Schulte III 441
Determinism/Tradition/Schulte: four different positions:
1. the position of the one who does not know what this thesis actually says.
2. the position of the pessimist, who thinks that the truth of the deterministic thesis will take away the ground of morality.
3. the position of the optimist, who declares the truth of determinism to be compatible with our concepts of duty and responsibility.
4. the position of the moral skeptic, who considers these concepts to be generally unfounded, regardless of whether determinism applies or not.
Schulte III 441/442
Determinism/Optimism/Schulte: The optimist has no more to put forward than the undisputed efficiency of the concepts in regulating socially desirable behavior.
Pessimism: The pessimist disputes, with some justification, the adequacy of this kind of reasoning. In his opinion, a completely different (metaphysical) concept of freedom must come into play: one that entails the falsity of determinism.
"Commonplace": pertains to the central importance we attach to our actions, thoughts, and feelings.
Schulte III 443
Determinism: Question: would we be forced by the conviction of the truth of determinism to generally assume the "objective" attitude towards all other people and thus destroy the basis of our duty and responsibility concepts?
Determinism/Strawson: 1. Our normal behaviors, beliefs, sensibilities, and institutions are far too strongly shaped by the usual reactive attitudes and feelings for it to be realistic that a mere theoretical belief in determinism could really change them.
Second, in the cases where we actually change our attitudes, any conviction about the truth of determinism does not matter at all.
Questions of rational justification belong to other levels and narrower domains than our actual behavior.
Schulte III 443
Determinism/Strawson: if it were true, would not change our ingrained attitudes and responses.
>
Fatalism, >
Future, >
Behavior.
