Pamela Hieronymi (UCLA) Freedom, resentment and the metaphysics of morals  An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson’s influential “Freedom and Resentment.” P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper “Freedom and Resentment” is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology. In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals, Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson’s paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson’s ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between “reactive” and “objective” responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, “the simple Humean interpretation” and “the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation,” both deficient. Drawing on Strawson’s wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson’s “social naturalism.” In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson’s thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment.” Transcript August Baker: Welcome to the New Books Network. This is August Baker. Today I'm speaking with the American philosopher Pamela Hieronymi, who's professor of philosophy at UCLA, and we're talking about her Princeton University Press 2020 book, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals. It's part of a series that Princeton University Press has called Monographs in Philosophy, edited by Harry G Frankfurt. The description is short argument-driven books by leading philosophers. This book is short, 130 pages, 100 roughly from Professor Hieronymi and 30 of it is a reprint of Classic Article by someone named PF Strawson, his article Freedom and Resentment from 1962. You can see the title of her book is Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals. The Freedom Resentment refers to this Strawson article. Professor Hieronymi has done a very close read of the crucial few pages in that article, line by line, paragraph by paragraph. One of the things that was said about this book is that it will from now on be essential as a reference for reading Strawson's paper. It would be difficult to think you could or would want to read Strawson's paper without looking through what she's done here. Secondly, the other title of the other part of the title is and the Metaphysics of Morals. By that, I think what is meant is metaphysics of morals would be the underlying picture of morals. So that in the course of looking at Strawson's paper, she's looking at the underlying nature of what we're really doing when we hold each other morally responsible. For example, one Angela M. Smith said this book, this is an exciting and groundbreaking book that has the potential to reshape our understanding of the nature of morality and our practices of holding one another responsible. I'm very pleased to speak with Professor Hieronymi about her book. Welcome to New Books Network. Pamela Hieronymi: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me here. August: I have to say, set time every day or in the days that I had, I set aside time to read this book. I always really look forward to it. It has a sort of to take a classic