Response-Dependent Responsibility; or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Blame

Abstract

This essay attempts to provide and defend what may be the first actual argument in support of P. F. Strawson's merely stated vision of a response-dependent theory of moral responsibility. It does so by way of an extended analogy with the funny. In part 1, it makes the easier and less controversial case for response-dependence about the funny. In part 2, it shows the tight analogy between anger and amusement in developing the harder and more controversial case for response-dependence about a kind of blameworthiness (and so response-dependence about a kind of responsibility). It then defends the view from three serious skeptical challenges.