138 Strawsonian Compatibilism
6.5.2. Assessing Strawson’s Psychological Impossibility Argument
Strawson’s psychological impossibility argument has been the target of consider-
able critical attention. One immediate reaction to it is to argue that the empirical
assumption on which it’s founded is beside the point. It might well be, the objec-
tion goes, that we are built so that we cannot fail to be disposed to these attitudes
and to be motivated to act from them, but this does not serve to indicate that
anyone is actually free and morally responsible. There might be all sorts of illu-
sions that we are stuck with given our human condition, but our psychology
inescapably being a certain way does not render something that is an illusion
something that is not one (Smilansky, 2000).
Others, however, have disputed Strawson’s claim that we are incapable of
suspending the morally reactive attitudes (e.g., Pereboom, 2001; Sommers,
2007). There are well- known examples of human communities that have com-
mitted to a considerable detachment from the emotions—both the moral and
non- moral ones. So it was with the Stoics, and so it is in certain Buddhist com-
munities. Furthermore, it might be objected, the force of Strawson’s psychologi-
cal impossibility argument gains its force by lumping together all of the morally
reactive attitudes and assuming that this class of emotions is quite broad, includ-
ing love and simple human affection. But in order to refrain from blaming or
praising, one needs only withhold attitudes such as resentment and gratitude.
Other forms of human affections, such as love, are not implicated in our moral
responsibility practices in any direct way. Hence, a more restrictive treatment of
the relevant morally reactive attitudes makes it less plausible to think we are
psychologically incapable of suspending just this limited class while retaining
the wider class of emotions that do not have assumptions about freedom and
responsibility embedded in them (again, see Pereboom, 2001; Sommers, 2007).^16
Another criticism of Strawson’s psychological impossibility argument turns
on distinguishing between an emotion like resentment as a general type and
token instances of them, as actual episodes wherein one manifests, say, a reactive
feeling of moral anger toward another. Paul Russell (1992) has argued that
Strawson’s psychological impossibility argument gains the force it seems to
have by eliding this important distinction. While it is true that, as a class of emo-
tions, we are naturally built to be disposed to them, we should not conclude that
on any occasion, an episode of these emotions is one that we are incapable of
suppressing, especially with respect to its behavioral manifestations. More
importantly, we should not conclude that we are incapable to doing so in con-
texts in which we have reason to believe that our so reacting is not justified. But
this then gives rise to the distinct question as to whether there are good reasons
that could justify, or instead show as unjustified, pertinent instances of these
emotions. Here, one might worry that if determinism is true, such justifications
are never possible. Hence we are led to the justificatory question, and on to ques-
tions about the putative rationality of these emotions—or more precisely the
rationality of acting upon or manifesting these emotions in relevant ways.