Strawson begins by stating that there are "optimists", who believe that if determinism is

true blame and punishment are still justified, and "pessimists", who hold that if
determinism is true there can be no moral responsibility or punishment. Strawson claims
that both positions "overintellectualize the facts" but that they can be reconciled, his idea
of the way things are lies in some middle ground which accommodates parts of both
ideas.

In his paper, Strawson defines what he calls "reactive attitudes", things that we have in
response to others actions, i.e. "gratitude, resentment, forgiveness, love, and hurt
feelings" (62). What makes Strawson different from other authors we have read,
however, is that he argues these reactive attitudes are the basis for moral responsibility.

Strawson's optimists are Compatibilists, whose arguments are presented in what we have
read by Stace. Strawson agrees with parts of Compatibilist theory, mainly, that even with
assuming the thesis of determinism is true we can still hold people morally responsible
for their actions. He lays out his argument first by showing us that in some instances we
suspend out Reactive attitudes and adopt Objective attitudes, attitudes which, unlike
reactive ones, where we blame the perpetrator of the action against us, we view the
person responsible for the action as an object, someone that cannot be reasoned with
(animals, children, the insane, etc.). Then it follows that we do not blame those we view
objectively because we think that their actions "cannot be helped", and in a similar way
according to "pessimists" we would excuse actions if we supposed they were determined.
But he says "Neither in the case of the normal, then, nor in the case of the abnormal is it
true that, when we adopt an objective attitude, we do so _because_ we hold such a belief"
(69) by which he means a belief in determinism. So when we ask ourselves "does
determinism necessarily mean that we cannot hold people morally responsible for their
actions" Strawson's response is: we adopt the objective attitude 1) when people don't
know what they are doing, didn't mean to, etc, and 2) when people are psychologically
abnormal. As determinism being true would not mean that either condition would
universally be true, then determinism has nothing to do with whether we should or
shouldn't treat everyone objectively. This agrees with the optimists. What Strawson finds
lacking, however, in with the optimists' argument is their basis for it; the optimist sees
blame and punishment as justified by the empirical results, the extreme optimist going as
far as to say blame and punishment are only because of their utility towards deterrence.
To Strawson, they "overintellectualize" in the way that they "lose sight (perhaps wish to
lost sight) of the human attitudes of which these practices are, in part, the expression"
(79), essentially that they ignore the fact all moral judgments are made on the basis of
reactive attitudes, both personal and vicarious.

As for the pessimists, Strawson finds they do "not lost sight of these attitudes, but are
unable to accept the fact that it is just these attitudes themselves which fill the gap in the
optimist's account" (79). The pessimists need something else, something higher than
simply our own reactions and attitudes. Strawson finds that the pessimists
overintellectualize in the way that they look for a metaphysical truth of "right" and
"wrong" that is esoteric and impossible to find, rather than seeing the answer right in
front of them. He agrees that they pessimists are right to doubt the validity of the
optimists' assumption that the ends justify the means without anything else, but believes
that the gaps in the optimists' argument can be filled with the "facts" of reactive attitudes.

Strawson's theory is that there is no moral responsibility other than that which is based on
our reactive attitudes. By "facing the facts as we know them", he means that we can hold
people responsible not because there is some metaphysical higher responsibility as the
pessimists would believe, but because responsibility follows from the practice of
"expressing our concerns and demands about our treatment of one another" (Watson
258). I find that I am persuaded by Strawson's argument that moral responsibility is really
a product of our own reactive attitudes; I had never really agreed with the pessimist
argument against compatibilism as there never seemed to be a strong argument for _why_
there should be any sort of higher moral judgement. Strawson's work is appealing
because it seems practical, in one section he says on the question of whether we should
suspend our reactive attitudes if determinism were true "it is useless to ask whether it
would not be rational for us to do what it is not in our nature to (be able to do)." I believe
Strawson combines the best parts of both arguments.