How did P.F. Strawson connect resentment and gratitude to moral responsibility?

In his influential work Freedom and Resentment (1962), the British philosopher P.F. Strawson proposed a version of compatibilism rooted in human psychology rather than abstract metaphysics.1

Strawson argued that moral responsibility is fundamentally expressed through our "reactive attitudes"—the natural human tendency to experience emotions such as resentment, anger, and gratitude in response to the actions of others. According to this view, holding an agent morally responsible is essentially the act of directing these reactive attitudes toward them.1

Strawson maintained that because these emotional responses are an inescapable part of human life, they are justified regardless of whether determinism is true or false. He suggested that the question of whether an agent acted "freely" is secondary; it only matters if it influences the reactive attitudes we hold toward that person. While critics argue that our reactive attitudes can be altered by new information—such as learning that a harmful action was unintentional—Strawson’s framework shifts the focus of moral responsibility from the causal origins of actions to the interpersonal emotions that define our social existence.12