Friendship and freedom

Happy Martin Luther King Day to all! 

Here are a few questions about different ways friendship and freedom might be related.  Does friendship (among other relationships we value) require freedom?  There are several ways one might take friendship and freedom to be related.  One way of seeing the connection is this: friendship must be entered into, or given, freely to either be true friendship or to be a friendship that is valuable.  Robert Kane suggests this possibility in the Significance of Free Will (see Derk Pereboom, “Free Will, Love, and Anger,” for an argument on the other side). Another is that relationships like friendship involve a kind of caring and disposition to “take things personally” (as Seth Shabo, inspired by Peter Strawson, puts it in “Where Love and Resentment Meet”) such that a friend is susceptible to the reactive attitudes and so presupposes whatever freedom is required for responsibility on the part of one’s friend.  A third way begins with a related, but distinct, claim about the nature of friendship, namely, that special obligations are partially constitutive of, or supervene on, or are generated by friendship.  And if obligations require the ability to fulfill them, and if having such an ability requires a kind of freedom (or an important component of freedom), then friendship entails this kind of freedom (or an important component).  Are the premises in this third line of reasoning plausible--one about the nature of friendship, the other about its implications for a kind of (or component of) freedom?  Does it stand and fall with the second?  

Comments

[John Fischer]

Great questions, Dana. Love seems an appropriate topic for MLK Day!

It seems to me that falling in love, and relatedly (but, admittedly, in some important ways love and friendship are different) developing a friendship are passive, rather than active, phenomena. They seem to, as it were, "happen to me". I'm not sure I ever step back and freely accept the friendship or somehow freely consent to its initiation, continued development, or maintenance. Now it is certainly *possible* that one reflect and perhaps even freely consent (at any of the relevant moments), but this is not typically the way things go, at least for me; nor does such consent seem required. When one thinks about the phenomenology of falling in love, or developing a good friend, it doesn't present itself--at least to me--as involving freedom. (Think of the lyrics to that song: "Help me/help me, I'm falling in love again..." And "falling" is just the right metaphor, it seems to me.

So I think I'm on Derk Pereboom's side here. And it is interesting to see that the point applies not just to love for children or parents, but romantic love as well, and friendship.

Perhaps we could think of it this way. The locus of control might fail to be inside me in two different ways: it could reside in some other person (or entity) or there could be no locus of control. I think we DO object to someone else's controlling us in certain ways to induce love or friendship. (This is the point of God--played by Morgan Freeman in the film, "Bruce Almighty", telling the character played by Jim Carey, who is interested in the character played by Jennifer Aniston, "You can do anything, but don't mess with her free will!" (Morgan Freeman was giving Jim Carey god-like powers...)

But I don't think that we go so far as to demand that there be a locus control inside us--it is enough that it not reside outside us. Maybe there need be no locus of control at all--that seems to be the way love and friendship are, at least for me.

I have often reflected about how some of the most deeply meaningful and important and precious parts of our lives seem not to depend on freedom or free will in any sense. Of course, that still leaves other important components--don't get me wrong. But surely love and friendship are the most important things in life (given adequate material basis for living and health, etc.), and they seem to just happen, or at least nor require for their meaningfulness and value any sort of free consent.

Remember that Sinatra song lyric: "It had to be you..." That's the way love feels, and sometimes friendship as well.

[John Fischer]

Note the difference (in this respect) between love/friendship and moral responsibility. For love/friendship we require that the locus of control not be external. For moral responsibility we require that the locus of control be internal. (Of course, it is helpful here to distinguish two kinds of control, and here we only require guidance, and not regulative, control--at least according to me.)

It is interesting to think about *why* there is this difference in the control requirements: why do we want the locus of control to be inside us (of course, in a compatibilist sense of "inside") in the case of moral responsibility, but in the case of love/friendship, it is enough that it not be external?

[Dana]

Thanks very much, John, both for that interesting suggestion about loci of control and the way of framing things. I like the Sinatra/Pereboom approach, too! Two questions arise: (1) is the claim about what is required for friendship (as opposed to moral responsibility) a claim about becoming or being a friend or about doing what friendship seems to call for on certain particular occasions or both or something else? (2) what are the consequences of accept the asymmetry suggested here for any connection between the reactive attitudes and moral responsibility on the one hand and friendship on the other?

[John Fischer]

Hmm... Good questions, Dana. What follows is no doubt an inadequate and preliminary stab at responses.

I think, as I wrote above, that friendship does not require that the locus of control be within me, whereas moral responsibility does. I *do* however think that friendship requires that the locus of control *not* be external, say, in the "friend" or associates of the friend or even a third party. I guess I was thinking primarily of becoming a friend, and even of maintaining the friendship, but not of the actions required of friendship. I guess there may well be some actions so required that I would want to be done freely--and thus as a result of guidance control. Sometimes a friendship that has grown and is maintained without my ever freely initiating or consenting to it may require that my friend freely say call me on my birthday (btw, glad that isn't really a requirement, because ALL of my (so-called) friends failed to call me on my recent birthday..)

I have to think more about your second question--any help would be appreciated. I'm wondering whether it would ever be appropriate for someone to have a reactive attitude toward another for failure to start (or allow to be started) a friendship. Or for failing to maintain it. Complicated issues here.

Also, I still don't know why I think there is an asymmetry in the control conditions for friendship and moral responsibility. But, well, maybe there isn't a deeper explanation--maybe the asymmetry is basic. It would I suppose fit nicely with the view that once can be the apt target of reactive attitudes for behavior that is the result of guidance control, but not say for failing to become a friend of mine.

Hey, I could be sad or disappointed if someone fails to become a friend of mine. But could I (appropriately) resent him or her?

[V. Alan White]

Your terrific question Dana and your and John's excellent reflections prompt me to say this: I think freedom and friendship are metaphysically related because (i) social freedom is a metaphysical relationship and (ii) friendship is a complicated subset of (i).

Consider someone like Chuck Noland in the movie Cast Away. Chuck is a social being with a fiancee suddenly totally alone on an island with no other relatum (another person) to complete the potential relation of social freedom. So he manufactures one: Wilson, the anthropomorphized bloody volleyball. He befriends Wilson in an asymmetrical way: Wilson is chatted up and cared for until years later he (in Chuck's mind) pisses him off and is cast away (huh huh), though Chuck quickly and contritely saves Wilson (with renewed blood) because he can't stand to be alone. Freedom to have a friend requires some relatum--even if only a volleyball.

(Aside: the movie wonderfully enforces the metaphysically founded axiological point of the value of the relationship of friendship by contrasting Chuck's reaction to losing Wilson as opposed to losing "the love of his life" when the possibility of normal social relationships are restored after Chuck is rescued and returned to the States. He does not shed a tear when he sees that his former fiancee is forever lost to him--"the tide" of the possibility of social relationships can still bring him something with people around (and of course it does). But recall that he weeps uncontrollably and gives up hope for life itself when Wilson is cast away by a storm. When one loses the last hope for any social relationship, it is like a death sentence for many people.)

Friendship is a relationship (big shock) that is free in the grossest respect that two relata are required (I set aside the question whether friendship with oneself is possible reflexively--I suspect it is). The symmetries/asymmetries of the nature of the relationship probably have great flexibility with respect to what qualify as norms of friendship, though as far as moral responsibility is concerned, I suspect it is a necessary condition that (a) at least two relata (moral beings) for potential social interaction exist (excluding reflexive moral relations) and (b) one internal set of conditions for at least one relatum are assignable as a locus for reactive attitudes for assessment of the relationship morally. (Hey, I felt sorry for Wilson when Chuck "chucked" him out of the cave!)

These are just some sketchy remarks based on a movie, but I think they have legs in real-world instances both metaphysically and axiologically.

[Tamler Sommers]

Great post and discussion!

I certainly agree that for both love and friendship, we don't require an internal locus of control. And I'm not even sure we require an absence of an external locus of control, as long as it's not in the form of a conscious (conscious and malevolent?) manipulator. Like I point out in "the Objective Attitude" many of the most famous love stories have potions or thunderbolts or the gods or "fate" as the cause of love (This is less true for friendship interestingly.)

All that said, I have a lot of sympathy with Seth Shabo's point that friendship and love requires the ability to take things personally. Nothing triggers the reactive attitudes more than these relationships, and (I now think) appropriately so. So if the the proneness to reactive attitudes constitutes moral responsibility, then there would be a link between friendship/love and MR. And this might be a case where the link between control and MR is more tenuous. (In other more impersonal contexts, I think the link is much stronger at least in our culture.)

Finally, to answer Dana's last question, I think the third line of reasoning concerning obligations is less helpful when it comes to friendship. In one sense, it seems like the best friendships aren't about obligations at all. In fact, if you a feel that a friend is doing something with you or for you out of duty and not because they just want to do it (because you're friends), you might feel resentment...

[Derk Pereboom]

Hi Dana,

I agree with John and Tamler on the issue of locus of control in love and friendship. But let me make a comment on Alan, Seth, Tamler’s thoughts about connection between friendship and taking something personally on the one hand, and susceptibility to reactive attitudes on the other. Teenagers often go through a period when they have attitudes of disregard and disrespect for parents, expression of which can result in deeply hurt feelings. But in many cases, such expressions of disregard and disrespect don’t occasion the parents' resentment, but their disappointment and sadness instead. Although these emotions are not reactive attitudes, they are still manifestations of vulnerability on the part of the parent. And crucially, they are also personal – given what Seth says about taking something personally -- because the teenager’s attitudes toward his parents matter to them in their own right, apart from the consequences of these attitudes for their interests. Often parents in such situations are also resentful, but frequently they are not. So there are relationships very important to us in which our care for the other’s attitudes is personal, but in which we subject to resentment. You might think that this absence of resentment is an artifact of the specific nature of the parental relationship, and that it will not carry over to close friendships among adults on an equal footing, but my sense is that it does.

[Anthony Carreras]

Great topic. I'd like to chime in on the last question by responding to Tamler. Tamler writes:

"... I think the third line of reasoning concerning obligations is less helpful when it comes to friendship. In one sense, it seems like the best friendships aren't about obligations at all. In fact, if you a feel that a friend is doing something with you or for you out of duty and not because they just want to do it (because you're friends), you might feel resentment…"

I think this view of friendship is too idealized. It may be true that there are friendships out there where the friends never feel the weight of obligation in their actions for one another. Perhaps these do deserve to be called "the best friendships." But I don't think this tells against thinking that special duties are constitutive of friendship. For one thing, I think the focus we find on the so called "best friendships" (or "companion friendships" as they are sometimes called) in the friendship literature is out of kilter with our ordinary experience of friendship. For another, I think even in the closest of friendships, duty or obligation plays an important role. For example, if I have overwhelming evidence that the spouse of my best friend is cheating on him, it seems that I have a duty - as his best friend - to tell him. This is not something I'll take any pleasure in doing at all, and in fact a part of me probably won't want to tell him. Yet I'll do it because I think friendship requires it.

About feeling resentment upon learning that your friend acted from duty: I might feel resentment if I felt that my friend was doing something for me just because he thought it was his duty in the Kantian sense. But I don't think I'd feel resentment if I felt that my friend was doing something for me because he thought it was his duty *as my friend*. Suppose I asked my friend why he did something important and helpful for me, and he responded, "well, because we're friends." Isn't this just short for, "because our friendship generates special reasons for me to act on your behalf"? And isn't that the same as, or at least strikingly similar to, "because our friendship generates special duties that I act on your behalf"?

[Dana]

This is all really helpful. On Derk’s point--though it’s an open question just how many parents succeed at the kind of reaction to rebelling teenagers, it’s a great case for supporting the idea that a meaningful relationship can come apart from reactive attitudes. I am tempted by the idea that a parent who responds to this sort of behavior without the reactive attitudes at the same time typically “takes things less personally,” at least with respect to the episodes in question. But even if they do take things less personally in this way, perhaps what this shows is precisely that one can have a deep and meaningful relationship without one’s having to take things personally. And maybe something even something stronger is true as, Derk suggests, namely, that one can take things personally in the form of deeply hurt feelings without having the reactive attitudes.

But even if the disposition to the reactive attitudes isn’t necessary for these kinds of relationships, obligations might still be implicated in at least some special relationships, in the way that Anthony suggests. So while Tamler and John rightly point out that we typically want our friends to act naturally and not just after pondering their duties to us, it can still be that as friends we have special duties and these needn’t be non-moral. Whether their existence is compatible with a lack of control or freedom on our part is then at least a relevant question.

[Tamler Sommers]

Anthony,

Yeah, you might be right. The thought "We're good friends, I should X" is common enough even if it's something you have no desire to do (like attend a baby shower). I'm not sure though if "because we're friends" is short for "because our friendship generates special reasons for me to act on your behalf"? That still sounds too cold and precise (i.e. Kantian) to me in this context...

Dana, you write: "it can still be that as friends we have special duties and these needn’t be non-moral. Whether their existence is compatible with a lack of control or freedom on our part is then at least a relevant question."

But even if that is true, it wouldn't entail that friendship requires freedom, right? It would mean that certain duties that are generated by friendship require freedom. But unless those duties are essential to friendship, we could still have duty-free friends.

[David Shoemaker]

Two brief points. First, Strawson does include "hurt feelings" among the class of reactive attitudes.

Second, I think the asymmetrical relation between parents and their teenagers does a lot of work in rendering resentment inappropriate. After all, when you have the standing to *punish* your charges (which those in equal moral relationships do not), anger itself may serve no (or serve an overdetermining) point.

[Saul Smilansky]

Excellent topic, Dana. I agree that some aspects of friendship do not require any free will-related assumptions, and some work well with compatibilist assumptions. But I also think that this isn't the end of the matter. Relationships of deep and lasting friendship are also typically ones where appreciation comes in, and appreciation does not seem limited to FW-indifferent or compatibilist issues. It is perhaps easiest to see this in retrospect, say, when looking back on a friend who has died. There can be different types of friendships, but surely many involve going out of one's way for the friend, making unusual efforts, and perhaps taking risks and paying a big price for the friendship. So in such relationships, if I look back on my friend, it matters a great deal to me whether I view him as a free agent, and in what sense. I find that a thought such as "Well, he did risk and sacrifice a great deal for me, but that's just the way he was built, given his heredity and environment, ultimately beyond his control" does pose a threat to how I view my dead friend, and our longstanding friendship. I might in any case be glad that we had met, and perhaps my enjoyment of his (say) sense of humor is FW-indifferent, but the question how I evaluate and appreciate what he tried to do for me may well be crucial to my view of what it was that was there. It would raise the same sort of incompatibilist worries that are familiar in other contexts.

[Dana]

A couple of more thoughts:

To Tamler’s question--yes, there might be different kinds of friendship; but if one typical and valued sort generates obligations, then questions of freedom would come up for this kind.

David--nice point about Strawson’s inclusion of hurt feelings in the reactive attitudes. This raises the question about how to reconcile all the different claims about the reactive attitudes (e.g., their connection to blame, responsibility, etc.). On the second point, I’m not sure all parents of teens will view the power relations as you suggest! But granting for the moment your point that the parent-teenager relationship is asymmetrical in some respects, are you suggesting that having the ability to punish would render the reactive attitudes inappropriate or gratuitous? This would seem to separate your approach in an interesting way from those who take punishment to be expressive of the attitudes.

[David Shoemaker]

Dana: "Gratuitous" was just the word I was looking for! (I think I left it in the couch cushions, under the remote.) "Inappropriate" may also do. I don't think punishment is an expression of the reactive attitudes; it's something distinct from (beyond?) them, and normatively warranted only given certain asymmetrical power relations, e.g., between parents and children, or between states and citizens. Among moral equals, I don't think we have the standing to punish one another, and I don't think that's what the negative reactive attitudes do (even in their most vociferous expressions).

On the point about reconciling *all* the different claims about the reactive attitudes (plus several Strawson doesn't discuss), that's my aim in the new project....

[John Fischer]

Saul (thoughtfully) writes, "I find that a thought such as "Well, he did risk and sacrifice a great deal for me, but that's just the way he was built, given his heredity and environment, ultimately beyond his control" does pose a threat to how I view my dead friend, and our longstanding friendship. I might in any case be glad that we had met, and perhaps my enjoyment of his (say) sense of humor is FW-indifferent, but the question how I evaluate and appreciate what he tried to do for me may well be crucial to my view of what it was that was there. It would raise the same sort of incompatibilist worries that are familiar in other contexts."

Right, we are to some extent re-inscribing debates we have had in other contexts. But perhaps it is worth a few words here. Yes, I grant that we all to some extent have "natural incompatibilist" thoughts, and I do not dismiss them. So I grant that the thought that, if causal determinism is true, then my dead friend was "built that way" has to be put on the scales with other thoughts; indeed, I'm inclined to say that, if causal determinism is true, then my friend couldn't have (ever) done otherwise.

But still: I can have the thoughts that his sacrifices for me were often very difficult, that he sacrificed for me intentionally, knowingly, and (as I would say, although it is contentious) "freely", that he did it because he cared about me and wanted to help, no one had a gun to his head, no one secretly hypnotized or manipulated him, etc. That is, put somewhat more technically (and perhaps tendentiously), my friend acted from his own, appropriately reasons-sensitive mechanisms.

Now is the consolation I get from these thoughts, even when the incompatibilist thoughts are also on the scales, relatively superficial? I'm not inclined to think so, but, ah, well, how can I convince Saul?

This is how I might try (but I'm not betting on success [or even my beloved Niners, btw.] The worries about causal determinism do show (to a high degree of plausibility, at least for me) that my friend could not have done otherwise. But just as with moral responsibility, genuine acts of friendship do *not* require freedom to do otherwise. (Obviously, we can construct Frankfurt cases for acts of friendship--and they will be just as compelling as the FSCs in the context of moral responsibility--ok, no jokes please about the interpretation of "just as compelling".) Also, if God exists and his foreknowledge (as is plausible) rules out my friend's freedom to do otherwise, does that in any way etiolate my gratitude and my feelings for him? I don't see why; again, no one would have forced him, coerced him, manipulated him, etc.

Maybe I'm just a superficial guy--if so, then so be it. But in my view friendship and love are so cool, so important, so--well, indispensable--it is a good thing that they not hang on a thread, if indeed they do not hang on a thread.

[Saul Smilansky]

John - had you been convinced I would have become worried, for I didn't really say anything new here, nor even used new words to say the old things. I wasn't really aiming to convince those resisting the incompatibilist intuitions, I was merely saying that more or less the same game (and perhaps the same stand-off) will pertain in the friendship-areas, as in the more common areas of blame and punishment. For I thought that many of the comments - not only by compatibilists - seemed to assume that friendship and related matters were special, and more or less immune to the worries about free will, or at least the worry about the absence of libertarian free will. And here I don't see the argument.

Do I have anything new to try and convince you with? Well, let's try something. I'll begin with the notion you use, of gratitude. Let's simplify and assume that our friend was a wonderful friend to us due to his good character. I will grant you anything you want as to his features, i.e. that he was an ideal compatibilist free agent. Nevertheless, if I really come to believe that all there was here was this guy, who (again to simplify) was born with a "good character", and this character then led him to be and do all those great things for us, then, for me, this will affect my gratitude. It will become more gratitude THAT he happened to be born with this sort of character etc, rather than gratitude TO him, as a person. For, what is there to be grateful to him for - he was just born with this great character, and hence did whatever such people who happen to get such characters do. His character is part of the furniture of the world, and while it makes sense perhaps to be grateful that this or that furniture is around, it makes much less sense to be grateful to this furniture. In other words, when we take that sort of external perspective it makes sense to doubt whether our friend really deserves credit for - to put it in vulgar terms - happening to be that part of the furniture of the world. Now of course my picture is too simplistic, and we need to take into account that our friend was an agent, and molded his character during his life, and so on. But this is just complexity, it doesn't (it seems to me) radically change matters. At this point we might be naturally tempted to go phenomenological, and see things from our friend's perspective (e.g. his great efforts, the temptations he had to resist in order to help us, and so on). Or, no less naturally, we might just go emotional, and focus on our emotions of gratitude as the constant which needs no external foundation (P.F. Strawson). But neither seems to me to touch the fundamental way in which if all there is is a guy behaving admirably because he has a great character, and having such a character isn't something he is responsible for, then in at least one central sense, gratitude TO this person, begins to seem quite dubious. Why does HE deserve the credit?

[Tamler Sommers]

Hi Saul,

You write: "if all there is is a guy behaving admirably because he has a great character, and having such a character isn't something he is responsible for, then in at least one central sense, gratitude TO this person, begins to seem quite dubious."

Now I have nothing but the highest regard and respect for you (and you know), but your criteria for non-dubious gratitude seem crazy to me. Gratitude is a natural emotion, one we all feel and welcome, a wholly positive, relationship cementing, beneficial (not just from a consequentialist perspective) emotion, and you say it's dubious unless a (logically/metaphysically/empirically/ whatever) impossible or implausible condition is met? What's the truthmaker for that claim?

We've had this argument before but again: the idea that a Jew who was saved by a Danish family during the holocaust would have to know whether they had libertarian free will in order to be genuinely grateful to them is insane. But I don't need an example that dramatic. More than anything else, your incredibly detailed comments made my book much better than it would have been. You read the book carefully and must have devoted a ton of time and tact coming up with constructive but critical comments. And I'm extremely grateful. I don't believe in libertarian free will. I know you couldn't have chosen otherwise in the libertarian sense. But I'm still grateful and I don't think the gratitude is dubious. Am I making a mistake? Who says? How would we know it's a mistake? Again, what's that truthmaker?

As always, I blame Kant for this.

[John Fischer]

Saul,

Not surprisingly, I agree with Tamler.

Note you write that the individual in question is not responsible for having the character he has, i.e., a good character. But surely this is contentious. What is uncontentious is that (given the assumption of causal determinism) the past together with the laws of nature entail that he has this character. But you cannot just help yourself to the conclusion that this (or anything else) implies that your friend is not morally responsible for his character.
This is precisely the sort of thing that is at issue here!

As you know, your friend was not born with a fully developed character. It might well be the case that he developed his good character through a long process involving sacrifice, discipline, and even courage. Of course, it is equally true that I cannot help myself to the conclusion that my friend is morally responsible for his character. I grant you that. But I think that you might get an unfair "advantage" from stipulating that your friend is not responsible for his character.

[Saul Smilansky]

Tamler - I agree that gratitude is great, it's a central part of the good life, and all that. And I don't think we should give it up, all considered; heck, I probably think we should keep quiet about the dubiousness, outside philosophy. But the reason for thinking that it might well be dubious is not my just being perverse, it is that same old devil, the free will problem. Maybe that's crazy, but you recall that I think matters can be true and crazy...

In order to focus on the present point, let's set aside the complications we both bring in, i.e. my compatibility-dualism and your relativism. So the question, I take it, is something like whether gratitude is different from much of the other stuff, when it comes to the free will problem being a threat, assuming (for the sake of this discussion) hard determinism. I assume you agree up till now.

I can argue in various ways here. Let's start with a simple frontal attack. Assuming hard determinism, blameworthiness goes. No one has FW, so no one has moral responsibility, hence no one is blameworthy. But if blameworthiness goes, how can praiseworthiness survive? And if no one is praiseworthy, why should I be grateful to him or her? What for? So given HD, gratitude seems dubious indeed.

[Tamler Sommers]

Hi Saul, you write:

"Let's start with a simple frontal attack. Assuming hard determinism, blameworthiness goes. No one has FW, so no one has moral responsibility, hence no one is blameworthy. But if blameworthiness goes, how can praiseworthiness survive? And if no one is praiseworthy, why should I be grateful to him or her? What for? So given HD, gratitude seems dubious indeed.

I'll go with Strawson's tendentious but apt counterattack--this is a classic case of overintellectualizing the facts. Of all the reactive attitudes, gratitude might the be the one that least requires an external rational justification--and certainly not one that has anything to do with metaphysics. It's like trying to give a rational justification for finding someone attractive or funny. It misses the point.

But if I had to be specific about where that argument goes wrong, I'd say it's in the step: "if no one is praiseworthy, why should be grateful to him or her?" I don't think we have to ask questions about the possibility of praiseworthiness in general in order to be non-dubiously grateful to people.

[Saul Smilansky]

Good comments, John and Tamler; thanks.

John - in one sense you do agree with Tamler, but that's just in the sense that nearly everyone seems optimistic in the free will context (unlike myself). Actually you don't really agree with him, because you think that gratitude DOES require justification, and presumably that we are grateful (in at least a central sense) to people because they are praiseworthy – you just think there is no problem in defending the grounds for gratitude. Or so it seems to me. Tamler is much more radical, saying (with P.F. Strawson, and against both yourself and me) that we don't need any grounding.

As to character, I agree, there is no reason for a compatibilist to deny self-creation of one's character. But let's assume character was given, and people acted according to it - you would still consider them free and responsible, right? If so, this might actually be an interesting way of focusing on the difference in intuitions between compatibilists and incompatibilists. Such a one-step, simplified compatibilism would still be compatibilist, but also (to my mind) show in a perhaps clearer way the incompatibilist intuition, namely, "it's just the unfolding of the given".

Tamler - like yourself, I think that P.F. made a huge contribution to our understanding of the FW problem. Among the two great alternative free will ancestors, Frankfurt and P.F. Strawson, we are both Strawsonians. But the "no need to justify" part isn't the part I find illuminating in P.F. Your own work, by showing the prevalence of other options, lies in tension with his basically conservative move, doesn't it?

I don't see how we could have gratitude without praiseworthiness. Or rather, I think that there is at least a central sense of gratitude which is dependent on it. Let's say I give your daughter a gift. It took some effort, and expense on my part to do so. Normally you would be grateful, but that, I take it, is only because you assume that I have praiseworthy motives. If you begin to suspect my intentions, you would quickly cease to be grateful to me.

A different point: how do we distinguish appropriate and inappropriate objects of gratitude? (50 shades of gratitude...) Now, a true story. I really like cars. and I love my car: it recognizes me when I approach, turns on the lights, pampers me, is very dependable, and so on. If I keep going on like this, you might begin to be worried a little bit, and ask me, just to make sure, something like "you mean you are happy THAT you have this car, you aren't really grateful TO it/him, right?". And yes, a bit reluctantly I will have to acknowledge that despite my emotional attachment to my car, it is, in the end not really praiseworthy, and hence that being grateful TO it would be a mistake. Moving on, it makes sense to be grateful that one HAS a hamster, because it is so cute etc, but not TO him/it. So where does appropriate gratitude begin, and wouldn't praiseworthiness (as distinguished from it/him just making me happy) come in there?

Finally, wouldn't we want to distinguish qualities in a person that I might be grateful that he happens to have (e.g. his sense of humor or perfect hearing), from those qualities (such as his being considerate and making special efforts on my behalf) for which I would be grateful TO him?

[John Fischer]

Elvis Presley put it nicely with this song:

(words & music by george weiss - hugo peretti - luigi creatore)
Wise men say only fools rush in
But I can't help falling in love with you
Shall I stay
Would it be a sin
If I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you
For I can't help falling in love with you

[Tamler Sommers]

Saul, you write:

"I don't see how we could have gratitude without praiseworthiness. Or rather, I think that there is at least a central sense of gratitude which is dependent on it. Let's say I give your daughter a gift. It took some effort, and expense on my part to do so. Normally you would be grateful, but that, I take it, is only because you assume that I have praiseworthy motives. If you begin to suspect my intentions, you would quickly cease to be grateful to me."

But that's not a problem for a Strawsonian take on gratitude. It's true that I'll cease being grateful if I suspect that you had bad motives (or an absence of good will). That's the kind of internal justification--tied to motives and good will-- that happens all the time.

The issue under dispute though is whether I will cease being grateful to you when you had GOOD motives and a good will, but lacked libertarian free will. This process would require that I question the justification for gratitude IN GENERAL, and not just the justification for this particular instance of it within a framework that accepts the appropriateness of gratitude to people who do nice things for you out of good will. That's where the overintellecualizing the facts charge has some force. And it's just not something I'm wired to do, even when my official position (in the Objective Attitude paper) required that I do so. The philosophical shift for me came when I started to doubt the rationality of denying any aspects of gratitude because because I deny LFW.

This response applies to your final question as well. The Strawsonian internal justification allows for that distinction...

[Saul Smilansky]

Tamler - I wasn't clear enough. I was trying to show the dependence of gratitude on an assumption of praiseworthiness. The man/car/etc SEEMS praiseworthy, but on a deeper look… But then why not push forward, and ask for the praiseworthiness of the person for whatever X (e.g. good will) one is grateful for? O.k., I show good will, but why am I praiseworthy for doing so, unless we assume free will? And that then leads to concern over the same old stuff. The (P.F.) Strawsonian may reply that this is just idle intellectual chatter because anyway nothing can change. But besides other problems, that's just implausibly conservative - as both your and my work argues. So what are we left with? The "no justification is needed" line, because (a) it's emotional? But surely that's not the last word (e.g. judges should be just and not let their emotions influence the judgment). So, "no justification is needed" because (b) it's a form of life? But my form of life as a philosopher is to ask for rational justification and here this means to ask whether what seems praiseworthy IS so, once we understand more. So sure, things work internally, but isn't that consistent with my saying that it's all a bubble, built upon the avoidance of confronting the implications of the absence of LFW?

[Tamler Sommers]

Hi Saul,

"I was trying to show the dependence of gratitude on an assumption of praiseworthiness. The man/car/etc SEEMS praiseworthy, but on a deeper look…."

Regarding the man, the inappropriateness of gratitude as I see is due to my mistaken belief about his motives, and not a mistaken belief about his praiseworthiness. (Unless of course you consider the two to be equivalent, but neither of us do.) And if that's right, then I don't need to "push forward" and ask what someone is praiseworthy for in order to justify gratitude.

Regarding your car, it doesn't seem like you have any mistaken beliefs. So I won't be worried if you carry on about how much you love it. But cars just aren't the kind of things we're grateful TO, as you say. And this is something you'll admit naturally without any questions about praiseworthiness.

But now instead of a hamster, consider a dog. And let's say your two year old-child gets lost in the woods for six hours and you're panicking. Finally, after scouring the forest and calling the police, you hear your dog Charlie barking--you follow the bark and there's your child, asleep on the ground. You realize that your dog has been standing guard and comforting the child the whole time. (This is based on a true story I read recently.)

Think of the absurdity of the following dialogue:

You: I'm so grateful to Charlie! He may have saved my son's life.

Me: I don't think you mean that you're grateful TO Charlie. You mean you're happy THAT you a dog and that the dog stayed by son's side when he was lost.

You: No, I mean that I'm grateful to my dog for staying by my son's side and protecting him.

Me: But the dog is not really PRAISEWORTHY, right?

You: What?

Me: I mean, dogs have been bred and trained to be loyal to their families. Charlie was just doing what came naturally to him.

You: I know that. And I'm still grateful to him.

Me: But don't you see: There's no sense in which Charlie made a free choice to protect your son. He couldn't have chosen otherwise. That's how Charlie is and he did not choose to make himself that way. It follows, then, that your gratitude TO Charlie is inappropriate.

At this point, you would be fully within your rights to punch me hard in the face, right?

Since I don't expect this to persuade you, let me ask you a different question: what do you think could settle this disagreement between us? What's the truthmaker?

[Saul Smilansky]

Hi Tamler - ok, good, let's focus on dogs. Did we ever discuss dogs on Flickers (or the late Garden)? This seems worthwhile doing, e.g. can they be reasons-responsive in a robust enough sense so that compatibilists will attribute free will to them? At risk to my nose, I still want to persist. It seems to me that you are grateful to the dog not only because (a) your child was saved, and (b) dogs are arguably creatures to whom certain emotional responses like gratitude seem appropriate, unlike cars. We still need to clarify that last one (is it that they have emotions? intentions? A personality? but never mind). Beyond that, it seems that in your story what plays a crucial role is the dog's agency. The dog stayed with your child and guarded it, and so on. But then, after you are over the scare, and some time has passed, can't we question that agency, and whether it is enough for true gratitude? Is a dog the sort of thing where if it does this and that, it makes sense to be grateful?

Let's try out a less happy story. Your child is missing, and it turns out that your dog attacked and killed it. Let's assume that the dog isn't dangerous anymore, so there is no forward-looking reason to harm it. Still, you want to kill that dog. I stop you, and say that while I understand your emotional reaction, dogs are just not the sort of creatures that deserve to be reacted to and treated in that way. So no, it won't be killed even after a trial. In fact, it won't even be punished. In fact, there won't be a trial. In fact, there even won't be any adverse reaction. Dogs are just not the proper focus of real disgratitude. They lack the required agency and free will, they are not responsible and blameworthy in a sufficiently robust way, whatever they do. If this is persuasive, then it makes your story much less plausible. (I am assuming you won't want to go for a Wolf asymmetry view of the appropriateness of reactions to dogs.)

How do we decide? Maybe it's a bit too early for that question. I am still not sure whether you are (on my view) too permissive in terms of your standards for gratitude, or over appreciative of dogs, for example. But otherwise, we do seem to be in trouble: I find your dog example a reductio of your position, and you want to punch me on the nose...

[Tamler Sommers]

Saul, there's no question that I have many deeply inappropriate attitudes towards dogs. I just don't think gratitude is one of them. I like your case of the dog deserving punishment--and I agree with you that this would not be appropriate even if if I felt that way at the time.

But this is only a problem for me is you're mistaken in your assumption that I "won't want to go for a Wolf asymmetry view of the appropriateness of reactions to dogs." Actually, I might want to go for something exactly like that. Gratitude is different from resentment. Resentment is not "disgratitude," as you put it.

Regarding the resolvability question, you write: "I find your dog example a reductio of your position." I'm not surprised, because this isn't the first time that's happened! We've both used the same example in our work (Firemen going into the towers on 9/11) to make precisely the opposite points about gratitude and moral worth. ("One man's reductio...") We just don't see gratitude the same way at all, even though we agree about a lot of other things. Which is why the question of what could settle the dispute is interesting.

Let me put it this way: clearly, there are some attitudes or feelings that don't admit to the kind of analysis you want to apply to gratitude. Arousal, for example. Imagine that someone says they're aroused by online pornography. And then a philosopher comes along and says that pornography is not the kind of thing that one can be aroused by. Arousal is only appropriate when the object of arousal is present in flesh and blood. One cannot be aroused by something on a computer screen--that is not a proper focus of genuine arousal.

You'd agree that this philosopher has missed the point about arousal, that the philosopher is overintellectualizing something that's natural and doesn't require external justification--right? So the question is: how do we distinguish cases like this from cases like, say, resenting computers or hamsters, where it seems like we can question the appropriateness or genuineness of the attitude?

My tentative view is that a feeling or attitude is appropriate if it has some staying power and is not grounded in false beliefs or assumptions. Which is why for me gratitude survives the analysis. I have no illusions about libertarian agency in dogs. And yet (in that scenario) I would continue to feel grateful to Charlie, even after the euphoria of finding my child faded. So why wouldn't that apply to resentment? Because upon reflection, after cooling down a bit, any resentment I feel towards dogs fades away. That doesn't happen (for me) with gratitude but it does with resentment.

In the end, unsurprisingly, I guess I don't think there's a fact of the matter about this question...

[Justin Caouette]

Tamler, sorry to jump into this discussion so late but I had a question about your last claim in response to Saul, specifically when you said, "My tentative view is that a feeling or attitude is appropriate if it has some staying power and is not grounded in false beliefs or assumptions."

Suppose someone doesn't draw the same conclusion after cooling down and their resentment towards dogs (or little babies) does not fade away and that this alternate conclusion "is not grounded in false beliefs or assumptions". Is it then appropriate (for them) to hold resentment? To say 'no' one would have to appeal to some sort of metaphysical underlying condition, I assume, conditions you want to deny(?). As it seems that you want to shy away from those conditions I assume that you would just want to say yes, your view implies that response, at least to me. But that seems, well, wrong. Surely, little babies (or dogs) do not deserve to be treated with resentment, but, if I understand your position, we lose our ability to say such treatment is wrong or ill-advised? Or, maybe, I have just missed something important here. Either way, if you could speak to this point it would be quite helpful so I could better understand your position and what it entails.

Your last sentence suggests your skepticism about grounding a fact of the matter. Does this mean that as long as anyone has an attitude that is enduring for some decent length of time that it is appropriate for them to have such an attitude (assuming the 2nd condition of your tentative view has been met)?

I’m concerned that when we give up or step back from a desert based notion that underlies or justifies our practices and attitudes that we are forced to forever be at a stalemate with cases like this. I guess I’m not ok with people resenting little children and dogs and feel that your view, as well as most varieties of the view that I have come across, weaken my ability to object to such behavior with any force. Consider another case. Let’s call it “Whacked-out dad”.

Imagine a dad walking around pissed off at his 7 month-old child weeks after the child made him miss the superbowl because the child was having a tantrum that inhibited him from going out with friends to watch the game. On your view his attitude is as justified (or appropriate) as yours regarding the dog. This seems quite unintuitive, at least by my lights.

[Tamler Sommers]

Hey Justin,

Very good questions. It's concerns like this that makes me extremely tentative about endorsing that view, a lot of bullets to bite. At the same time though, notice that your objection is that my view leads to counterintuitive results. So I take it, then, that you couldn't be a whacked-out Dad. Not after you calmed down and thought things through. And if people are similar enough to you in this respect, then they couldn't be the whacked out Dad either. And if that's right, then you're only dealing either with a possible world objection or at any rate with outliers. I think I can live with that.

On the other hand, if you're not similar to other human beings in this respect, then what grounds do you have for calling their attitudes inappropriate? What access to the realm of appropriateness do you have that they lack? It's my inability to answer these questions that leads me to the 'no-fact-of-the-matter' view.

Finally, note that you had to go to resentment to make this reductio as strong as possible. So an asymmetric view, which would regard gratitude in this way but maybe not resentment, would still be in play.

[Saul Smilansky]

Hi Tamler - this started out with my saying that free will was relevant to friendship (because appreciation matters to friendship, and appreciation depends upon FW) - at least sometimes, and in some kinds of friendship. You then said that this was just manifestly crazy, and chose the for you favorable ground of gratitude. But since then you seem to have been climbing down quite a lot, or so it seems to me. You seem to "lower" gratitude to a level that would be appropriate also for dogs, admit that your move depends upon an asymmetry (this must be a weakness in a view), and also say that there is no fact of the matter. Am I right that now you don't think that my view is so demonstrably crazy?

[Tamler Sommers]

Well, I never said it was "demonstrably crazy," just crazy. Craziness is like gratitude, it resists external rational justification. But no, I don't think my view on that has changed. I also don't think I've "lowered" gratitude just by conceding it would be appropriate for dogs. And if we can feel grateful to dogs, then we can obviously feel grateful to or appreciate friends. I'm not sure I understand your question: how have I been climbing down? Why would any of this indicate a change in my view?

[Saul Smilansky]

Tamler - apologies for the delay in replying, couldn't reply earlier. Perhaps this is too far back in Flickers to pursue further here, but just a few words, not to leave your comments in the air. Ok, I thought you were climbing down, but if not then my mistake. My basic idea is that thoughts about the absence of free will, as a form of understanding what happened in a different way, can undercut reactions such as gratitude. One comes to have the old free will worries about the praiseworthiness of one's friend, and hence of whether gratitude makes sense. So for me, if dogs have no free will, then either we have two types of gratitude here, or your evaluation of gratitude is unacceptable.

Similarly, you seem happy with an asymmetry but asymmetries seem problematic (and clearly you don't have nor desire a Wolfian Reason-based justification for an asymmetry here). If your grounding is a P.F. Strawson reactive attitudes stance, then I see no reason to think that P.F. himself thought that an asymmetry could be defended. So you would also need to do further work here to defend this.

In any case, thanks for the good discussion.