P.F Strawson, inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ruminations in “Philosophical Investigations,” popularized the notion of reactive attitudes in his landmark paper “Freedom and Resentment.” Reactive attitudes are our automatic sentimental responses to things we encounter. We laugh at jokes while leaning forward and holding our stomachs, the automatic behavior indicating that we feel that the joke is funny. We cry in movies and shed tears. We grow angry reading literature, and clench our fists. We feel wonder, inspiration, and awe at art and dance, and our eyes widen and our mouths hang open, as we sense that the works are beautiful.

Strawson was interested in the question of how we come to hold people morally responsible for their actions, and this led him into a detailed discussion of our moral reactive attitudes — resentment, disgust, compassion, approval, disapproval, etc. — and the conditions under which they are apt. What he was not interested in, however, was the question of how we come to have the patterns of reactive attitudes that we do — of how we acquire a common sense of what is beautiful, such that many of us will feel the reactive attitude of awe, together?

“It is one thing to ask about the general causes of these reactive attitudes I have alluded to; it is another to ask about the variations to which they are subject, the particular conditions in which they do or do not seem natural or reasonable or appropriate; and it is a third thing to ask what it would be like, what it is like, not to suffer them. I am not much concerned with the first question; but I am with the second; and perhaps even more with the third (Strawson, 1962).”

A common sense, broadly, is what I take to structure our patterns of reactive attitudes. If you and I cry at the same scene in a play, then we have a common sense of what is sad, and our tears reflect our sense of that property. If we crouch down and hold each other in fear together, when a loud noise booms above us, then we have a common sense of what is dangerous. We will sometimes co-react to the same objects, in this case some loud booms (even artificially emitted ones). As long as we have at least one object that we co-react to, we share some degree of common sense, with respect to the relevant property.

As parents, we have a common sense of what is dangerous: local strains of disease, drunk drivers, online bullying, and perhaps child abduction, etc. We have a perspective as parents insofar as we have our own set of objects that we have acquired a common sense for.

As citizens of the U.S, we have a very different common sense of what is dangerous: terrorism, police brutality, North Korea, Russia, etc. While we don’t have direct access to these things through perception (most U.S citizens will never see North Korea), mention of them will bring about reactive attitudes of fear in us when we are engaging with the world as citizens.

When we take a perspective as parents — perhaps when playing with our children at the park — we are concerned with sharp objects and bullies, not threats from Russia. When we go as citizens to meet with our congresswoman about climate change reform, we will be concerned with more national issues. The citizens of another country may not share our common sense of what is nationally dangerous, and so they may not manifest any reactive attitude toward these things when they are mentioned. Of course, we also have a common human sense of certain things — ceteris paribus, all humans will run in fear from a rapidly approaching tidal wave.

The papers published here develop a philosophical framework for understanding common sense, and use that framework to shed light on a number of phenomena, from propaganda to education to episodic memory and the imagination.

The Philosophy of Common Sense is inspired by, dedicated to, and from memory of Felicia Chacon. Her love could spark a humane disposition in the most brutish man born in the state of nature. She reacted to the beauty of people, and delighted in co-reacting with them. She showed what it means to love another.