and praise/blame'', where the former involves GS-type free will and the latter does not. Rather, praise/blame'' is simply that praise and blame which can achieve goals or maximize utility, that has a consequentialist character, and makes no reference whatsoever to ultimacy or RMR.

Of course, the words "praise" and "blame" themselves, just like our traditional understanding of punishment, involves something like a mixture of these two meanings (or does it? this question needs more attention) but that should not stop us from using them in an appropriately qualified sense (my position on this is unlike my position on "free will", in which to say that a person has free will *just is* to say that he has GS-type fw). To claim that, because of GS' Basic Argument, a person should never say "I praise you for winning your Olympic medal", seems to me to ignore this consequentialist component of praise/blame.

[Tamler]

Kip, I think I agree with you entirely. I don't deny that there are aspects of blame and praise that survive the denial of free will and RMR. It's the concept of desert--the DESERVING of blame and praise (rather than just the assignment of them for pragmatic purposes) that seems threatened by a denial of GS style free will. I also thought that "praiseworthiness" and "blameworthiness" were incompatible with a denial of RMR, but I suppose you could look at them from a purely consequentialist perspective too. But this would require, as you say, a revolutionary overhaul of those concepts, since for now blameworthiness implies the appropriateness of a retributive attitude towards the blameworthy one. (I think it does, anyway. Does it?) And we seem to agree that if there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR, then retributive attitudes are never appropriate.

[Robert Allen]

Rob,

I see that you didn’t take my advice regarding the unphilosophical Nietzsche. I’ll try again, though, this time being explicit: real philosophers don’t need a “naturalistic understanding” of free will, moral responsibility or anything else. That sort of thing is best left to the psychologists and evolutionary biologists. What philosophers need are sound arguments, in this case one to the effect that there could not be a factual basis for attributions of responsibility. Nietzsche produced no such thing; he was merely a very seductive writer. The Geneology of Morals- that’s what it was called in my day- is one long genetic fallacy, something on the order of Jews and the Christians resented being oppressed therefore their moral and religious beliefs are false.
I made this point to Prof. Brian Leiter during his appearance on the Philosophy Talk show. His response was that Nietzsche was “aware” of the genetic fallacy, as if being aware of a fallacy means that you cannot commit it. One of the show’s hosts, Prof. John Perry, then said that Nietzsche’s point was that sometimes it turns out that the motives of the proponents of a view turn out to be different than what had been thought, making their beliefs suspicious. So now the argument is: Jews and Christians sought power- just like everyone else-therefore …. This stuff is most unphilosophical.

[James Gibson]

Tamler,

You wrote to Chris Franklin: "...in what way does the denial of RMR rule out adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind?" And later in another post to Robert Allen (responding to his 9/11 case): "I think you could keep your humanity by feeling enormous sorrow for the victims of 9/11, but not BLAMING anyone. You'd treat the incident like an earthquake. Do you try to root out Al Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden? Absolutely. But you don't do it out of a conviction that they deserve to die or be punished."

Perhaps I have misunderstood your position here, but if you think that RMR rules out justified blame, then I think Chris Franklin has a viable path to rule out mercy and forgiveness as well. As I reflect on cases of when others have been merciful to me, for example, their mercy is a particular response (attitude) toward me *in spite of* my *deserving* something else. And so it is similar with forgiveness. I don't understand what mercy amounts to without someone being a candidate for blame (where someone worthy of blame is a necessary condition). I'll stop short here since I'm not totally sure that I understand your position.

[Rob]

Robert,

If you should wish to disabuse yourself of your outdated underestimation of Nietzsche as a philosopher with substantively argued things to say about human nature, you could do no better than to read the Clark/Swenson annotated translation, and then "Nietzsche on Morality," Brian Leiter's magisterial book-length treatment of "The Genealogy of Morality," in which Leiter directly addresses the genetic fallacy issue, instead of dismissing Nietzsche on such inadequate grounds as a mere radio interview. And, if you don't have the patience to try to figure out in what relationship the content of Nietzsche's views should stand to their uncommon presentation, then, I reckon, you could settle for reading Bernard Williams' last three books, which are heavily informed by Nietzsche and which bring his thought into a perhaps more manageable contact with contemporary philosophical argumentative style.

Besides Leiter's book, here are some excellent essays which should put to rest your mistaken notion that Nietzsche's critique in "The Genealogy of Morality" is "one long genetic fallacy" and, I hope, convince you that his mature thought remains far from being fully plumbed:

"Slave morality, Socrates, and the bushmen: A Reading of the First Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals." Mark Migotti. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research. Dec98, Vol. 58 Issue 4, p745, 35p

"Nietzsche on Ressentiment and Valuation." Bernard Reginster. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research. Jun97, Vol. 57 Issue 2, p281, 25p

[Eddy Nahmias]

Some questions about "robust moral responsibility" (RMR) of the sort G. Strawson and others believe is (a) the target of philosophically interesting conceptions of free will; (b) the conception that ordinary people employ at least some of the time when they praise, blame, etc.; and (c) conceptually impossible or incoherent. As a compatibilist I of course reject (a) and, for various reasons, I question (b). Of course, as a sane person I accept (c) since RMR is pretty much defined in such a way that it is self-contradictory (more on this if anyone's interested). So here are the questions:

1) Suppose that (b) is correct in this sense: Westerners in the Judeo and (especially) Christian tradition have, perhaps under the influence of theologists and philosophers(!), come to see RMR as the only sort of free will that could justify eternal punishment or reward (Strawson puts it this way) and perhaps the only sort that could hope to answer the problem of evil. OK, the question then is how often and to what extent does *this* conception of free will influence people's (and societies') expression of reactive attitudes and praise/blame practices? An interesting test to answer this question might be to look at the practices (and concepts) of non-Western cultures. I disagree with Tamler that RMR arises under selection pressure to punish cheats in cooperative social interactions. A strong conception of personal responsibility might evolve but it need not be one that requires the idea of *eternal* damnation (as witnessed by the lack of that idea in many cultures). If RMR is divorced from the idea of justifying *eternal* damnation (and hence *infinite* control of a God-like sort), then I think the arguments for (c)--that it is impossible--are not going to work.

2) As informed by a conversation with Al Mele, does it make sense for people to want something they believe is impossible? If RMR is really impossible, and that is made evident to people, can they continue to want it? I'm inclined to say 'yes' but it is an interesting question.

[Tamler]

James,

Forgiveness and mercy, like gratitude, have multiple aspects. They have the aspect that you describe and, as you say, that aspect can’t survive the denial of RMR. But there is another sense of forgiveness which remains. It requires that we follow Richard Double’s advice and replace the question “Was S free in doing a?” with “Was a reflective of S’s character?” To forgive someone is to believe that the act to be forgiven was not an essential and ineradicable part of their character.So if a good friend betrays us in some way, and we believe that the act was out of character, we may forgive him. Why? Because we believe that the act does not reflect his character and that is he will likely not perform such acts again in the future. Pereboom in his book gives a good description of this feature of forgiveness. He writes:

"Suppose a friend has wronged you in a similar fashion a number of times, and you find yourself unhappy, angry, and resolved to loosen the ties of your relationship. Subsequently, however, he apologizes to you, which, consistent with hard incompatibilism, signifies his recognition of the wrongness of his behavior, his wish that he had not wronged you, and his genuine commitment to improvement. As a result, you change your mind and decide to continue the relationship."

In my view, the friend does not even have to recognize the “wrongness” of his action. He may simply express regret at having made you unhappy and angry, and resolve not to do it again. Our decision whether or not to “forgive” him, in this sense, will then depend on what kind of character we believe the friend to have. Is his regret sincere? And is he capable of refraining from performing the kind of action that make us unhappy? If we judge that he is, and we remain friends, then we have forgiven him. This is, I readily admit, a purely pragmatic view of forgiveness. It also sounds colder and more calculating that it is or needs to be.

I hope that clears things up about my position. But please let me know if it doesn’t.

(This might be a good time to confess that some of what I’m posting on this site comes out of my dissertation. So thanks for raising objections, everyone. I’ll soon be facing some of these questions under more formal circumstances.)

[Tamler]

Eddy,

A quick point of clarification. One point of disagreement between me and Galen is on this heaven/hell story. I think it's an unhelpful way of getting at the type of RMR that we're speaking about, for a lot of the reasons you and others mention. When I use the term RMR I'm refering to the idea that one can be deserving of praise, blame, and perhaps punishment (but not eternal punishment). It's a kind of RMR that makes resentment appropriate under some conditions. And I still maintain that this less dramatic form of RMR cannot be justified. (As does Galen, I'm pretty certain.)

[Tamler]

Robert,

While I think it's best to stay out of your dispute with Rob, I would like to respond to one point. If you're defending an error theory of free will and RMR, as I am, then providing naturalistic account of why we make the error--why we believe in RMR--would be quite helpful, if not essential.

Why can't "real philosophers" refer to work in other disciplines as a means of defending premises in their arguments?

[Rob]

"...if there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR, then retributive attitudes are never appropriate." (Tamler, above)

One reason why I keep bringing up Nietzsche is that while he also certainly holds that "there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR," in his mature (post-"Daybreak") work he doesn't seem to accept that retributive attitudes are therefore never appropriate -- because he doesn't hold that such attitudes are in fact as dependent upon commitment to "GS style free will and RMR" in the first place.

"...punishment as *retribution* developed completely apart from any presupposition concerning freedom or lack of freedom of the will [...] and to such a degree that in fact a *high* level of humanization is always necessary before the animal 'man' can begin to make those much more primitive distinctions 'intential,' 'negligent,' 'accidental,' 'accountable,' and their opposites, and to take them into account when measuring out punishment. The thought, now so cheap and apparently so natural, so unavoidable, a thought that has even had to serve as an explanation of how the feeling of justice came into being at all on earth -- 'the criminal has earned his punishment *because* he could have acted otherwise' -- is in fact a sophisticated form of human judging and inferring that was attained extremely late; whoever shifts it to the beginnings lays a hand on the psychology of older humanity in a particularly crude manner." (GM 2.4)