282 Contemporary Incompatibilism: Skeptical Views
attitudes, although they would be undermined by hard determinism, or more
broadly by free will skepticism, are not required for good personal relationships.
Resentment and indignation are undercut by the skeptical position, but free will
skeptics such as Pereboom maintain that all things considered they are subopti-
mal relative to alternative attitudes available to us. Second, the skeptic might
continue, the attitudes that we would want to retain either are not threatened by a
skeptical conviction, because they do not have presuppositions or attendant
beliefs that conflict with this view, or else have analogues that would in this
respect be in the clear. The attitudes and analogues that would survive do not
amount to Strawson’s objectivity of attitude, and are sufficient to sustain good
personal relationships.
Of all the attitudes associated with moral responsibility, moral resentment,
that is, anger directed toward someone due to a wrong he has done to oneself,
and indignation, anger with an agent because of a wrong he has done to a third
party, are particularly closely connected with it. It is telling that debates about
moral responsibility most often focus not on how we react to morally exemplary
agents, but rather on how we respond to those who have acted badly. The kinds
of cases most often used to generate a strong conviction of moral responsibility
in the basic desert sense involve especially malevolent harm. Perhaps, then, our
attachment to moral responsibility in this sense derives partly from the role
moral resentment and indignation have in our moral lives, and free will skepti-
cism is especially threatening because it challenges their legitimacy.
Moral resentment and indignation often have a communicative function in
personal relationships, and accordingly one might object that if we were to strive
to modify or eliminate these attitudes, such relationships might well be damaged
(see Shabo, 2012 for a sophisticated defense of this view). But when we are
targets of bad behavior in our relationships there are other emotional attitudes
often present that are not challenged by the skeptical view, whose expression
can also play the communicative role. These attitudes include feeling hurt or
shocked or disappointed about what the other has done, and moral sadness or
sorrow and concern for him. Often feigned disappointment or moral sadness is
used to manipulate others, but the genuine versions are invoked here. It is thus
not clear that anger is required for communication in personal relationships.
A case can be made that these alternatives are indeed preferable. Moral anger,
of which resentment and indignation are subspecies, does have an important role
in human relationships as they ordinarily function. It motivates resistance to
oppression and abuse, and as a result it can make relationships better. But
expression of moral anger frequently has harmful effects. On many occasions, it
fails to contribute to the well- being of those to whom it is directed. Expression
of moral anger is often intended to cause physical or emotional pain, and it can
give rise to destructive resistance instead of reconciliation. Moral anger also
serves as a motivation to take harmful measures against the other. It thus also
has a tendency to damage or destroy relationships.
Certain types and degrees of moral anger are likely to be beyond our power
to affect, and thus even the committed skeptic might not be able to make the