Strawson’s Inescapability Claim: Metaphysical, not Psychological

ABSTRACT At the heart of P. F. Strawson’s naturalistic approach to responsibility sits the Inescapability Claim. The main argument of this article is that the established interpretation of this claim is mistaken. According to, what I will call, the Standard Reading, it is the empirical claim that it is psychologically impossible for us to abandon our responsibility practices. Although widespread, this reading lacks interpretative basis, is in conflict with other features of Strawson’s approach, and is—most strikingly—explicitly rejected by Strawson himself. In its place, I propose that we understand Strawson’s Inescapability Claim as the metaphysical claim that the concept of responsibility is among those ineliminable concepts that form the fundamental core of any conceivable conceptual scheme. The responsibility skeptic’s doubt is “idle, unreal, a pretense”, not because their doubt is psychologically inefficacious, but because it treads beyond the bounds of sense; their doubt is, in a particular sense, inconceivable or unintelligible.