This is upsetting

@helenS “In ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (1962), the British philosopher P.F. Strawson (1919–2006) introduced an influential version of compatibilism grounded in human psychology. Strawson observed that people display emotions such as resentment, anger, gratitude, and so on in response to the actions of others. He argued that holding an agent morally responsible for an action is nothing more than having such feelings, or ‘reactive attitudes,’ toward him. The question of whether the agent acts freely matters only insofar as it affects the feelings toward him that others may have; apart from this, freedom is beside the point. Moreover, because people cannot help but feel reactive attitudes, no matter how much they may try not to, they are justified in having them, whatever the truth or falsity of determinism. (This is not to say that the specific reactive attitude a person may have on a given occasion—of blind rage as opposed to mere annoyance, for example—is always justified.)

Yet it is far from clear that people are always justified in having reactive attitudes. Pertinent information can drastically change one’s feelings toward an agent. For example, a person might become less angry with a man who ran over his cat if he discovers that the man was rushing to the hospital with a desperately ill child. He may even lose his anger altogether. Given the enormous influence that everyday factual information has over what reactive attitudes people have and whether they even have them, it seems unwise to treat them as accurate barometers of moral responsibility.”

@ShaythePanTransMan Thank you!

@helenS you’re welcome