Strawson, Shoemaker, and the Hubris of Theories

Criminal Law and Philosophy 13 (4):561-572 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

David Shoemaker’s Responsibility from the Margins is chock full of valuable insights on the nature of our responsibility, and it has more in common with P.F. Strawson’s approach in “Freedom and Resentment” than the accounts of most philosophers who call themselves Strawsonians. On one central issue of interpretation, however, Shoemaker gets Strawson wrong. Like many interpreters, Shoemaker sees Strawson as defending a “quality of will” theory of responsibility. This idea fundamentally misunderstands Strawson’s aims in “Freedom and Resentment.” Strawson does not defend a theory of any kind in that essay. On the contrary, Strawson tries to caution his fellow philosophers away from the theorizing impulse. The urge to develop comprehensive theories, he argued, inevitably leads philosophers away from the natural facts about responsibility and the related emotions. So, Strawson offers an alternative way of understanding responsibility, one that takes the facts into account “in all their bearings.” This interpretive disagreement is instructive, I’ll argue, because it illuminates several weaknesses in Shoemaker’s own “tripartite” theory of responsibility. Where his account goes astray can be remedied in large part by embracing the spirit of Strawson’s approach in full.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Responsibility from the Margins.Stephen Kearns - 2017 - Analysis 77 (4):869-872.
Shoemaker on Sentiments and Quality of Will.Christopher Bennett - 2019 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 13 (4):573-584.
"Freedom and Resentment" and Consequentialism.Dale E. Miller - 2014 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 8 (2):1-23.
On an argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility.Randolph Clarke - 2005 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (1):13-24.
Strawson’s modest transcendental argument.D. Justin Coates - 2017 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (4):799-822.
Qualities of will.David Shoemaker - 2013 - Social Philosophy and Policy 30 (1-2):95-120.
The Strains of Involvement.Neal A. Tognazzini - 2015 - In Randolph Clarke, Michael McKenna & Angela M. Smith (eds.), The Nature of Moral Responsibility. Oxford University Press. pp. 19-44.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-11-03

Downloads
46 (#303,387)

6 months
4 (#315,908)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Tamler Sommers
University of Houston

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Responsibility From the Margins.David Shoemaker - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 2003 - In Gary Watson (ed.), Free Will. Oxford University Press.
Living without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):494-497.

View all 8 references / Add more references