Abstract

This chapter addresses two concerns for the compatibility of free will skepticism and our sense of meaning in life. First, personal relationships are critically important to our sense of meaning, but P. F. Strawson contends that a skeptical view would threaten to supplant our ordinary reactive attitudes such as resentment and indignation with an objective attitude toward others, and this would undermine these relationships. The chapter argues that one might give up these attitudes while retaining non-reactive emotions such as moral disappointment and sorrow, which can have similar salutary roles in relationships. The second concern is that the skeptical view is incompatible with the sense of meaning that derives from success in one’s projects. The chapter contends that meaning of this kind does not require that we act freely in the sense required for basic desert moral responsibility, because there is a sense of achievement that does not involve basic desert.