The article presents Peter F. Strawson’s remarks on the free will debate, which he has presented in the essay ‘Freedom and Resentment’. Strawson avoids taking a stance on the question whether the thesis of determinism is correct. Instead he shows the essential difficulties and far reaching consequences of acknowledging this thesis. He recognizes the inseparable connection between freedom and responsibility in the philosophy after Kant. He consequently questions whether we really understand what it would mean to claim that determinism is true. He focuses on what he calls ‘reactiv attitudes’ triggered by the way in which other people behave toward us. Their behavior evokes emotional reaction in us – gratitude, respect, curiosity, but also distrust, resentment, disappointment. Those emotional responses are not purely subjective and they underlie moral judgments and complicated interpersonal relations. We suspend our reactive attitudes towards animals, very small children or people that we think are mentally ill. Instead we adopt objective (psychiatric, scientific) attitudes towards them. But to acknowledge the thesis of determinism implicates that we should treat all people this way. The paper is not so much concerned with an analysis of advantages and weak points of Strawson’s version of compatibilism, but focuses instead on the originality of his contribution to the debate on free will and on his brilliant treatment of reactive attitudes.

Freedom and Resentment (1962) – reflecting the method and profoundness of descriptive metaphysics – has become perhaps the most commented and famous work by Peter F. Strawson. In this article I try to reconstruct the concept of responsibility, blame and punishment outlined in his essay. The text consists of three main parts: exhibition (subsections 2, 3), interpretation (4) and criticism (5). In the last part I argue that even if Strawson managed to repulse the pessimistic argumentation against compatibilism, his naturalistic position, as well as the traditional optimism, does not provide the right kind of ethical justification for reactive emotions and attitudes. The nerve of his reasoning is the premise that from the human point of view it is practically inconceivable to abandon them. Therefore, the succes of such argumentation depends on the meaning of practical inconceivability. One can distinguish its naturalistic (referring to the type- or token-naturalism) and transcendental interpretation. The latter, as I try to show, is unable to formally distinguish between the metaphysical and ethical content of Strawson’s position. On the other hand, the logical separation of both views is the main advantage of the interpretation in the spirit of type-naturalism. Consequently, its acceptance reveals both metaethical and anthropological allegations to which Strawson’s concept is exposed, without injuring the main part of his compatibilism.

W artykule zestawiam ze sobą i zarazem oceniam dwa zupełnie odmienne sposoby ujmowania rzeczywistości moralnej. Immanuel Kant stworzył nie tylko bardzo wymagającą, ale zarazem zawiłą, sztuczną i nieempiryczną etykę. W dodatku jest ona mocno obciążona metafizycznie, a nawet teologicznie. Natomiast Peter Strawson w artykule z 1962 roku dokonał naturalistycznego i realistycznego opisu rzeczywistości moralnej.