| Summary: | In his classic “Freedom and Resentment,” P. F. Strawson introduces us to an
“optimist” who believes that our moral responsibility practices are justified by their
beneficial consequences. Although many see Strawson as a staunch critic of this
consequentialist position, he actually claims only that there is a gap in the optimist’s story,
and that the reactive attitudes are needed to fill it. In this paper, I fill in this gap. I show how
optimism can be suitably modified to reflect an appreciation of the reactive attitudes, and
argue that the ensuing position—on which our moral responsibility practices, taken as a
whole, are justified both by their regulation of behavior in socially desirable ways and by
their enabling of valuable interpersonal relationships—provides us not only with a plausible
justification of our moral responsibility practices, but also with a fruitful framework for
criticizing particular features of these practices and for evaluating potential reforms.
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