There is a large recent literature on the topic of response-dependence, ranging over issues in ontology, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, ethics, aesthetics, and various other branches of the social and human sciences. (See for instance Edwards 1992; Holton 1992; Johnston 1992, 1993; Pettit 1991, 1992, 1998a,b; Powell 1998; Wedgwood 1998; Wright 1988a, 1998.) Much of this literature is highly technical or concerned with intratheoretical debates which can be of interest only on the shared premise that a response-dependent (or response-dispositional: henceforth interchangeably "RD") approach is capable of yielding valid answers to a range of well-defined philosophic problems. My intention here is not so much to engage with these often quite arcane disputes but rather to ask, in a general way, whether that approach can indeed live up to the kinds of expectation placed upon it by some contributors to the current discussion. My answer will be a qualified "no", but one that credits the theorists concerned with having raised a number of pertinent questions and having usefully clarified the terms of debate.