Are our moral responsibility practices justified? Wittgenstein, Strawson and justification in ‘Freedom and Resentment’

ABSTRACT

D. Justin Coates argues that, in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, P. F. Strawson develops a modest transcendental argument for the legitimacy of our moral responsibility practices. I disagree with Coates’ claim that Strawson’s argument provides a justification, in Wittgenstein’s and/or Strawson’s sense of that term, of our responsibility practices. I argue that my interpretation of Strawson solves some difficulties with Coates’ argument, while retaining its advantages.

KEYWORDS:

• P. F. Strawson
• transcendental argument
• moral responsibility
• Wittgenstein
• justification

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Audun Bengtson, Sidra Shahid and two anonymous referees for their help in improving this paper.

ORCID

Benjamin De Mesel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8355-6888

Notes

1 I would like to thank an anonymous referee for suggesting this point.

2 I would like to thank two anonymous referees for pressing this point.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO).