Strawsonian Compatibilism 135should conclude is that our ordinary concept of solidity is distinct from any con-
flicting concept of solidity that might emerge from physics.
6.4.5. The Charge of Over- Intellectualizing the Facts
Yet a further claim, clearly expressed in Strawson’s original paper, is that all
parties to the free will debate over- intellectualize the facts (78). While it might
seem difficult to understand how to fashion this as an argument for compatibi-
lism rather than as merely an indictment of opposing views, here is a way. To
think that a theoretical discovery like the truth of determinism could undermine
the entirety of our moral responsibility practices as a whole, one must maintain
that these practices as a whole are such that, as a conceptual matter, they could
be justified, and so they should be justified. And those compatibilists who resist
incompatibilism by arguing that the entirety of these practices can be justified
and are in fact justified under the assumption of determinism also assume that
such justification is needed and is appropriate. But, Strawson proposes, if these
practices are given to us by our nature as particular sorts of social and emotional
beings, they are not susceptible to such wholesale justification. They would need
justification no more than we humans as mammals need justification for the fact
that we are creatures with kidneys and a heart. And accordingly, no natural facts,
say about the laws of nature, could undermine any appropriate wholesale justi-
fication (there being no such thing).
All of this is compatible with the claim that “internal” to these practices, jus-
tifications might be called for. Excuses and exemptions serve as such internal
justifications; they are ways of getting clear about whether a person really did
act from ill will, whether she really was a morally competent agent, whether a
particular manner of response is too harsh or lenient. But, in Strawson’s view,
wholesale justification of the practice would be justification from without, or
external, and there is no legitimate demand for it. And accordingly, the problem
of free will and determinism evaporates as issuing from a misunderstanding of
how the practice of holding morally responsible is rooted in our human nature
and the practices it involves. This last thesis lies at the core of Strawson’s (1985)
claim that his brand of naturalism is sufficient to silence skeptical concerns about
our moral responsibility practices.
6.5. Assessing Strawson’s Arguments for Compatibilism
We turn to an assessment of Strawson’s arguments for compatibilism. In this
section, we shall note several major developments, but will only focus upon a few.
6.5.1. Assessing Strawson’s Argument from Exculpation
Strawson’s argument from exculpation is especially vexing, not just because
it poses challenging problems of interpretation,^12 but also because there are