January 2012
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15 Reads
Strawson's great paper solves some seemingly intractable problems. To see how, one must grasp the three tightly linked theses that provide its structure and generate its energy. (1) When you judge someone to be accountable for something he has done, the fundamental reality is not your recognition of a fact about him but rather your willingness to relate yourself to him in one special way. (2) Facts can make it wrong to hold someone accountable for something he has done; but this is the wrongness of conduct that is stupid, coarse, clumsy, infantile, uncivilized, not the wrongness of judging that the person has a property that he really lacks. (3) No facts can make it wrong-in that or any other way-not to hold someone accountable for something he has done. When we get those three straight in our minds, light comes flooding in.