Gary Watson

This chapter is concerned with Gary Watson’s overall conception of moral responsibility, and in particular the influence on it of P. F. Strawson’s paper, “Freedom and Resentment.”The chapter provides an anti-Strawsonian theory of responsibility, that is, one in which an agent’s being responsible is independently understood and their being held responsible is understood in terms of this independent notion. It also argues that being held responsible is best understood not in terms of retributive emotions like resentment or indignation, as Strawson suggests, but rather in terms of trust.Two points are made about Watson’s account of being responsible: one, that the demand that we give a folk-psychological explanation of an agent’s failure to exercise a capacity he possesses is unreasonable; two, that it is not the case that, as Watson maintains, the distinction between those who fail to exercise a capacity that they have, and those who lack a capacity altogether, is a distinction without a difference. The proffered anti-Strawsonian theory of responsibility is based on this crucial distinction.