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Home > Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics > Folk Psychology, the Reactive Attitudes and Responsibility


	Podcast:		Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
	Episode:		Folk Psychology, the Reactive Attitudes and Responsibility
	Category:		Society & Culture
	Duration:
	Publish Date:		2013-05-30 06:19:21
	Description:		In this talk we first argue that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility. This talk explores the connections between the folk psychological project of interpretation, the reactive attitudes and responsibility. The first section argues that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast and to a significant extent, non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. These processes allow for smooth interaction between participants and are important to the interpretive practices that ground intimate relationships as well as to a great many less intense interactions. We will examine cases of facial paralysis (Moebius Syndrome and Botox studies) to support the argument that when these processes are interrupted or impaired, the interpretive project breaks down and social relationships suffer. But do failures of interpretation lead, as Strawson suggests, to the suspension of the reactive attitudes relevant to responsibility assessments? We suggest that in many important instances they do not. Here we consider the cases of children who murder, alien cultures, and psychopaths. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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