Strawson, Freedom, and Resentment

First and foremost, Peter Strawson wishes to point out that he does not know, and does not particularly care, exactly what the “thesis of determinism” is. He is only concerned with the fact that such a thesis does exist and that it involves actions being more or less determined in some sense or another. He also is not exceedingly concerned (for his own conclusion at any rate) about the truth or falsity of determinism. He then goes on to describe the viewpoints and disagreements of the “optimists and pessimists” of determinism, to which I will refer, more directly, as compatible determinists and incompatible libertarians. At the end of the article, Strawson concludes with a further distillation of the two viewpoints as they relate to his own personal thesis. I will present the two stances in due time, but will first go on to explain Strawson’s description of resentment, gratitude, indifference, offence, and other “reactive attitudes”.

There are many variations of ways to feel about another person, Strawson says. They are varied by our relationship to the person, the circumstances in which we interact, and not least by how and why they act toward us, or at least how and why we perceive they act toward us. Specifically, how we feel toward someone may vary quite a bit due directly to how we perceive their intentions.

If someone cuts you off on the interstate, how angry you feel about it will depend to some degree on what you know or think you know about the situation. Perhaps they have kids in the car and were distracted and didn’t see me, you might suppose, and then be persuaded to consider them in a somewhat kinder light. However, if you are quite sure that this wasn’t the case, you might think, some jerks have no regard for other people and think they can get away with anything. If this is how you perceive the situation, you might fume and flash gestures at them instead of just brushing it off.

Likewise, your feelings can be affected by how much choice you think the individual had in his actions. Being mentally unstable, under extreme duress or emotionally immature, as examples, may very well affect how you treat a person, perhaps differently than if someone else not under those condition(s) acted in the same way toward you.

So then, Strawson thinks that two of the greatest influences of variety in our treatment of people are their perceived intentions and their ability to choose their actions. But if determinism (whatever that means) is true, wouldn’t that limit our justification for varying our treatment of people? After all, when we think a person is limited in their choice of action in some way or another, we tend to give them a little leeway when meting out our resentment.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of determinism, Strawson says, the average person would not change their feelings about moral responsibility. When using “just punishment” (implying moral responsibility) as a means for coercing people to behave in socially desirable ways, it would negate the usefulness of that particular method if moral responsibility were wholly abandoned. Also, when teaching children to behave in socially desirable ways, it would do no one any good in the long term to dismiss their disagreeable actions as results of determinism.

Going back to Strawson’s optimists and pessimists, his characterization of a compatible determinist’s (hereafter shortened to ‘determinist’) view is someone who feels that the facts – so far as we have them – do not show determinism to be false nor do they disprove the validity of moral responsibility and punishment. These things are effective in producing, as before stated, socially desirable actions and it is only because they are effective that we have punishments at all. Strawson’s incompatible libertarian (shortened to libertarian) is someone who thinks that if determinism is true, then moral responsibility and consequential punishment have no place in any society. A libertarian will retort immediately to a determinist that punishment implies guilt which implies moral responsibility which implies freedom which implies the falsity of determinism! The determinist counters that that chain of implication only holds for a sort of “negative freedom:” freedom from moral responsibility in cases of coercion, incapacity, insanity, or a sort duress causing the kind of action that could reasonably be expected from anyone. The libertarian will say that this sort of freedom exists, but that’s not the only sort about which she was talking.

Finally Strawson admits that he falls more into the compatible determinist camp, but only if the viewpoint, such as he has presented it, is “radically modified.” Mostly, this modification has to do with how he views the purpose of moral responsibility and subsequent punishment, that is to remember that they are functions of our morality and not the “calculated” causes of it.

David Wiggins disagrees that the truth or falsity of determinism is irrelevant when discussing the “practices” of responsibility, resentment, punishment, etc. We need to determine the truth or falsity of the thesis of determinism before we move on to discussing the finer points of moral responsibility: Strawson’s resentment and other “reactive attitudes.” Refusing to make an assumption about the truth-value of determinism does not exempt one from the consequences of its truth-value. He also thinks that the conclusion drawn by Strawson from his explanation of compatible determinism and incompatible libertarianism is a fallacy. He feels the language and the usage of language doesn’t need to be explained in ways that differ at least a noticeable bit from the norm, as he thinks Strawson seems to think it does. He might even go so far as to say that the purpose of language is to use it properly and in the way one means, not to draw faulty conclusions from convoluted arguments.

Strawson might respond that, as Wiggins points out, the libertarian would agree with the better part of Strawson’s arguments, but not with the conclusion. Because it is mainly the conclusion that Wiggins protests, Strawson may say that’s only because Wiggins doesn’t agree with it. After all, Wiggins doesn’t offer much of an argument, he just writes off Strawson’s conclusion as unsound after saying that it does matter whether or not determinism is true. But if in fact this is not the case, and Wiggins is not being quite so petty as all that, perhaps the main thing Strawson would say is to reiterate that the truth-value of determinism is not a building block for the rest of one’s arguments about free will and moral responsibility.

A part of Strawson’s argument that is appealing to me is that whether or not the philosophers ever find determinism to be definitively true or false may not change how the average commoner views moral responsibility, guilt, punishment, and the like. Of course the average philosopher probably doesn’t spend most of her time wondering how the average commoner would feel about her viewpoint, so perhaps it is irrelevant that I like this particular point of Strawson’s.

But, like Wiggins, I do rather wonder about how Strawson arrived at his particular conclusion from his discussion of optimists and pessimists and attitudes. If what Wiggins says is true, that it is a non sequitur, and so it would seem, if Wiggins says he agrees with nearly everything in the argument but the conclusion. Of course, it is the ‘nearly’ part that might make a crucial difference for Strawson’s credibility here. It does seem a little distressing to me that the conclusion is a statement that moral responsibility comes from our morality, not that we use moral responsibility to further the livelihood of our morality.

Either way, I do agree that the attitudes of the ordinary commoner would remain fairly unaffected by the truth or falsity of determinism, but I don’t agree with Strawson’s way of going about ‘proving’ this. Actually, I don’t really think that sort of statement needs philosophical proof at all. It’s really more of a psychological question in my opinion.

Jim1 and Jim2

An unfortunate human named Jim was the victim of an amazing mechanically complex farm equipment accident in July, which severed his body so that each half of his body was left with exactly half of all organs. Each half was thrown clear of the machine and so far apart that the different rescue parties did not realize that the other half existed and so, each half was fitted with state-of-the-art prostheses in such a way that two functional bodies lived. Each survivor professes to be Jim and has the same memories, strengths, goals, and convictions.

Derek Parfit is called in to evaluate the situation. Parfit in general does not believe in the all-or-nothing mentality when referring to personal identity, so he is not concerned with saying whether or not these two beings are each the same person as Jim. He chooses to employ two descriptive terms – psychological continuity and psychological connectedness – when discussing the status of the beings.

Psychological connectedness means there is some inheritance of memories or attitudes or personality from the former being to the later one. Psychological continuity has a weaker implication than psychological connectedness and simply entails an overlapping chain of instances of psychological connectedness. For instance – if one was using only memory as a criterion, which is not the case for Parfit but will be used here for the sake of example - if a little girl gets her doll eaten by a dog and remembers the incident years later on her 25th birthday and then when she is 75 remembers her 25th birthday but not the dog incident, it could be said that the crone is connected to the young woman but only continuous with the girl.

In the case of Jim, Parfit would say that Jim is psychologically connected to both beings, that Jim has survived in both beings, but not that the beings are the same people as Jim. Each of the survivors is a ‘later self’ of Jim. Therefore, they could each refer to Jim as an ‘earlier self’ while not needing to regard themselves as the same person, or they could even say that they are ‘more or less’ the same person as Jim without needing to be ‘more or less’ the same as each other.


However, ‘Jim1 and Jim2’ are not completely assuaged by this evaluation so they ask for another perspective. A Lockian analyst is brought in to help. She explains Locke’s perspective on personal identity. Locke draws a semantic difference between the words ‘man’ and ‘person’ that is roughly equal to the difference between the concepts ‘ physical body’ and ‘mental consciousness.’ Furthermore, with regard to personal identity what matters for Locke is simply continuity of consciousness, which can be defined as continuity of memories, personality, beliefs, and (/or) goals. Because both of the survivors are consciously continuous with Jim, the analyst concludes that they are both the same person as Jim, but not the same man as Jim. (One thing that might make Locke’s assessment easier to make is if some testimony by the former Jim’s acquaintances was given, saying that when interacting separately with the two survivors, they are both extremely convincing Jims. This sort of independent verification seems important to Locke.)

This author finds Parfit’s arguments more compelling in this situation. Perhaps this is because it seems to make more sense intuitively to say that each survivor is very definitely related strongly to Jim but not feel compelled to have to identify the survivors as either ‘the same person’ as Jim or not, since it would be illogical to say that one was the same person as Jim and the other not since they are, for all intents and purposes, related to Jim in exactly the same way; nor is it intuitively comfortable to refer to them both as the same person as Jim, since they are not the same person as each other.

Although one weakness of Parfit’s evaluation could be that one doesn’t have an answer for the question ‘Is this man/person/survivor Jim?’ this author finds it a strength for the same reason she rejects the binary zero-sum attitude of Locke, namely because the idea is overwhelmingly appealing to her intuition. Parfit himself thinks this completely unnecessary, but other people might want a definitive answer. Also, if one thinks numerical identity is intrinsically locked up in the question of personal identity, Parfit is not going to satisfy.

Later that year, in September, Jim1 and Jim2 are working on another farm and are both involved in an accident in which all the prosthetics are severed from their bodies and thrown clear. The two halves are then fused together to result in one surviving body, which claims to be Jim and has the same memories, strengths, goals, and convictions.

Again Parfit says that this being is a ‘later self’ of Jim. But while this survivor is psychologically connected to Jim1 and Jim2, he is merely psychologically continuous with Jim.

The Lockian analyst is a bit perplexed by the situation, because in July she said there were two persons who were both the same person as Jim; the survivors have since been having different experiences and are no longer consciously continuous with each other, therefore the latest survivor cannot still be Jim, because the line of continuity has been broken or at least re-fused at the end with a split in the middle.

This author cannot see a way in which the Lockian analyst could reply in this situation that the final survivor is still Jim. But then who is he? And what happened to the two survivors that were Jim? When presented with the two situations together as a whole there might be a way for the analyst to explain it in a way that fits with Locke, but when confronted with the situations separately there seems to be a major problem or at least an incongruity.

Again, Parfit seems better able to handle this situation in a consistent way. However, perhaps this is because his is a weak, rather wishy-washy view. Instead of picking one or the other, he picks neither. Is this getting around the issue, or just being smart enough to rise above the points that don’t matter?

This author thinks that Parfit is accurate in both of his assessments and that by choosing to regard two points of contention – one, that someone either must be the same person as they were before or they must not and two, that regardless of the fact of the matter where one is concerned, we have to decide on one before we can make any statements about personal identity – as irrelevant, he makes this situation more easy and more consistent to evaluate than one is able to do under the tenets held by Locke.

Life Goals

1. Live in a box.
2. Dress in period clothing for one (consecutive) year.
3. Learn to dance.
4. Publish something and get paid for it.
5. Make streudel.
6. Use coriander seed while cooking.
7. Make good brownies.
8. Read Ovid, Catullus, and Martial in the original Latin.
9. Study sacred geometry.
10. Get henna done.
11. Go swimming skyclad.
12. Have a library.
13. Have and herb garden.
14. Have a conversation with someone who doesn't speak English.
15. Visit all the European countries.
16. Have sex under a full moon.
17. Own a cat.
18. Design a house and gardens.
19. Learn to drive stick.
20. Wear full-body leather.
21. Teach someone an important life skill.
22. Lay a brick/stone walk.
23. Go to a Star Trek convention.
24. Hear the northern lights.
25. See a lunar eclipse.
26. See a solar eclipse.
27. Hold something 2000+ years old.
28. Get my portrait done by a streetworker in Europe.
29. Road trip across the US.
30. Scuplt something either out of clay or stone.
31. Learn how to throw knives.
32. Get a(nother) tattoo.
33. Go scuba diving.
34. Have absinthe.
35. Patent something.
36. Write a poem in another language.
37. Visit an archaeological sit of an ancient city.
38. Take an account of a great explorer and travel it.
39. Make candles.
40. Learn to surf.
41. Learn to ski.
42. Have sex in a boat.

Responsible Time Travel: Study Causation Before You Build That Time Machine!

Time travel has captured the imaginations of countless persons throughout history, although many or most may regard it as complete science fiction rather than even having a marginal possibility of realization. This is not a discussion of the physical mechanics of time travel, but of the identity and nature of time from a philosophical standpoint and the causal ramifications thought inherent to any sort travel through time.

First of all, before even broaching the subject of whether or not it is theoretically feasible to travel through time, one must consider if it is even logically possible. There are many ways of looking at time’s identity, but two I consider central to this discussion are time as an unreality and time as a fourth dimension.

J. E. McTaggart discusses time in two ways, called the “A series” and the “B series.”[i] The A series uses the stages ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future’ to refer to temporal events and moments. What is now present was once future and will be past. In this series events are always changing. They move from one stage to another in a certain necessary order (that is, order determined solely by definition) and cannot be in more than one stage at any single moment. The B series describes temporal order. If K occurred before L and after J, J is earlier than K and K is earlier than L. This order will never change, no matter what moment of reference is used. The moments J, K, and L could be in one’s past, future, or present, but the order is, was, and will remain unaffected.

McTaggart thinks that the A series is essential to time. Time cannot exist without the existence of the A series and we cannot claim that events exist without using the A series to describe them.[ii] The B series is not necessary in the same way. When explaining the dispensable nature of the B series, McTaggart introduces the “C series.”[iii] The C series is like the B series without the temporal aspect, i.e. a pure sequence. If the order of the series is P, Q, R, S it will also be S, R, Q, P, but not Q, R, P, S or any other combination.

Having described these three series, McTaggart reminds his reader that he does not think time is real. This is because he claims the A series does not exist and without it time does not exist. The A series is unreal because it is self-defining and thus given to circular reasoning. One cannot define or even describe the terms ‘past,’ ‘present,’ and ‘future’ without referring to verb tenses that are themselves characterized by those three terms. He then explains that the B series does not exist either, but that the C series does. Therefore, in actuality, events have sequence but not a temporal order or a description by the three terms of the A series.[iv]

In contrast, David Lewis likens time to a railway, and more specifically a “mountain railway” when described in conjunction with time travel.[v] This sort of time is a fourth dimension, and time travel is not a logical impossibility because times other than the present do exist in actuality. This is not to say that travel is possible – yet – but that there are at least destinations. One could move temporally in a linear way because the temporal moments commonly referred to as the past and future do exist, and not just in the memory or imagination. To further describe this vision of time, it is useful to go into its causal properties, which will be discussed later on.

Also, Lewis introduces the distinctions of “personal time” and “external time” which are almost necessary when considering the paradoxes of time travel.[vi] Personal time is the time traveler’s own time, which can be thought of as the elapsed time on her own wristwatch, which may differ from the external time, along which she is traveling. If the traveler takes ten minutes of her personal time to go linearly in external time, say 50 years, for her only ten minutes have passed but the world is in a different time by a measure of 50 years.

Lewis’ vision of time allows for time travel while McTaggart’s does not. This is most simply explained by noticing that for McTaggart there is nowhere to go, because time does not exist. McTaggart’s main argument is that the A series is necessary for time and that the A series does not exist, therefore time does not exist. I do not think that this is necessarily so. The A series may be a useful construction for describing time in everyday conversation but it may not be requisite for time’s existence. The C series may be enough to fulfill that particular requirement. I do not have the ability to prove this conclusively at the moment, but if we are to further discuss time travel it is imperative that we take Lewis’ vision of the identity of time and carry on with its nature.

Of the nature of time I will also mention only two positions in the interest of simplicity and brevity. The Heraclitean position entails the constant fluctuation of time. According to this outlook, trying to move to a destination in the future would be impossible because the future truly does not yet exist. Travel to this sort of past is not possible because the traveler could not “gain causal access to it.”[vii] On the other hand, the Parmenidean view holds that time is eternal;[viii] the past and the future exist in the same way the present exists. It is in this sort of system that time travel is logically feasible, and this is the perspective we shall take.

This brings us to the problems and paradoxes involved in the causal effectualness of time travel. Can one really change the past? One common-sense argument is that no, one cannot, because the past has already occurred. But this is a Heraclitean view. Another argument is that time is accessible because it is eternal. However, this does not intrinsically imply that one can change the past, or the future for that matter. It is commonly held that the future has not yet happened, therefore one can easily ‘change’ or affect it. According to the Parmenidean view, this is not so. The future exists always, in the same way the past exists. The answer to the question above is yes, of course, because if one is going to change the past, one will have already changed it and will always have changed it.

But if the change has already existed, doesn’t that mean that there wasn’t ever anything from which to change it? This question can be addressed by thinking of time in branches.[ix] Consider the famous grandfather paradox: can Wil go back in time and kill his own grandfather before his own father is conceived? When thinking of time in branches, this sort of scenario is certainly possible.

Imagine there exist two timelines, Alpha and Beta. In timeline Alpha, Wil exists; in Beta he does not. Alpha Wil goes back along line Alpha and kills his own grandfather. Beta branches off Alpha the moment before Wil’s grandfather’s death on line Beta. In this way, Wil’s grandfather does not die on line Alpha and so Wil can go back to kill him. However, after this moment Alpha Wil exists on line Beta. This is another pivotal point for us; there are two choices of perspective regarding temporal causal efficacy. Line Alpha may forever be lost to Alpha Wil; even if he goes forward along the line he will not find a time where a Beta Wil exists. The alternative is that he can indeed jump branches of time laterally as well as in the ‘normal’ linear sense.

To illustrate these two types of time travel I will refer to Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity. The primary or ‘normal’ type discussed in the novel is like Wil’s movement along line Alpha; that is, linearly along a single timeline without the ability to jump branches. Indeed, Asimov’s principal character Andrew Harlan does not even realize that the other branches are permanent just as the eternal timeline is permanent. His purpose – his vocation – is to change the timeline for the betterment of humanity. In some cases he can affect change with a simple movement of a book on a shelf, but sometimes he must integrate himself into that particular when for a duration of his own personal time. Harlan - and Harlan’s colleagues - believe that once the timeline has been changed, the ‘former’ one cannot be retrieved. It is not until the end of the novel that Harlan discovers a worker who deals not only with the line of time, but with its infinite branches.[x]

Wil’s story assumes that Wil’s presence in an earlier time has only the effect of his grandfather’s demise. Unfortunately causal theory has not been developed to the point where one can be certain that this would be the case. Even the smallest action could have ramifications of colossal proportions a few years down the line. In Asimov’s world, the relationships of cause and effect are much more firmly established than any causal system we presently possess. This issue ties ethics to time travel.

Ethically, one would suppose that a time traveler whose mission was to change a single event would prefer not to affect any other changes on the timeline, to result in as few branches as possible. A succinct statement of this responsible desire is expressed in the Temporal Prime Directive of Starfleet, a military organization from Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek series: “All Starfleet personnel are strictly forbidden from directly interfering with historical events and required to maintain the timeline and prevent history from being altered.”[xi]

This is a noble goal, but the prevailing state of causal theory is not at a level to make this aspiration attainable beyond a reasonable doubt. Current science has brought time travel out of the realm of pure science fiction and into that of scientific possibility. There is much yet to be discovered about the nature of time. Metaphysics and physics grow ever closer; the divide between science and spirituality is narrowing. What has been a philosophical subject – the identity and nature of time – will soon become a scientific topic. Time travel may become an actuality. Before this happens, I believe causation should be fervently studied to become as highly developed as possible, to the point of an empirical science.

Notes:
1. J. Ellis McTaggart, “The Unreality of Time.” Mind 17, no. 68 (Oct. 1908): 458-9. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28190810%292%3A17%3A68%3C457%3ATUOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y 2. Ibid., 463.
3. Ibid., 461-2.
4. Ibid., 467-9.
5. David Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel.” American Philosophical Quarterly 13, no. 2 (Apr. 1976): 147.
6. Ibid., 146-7.
7. William Grey, “Troubles with Time Travel.” Philosophy 74, no 287 (1999): 57.
8. Ibid., 56.
9. Lewis, “Paradoxes,” 152.
10. Isaac Asimov, The End of Eternity. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955.
11. “Temporal Prime Directive,” Memory Alpha, http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php?title=Temporal_Prime_Directive&oldid=303254.

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Bibliography

Asimov, Isaac. The End of Eternity. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955.

Grey, William. “Troubles with Time Travel.” Philosophy 74, no 287 (1999): 55-70.

Lewis, David. “The Paradoxes of Time Travel.” American Philosophical Quarterly 13, no. 2 (Apr. 1976): 145-152.

McTaggart, J. Ellis. “The Unreality of Time.” Mind 17, no. 68 (Oct. 1908): 457-474. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28190810%292%3A17%3A68%3C457%3ATUOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y

“Temporal Prime Directive,” Memory Alpha, http://memory-alpha.org/en/index.php?title=Temporal_Prime_Directive&oldid=303254.

Contentment

contentment with godliness is great gain
my lips smirk in amusement
are they still teaching this fallacious argument?

I know godliness, I spent years…
fervent study, steeped in the scalding bath
of rigidly rigorous religion
and with this came, not a sense of peace
or the calming air of an anchor -
never that,
only a helpless flailing, the paradox
of necessary good works and unconditional grace
draining any measure of control
freedom from responsibility
which seems to be a relief for some
but never, somehow, for me
contributing, compounding, feeding
the underlying vague uneasiness
hidden and unnamed, never allowed to surface

oh yes, I know godliness

but contentment, contentment is fleeting
deliciously so
free, almost, from objective empirical study
I can no more ‘know’ contentment
than I can know how a vacuum tastes
or the tune of the Earth’s birthing cry
how can uncertainty be liberating
when conviction is not?

although I do not know contentment
I can recognize it
I have experienced it,
reveled in it joyously
it reaches up and catches me by surprise,
always,
and this is a tingle of pleasure in itself

can I describe them to you?
these moments, that exist and are tasted and then vanish, laughing?
somehow words do not capture the feeling –
being breathless and filled with pure, bright air all at once;
knowing, as you gaze at the stars,
some of their light is captured in your own eyes
but knowing also that your companion cannot see it
(unless you are very, very lucky);
when silence is enough, and more;
how the sun filtering through bare-limbed trees
is the most nourishing thing you’ve ever known;
simple affectionate words, whispered playfully –
mean so much more than any coldly scrutinizing praise,
lofty and verbose;
the feeling of newly-cut grass under your bare feet
and its smell, the very scent of life,
wafting up around you;
this is all I can say of contentment

contentment without the further requirement of godliness,
from what I can tell, is the greatest gain of all