Abstract

Chapter 8 summarises the emerging view. It ends by highlighting, once more, the significance of responding to conduct rather than merely to agents. If Strawson’s participant stance is the stance in which another’s conduct matters morally and is targeted with demands and blame, it contrasts not merely with the objective stance in which other agents and their conduct are merely to be managed and handled. It contrasts, likewise, with a critical stance that acknowledges the moral significance of someone’s conduct and objects to it without thereby holding it against its agent. Taking this stance, I suggest, affords us the possibility of responding to moral offenses beyond responsibility and blame.