Strawsonian Compatibilism 131Four key ingredients can be identified in his work, which together comprise his
overall view:
First, Strawson was committed to a quality of will thesis as regards being
responsible for something, such as an action. Fixing upon blameworthiness,
when a person is regarded as blameworthy and is subject to a blaming response
for what she has done, the basis for her being blameworthy for her wrongful
conduct is, on Strawson’s view, a function of the quality of her will. This, in
turn, can be understood in terms of the value of her regard for others as dis-
played in acting as she did. She showed ill will or a lack of a sufficient degree of
good will for whomever she wronged. When her action falls within the domain
of morality, she is to be regarded as morally responsible for acting as she did.
Second, Strawson was also committed to an interpersonal theory of moral
responsibility. According to an interpersonal theory, being morally responsible
for what one does is in some manner dependent upon the practices and norms of
those in the moral community suited to hold morally responsible. One cannot, on
an interpersonal theory, offer an adequate account of what it is to be morally
responsible without making reference to considerations regarding holding
morally responsible—and so to the holding- responsible standpoint of others.
Such theories stand in contrast to intrapersonal theories of moral responsibility
according to which the conditions for being morally responsible need make no
reference to norms or practices of holding morally responsible.^6 On Strawson’s
view, we cannot understand what it is for one to be blameworthy or praiseworthy
for her actions but by reference to the sorts of holding- responsible responses her
conduct is liable to elicit or render appropriate.^7
Third, Strawson was as well committed to an affective theory of holding
morally responsible. For Strawson, when one reacts with resentment to another
who acts with ill will, one’s emotional response is itself a blaming response. It is
not that there is her blaming—cast as a judgment about the wrongdoer—and that
her resentment is then a further thing over and above her blaming. Resentment is
her means of blaming. And while one can experience episodes of emotion and
not display it outwardly, in paradigm cases these emotions are overtly expressed
and directed at the blamed party. The central point is that the practices of holding
morally responsible for blameworthy or for praiseworthy conduct must in some
way make reference to the sorts of emotional responses the behavior is liable to
elicit or to render appropriate.^8
Fourth, Strawson argued for a practice- dependent grounding thesis according
to which being morally responsible is grounded in the practices and norms of
holding morally responsible. Holding morally responsible, on this view, is more
basic than being morally responsible, and the conditions of being morally
responsible are what they are in virtue of the practices and norms of holding
morally responsible. As Gary Watson (1987) puts it when explaining Strawson’s
view, it is not that we hold people morally responsible because they are. Rather,
they are morally responsible because we hold them to be so. This thought
requires some fine- tuning to be put into a plausible form. It might better be cast
in terms of their being morally responsible for a certain domain of conduct