While debating with my friend __,it occurred to me that his anti-organized religion screeds were one-sided because he lacked an appreciation of the desires that lead one to regard religion as good. I would like to construct an analogy with a tone deaf person who can't recognize the beauty of violin playing, but winces with pain whenever a violinist squeeks a wrong note or something like that. Such a fellow would look at violin music as pernicious. Similarly, with __.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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