Blame

This paper employs a feminist model of scapegoating designed to capture the function that scapegoating plays in the justification and masking of oppression, and examines specific forms of legislation that target the rights of trans people to uncover their scapegoating patterns. Because scapegoating is experienced as a justified attribution of blame, it evades the understanding of those participating in its dynamics. My aim is to make apparent the transphobic rhetoric that convinces people of its necessity, such that we can determine (...) the best means to undermine its discriminatory consequences. I do this by examining the scapegoating logic behind bills that seek to impact various aspects of the lives of trans people, including education, sports, identification, and healthcare. (shrink)

Abstract: Contemporary analytic philosophers of the “reactive attitudes” tend to share a simple conception of guilt as “self-directed blame”—roughly, an “unpleasant affect” felt in combination with, or in response to, the thought that one has violated a moral requirement, evinced substandard “quality of will,” or is blameworthy. I believe that this simple conception is inadequate. As an alternative, I offer my own theory of guilt’s logic and its connection to morality. In doing so, I attempt to articulate guilt’s defining thought (...) or proposition through an extended investigation and analysis of guilt’s many competing metaphors, which I trace from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament to Shakespeare to contemporary vernacular. My interpretation of this literary genealogy offers a way to understand guilt’s seemingly disparate metaphors in terms of a single master-image that illuminates our self-conceptions and our relationship to morality. I conclude by making a very brief start toward a moral vindication of guilt against the backdrop of Nietzschean and Freudian analyses that explicitly call guilt’s place in a healthy social and personal life into question. I suggest that once guilt’s logic is made explicit, we can see that it makes sense of, honors, and addresses some of our deepest aspirations and needs. (shrink)

I argue that influential recent discussions have whitewashed blame, characterizing it in ways that deemphasize or ignore its morally problematic features. I distinguish “definitional,” “creeping,” and “emphasis” whitewash, and argue that they play a central role in overall endorsements of blame by T.M. Scanlon, George Sher, and Miranda Fricker. In particular, these endorsements treat blame as appropriate by definition (Scanlon), or as little more than a wish (Sher), and infer from blame's having one useful function that it is a good (...) practice overall (Fricker). I use an analogy with revenge to illustrate the mechanisms of whitewashing, including broadening a concept to include available alternatives to it and inference from one feature of a practice to an overall conclusion about that practice. Several features of blame make it particularly prone to whitewashing, including blamers' personal or emotional stake in blaming and widespread disagreement about the nature of blame. I argue that a non‐whitewashing treatment of blame must pay closer attention both to blame's harms, and to comparisons between blame and alternative, non‐blaming reactions. (shrink)

Hypocrites, we are told, lack the moral standing to blame. But what is this standing to blame? Why would hypocrisy undermine it? Do any other conditions compromise standing to blame? Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s The Beam and the Mote offers the first book-length treatment on such complex questions. Yet the book admirably pushes even further, extending the scope of standing into other normative domains, such as praise, forgiveness, and encouragement. In our review, we critically engage with four of the book’s central topics: (...) (1) the nature and scope of the moral standing to blame, (2) why hypocrisy undermines standing to blame, (3) what other conditions undermine standing to blame, and (4) standing in other normative domains. Although we argue that Lippert-Rasmussen’s views on (2) and (4) require further development, his expansion of standing into underexplored domains is praiseworthy. (shrink)

Traditionally, those writing on blame have been concerned with blaming others, including when one has the standing to blame others. Yet some alleged problems for such accounts of standing arise when we focus on self-blame. First, if hypocrites lack the standing to blame others, it might seem that they also lack the standing to blame themselves. But this would lead to a bootstrapping problem, wherein hypocrites can only regain standing by doing that which they lack the standing to do. Second, (...) in addition to hypocrites, there may be hypercrites, who blame themselves more severely than others. Leading accounts for why hypocrites lack standing to blame others would also seem to imply that hypercrites lack the standing to blame others, but some may find this counterintuitive. We argue that neither of these problems from self-blame poses a unique threat to leading accounts of standing. (shrink)

It is conventional wisdom that appreciating the role of luck in our moral lives should make us more sparing with blame. But views of moral responsibility that allow luck to augment a person’s blameworthiness are in tension with this wisdom. I resolve this tension: our common moral luck partially generates a duty to forgo retributively blaming the blameworthy person at least sometimes. So, although luck can amplify the blame that a person deserves, luck also partially generates a duty not to (...) give the blameworthy person the retributive blame that he deserves at least sometimes. (shrink)

A notable feature of our moral and legal practices is the recognition of privileges, powers, and entitlements belonging to a select group of individuals in virtue of their status as victims of wrongful conduct. A philosophical literature on relational normativity purports to account for this status in terms of such notions as interests, rights, and attitudes of disregard. This paper argues that such individualistic notions cannot account for prevailing and intuitive ways of demarcating the class of victims. The focus of (...) the discussion is the wrongful infliction of harm, and the mediating role played by impersonal “danger-making properties” in the determination of the class of victims. Beginning with a treatment of one of the most well-known discussions of negligently-inflicted harm — from the most famous case of the American common law tradition, Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. — the analysis is then extended to the morality of harm-doing more broadly, negligent and intentional alike. The paper’s chief targets are interest theories of rights — including contractualist theories of moral claim-rights of the kind defended by R. Jay Wallace — and neo-Strawsonian Quality of Will theories of “moral injury”. (shrink)

A theory of blameworthiness must answer two fundamental questions. First, what makes a person blameworthy when they act? Second, what makes a person blameworthy after the time of action? Two main answers have been given to the second question. According to interminability theorists, blameworthiness necessarily doesn’t even diminish over time. Terminability theorists deny this. In this paper, I argue against interminability and in favour of terminability. After clarifying the debate about whether blameworthiness is interminable or terminable, I argue there’s no (...) positive case for interminability. I then respond to three objections to terminability. In doing so, I clarify the nature of blame, self-blame, and posthumous blame. I also give theoretical reasons in favour of the view that a person’s blameworthiness for a minor wrong can not only diminish but also cease completely. (shrink)

How does character information inform judgments of blame? Some argue that character information is indirectly relevant to blame because it enriches judgments about the mental states of a wrongdoer. Others argue that character information is directly relevant to blame, even when character traits are causally irrelevant to the wrongdoing. We propose an empirical synthesis of these views: a Two Channel Model of blame. The model predicts that character information directly affects blame when this information is relevant to the wrongdoing that (...) elicits blame. Further, the effect of character information on blame depends on judgments about the true self that are independent of judgments of intentionality. Across three pre-registered studies (N = 662), we found support for all three predictions of the Two Channel Model. We propose that this reflects two distinct functions of blame: a social regulatory function that encourages norm compliance and a pedagogical function that encourages personal improvement. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new theory of the nature of hypocritical blame and why it is objectionable, arguing that hypocritical blame is a form of dishonest signaling. Blaming provides very important benefits: through its ability to signal our commitments to norms and unwillingness to tolerate norm violations, it greatly contributes to valuable norm-following. Hypocritical blamers, however, are insufficiently committed to the norms or values they blame others for violating. As allowing their blame to pass unchecked threatens the signaling system, our (...) strong interest in maintaining valuable norm-following by tracking who has what commitments justifies objecting to hypocritical blame. This theory has a number of strengths over competing accounts: it delivers intuitive verdicts about when blame is objectionable across a range of cases, it is a naturalistic explanation, it is consistent with a leading theory of the nature of blame, it explains why hypocritical pronouncements that don’t feature blame are similiarly objectionable, it does not rely on contentious analyses of the nature of ‘standing’, and it preserves the common intuition that hypocrites are in some way dishonest. (shrink)

It has been argued that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. Recent defenses of the normativity of rationality assume that this implies that we always ought to be rational. However, this follows only if the reasons rationality requires us to correctly respond to are normative reasons. Recent meta-epistemological contributions have questioned whether epistemic reasons are normative. If they were right, then epistemic rationality wouldn’t provide us with normative reasons independently of wrong-kind reasons to be epistemically rational. This paper spells (...) out this neglected challenge for the normativity of epistemic rationality by connecting the two bodies of literature. Moreover, it generalizes this challenge to the rationality of desire, intention, and emotion. The upshot is that we can only answer the normative question about rationality if we debate about blame and accountability for holding different kinds of irrational attitudes, as well as about the sources of mental normativity. (shrink)

Most business ethicists maintain that corporate actors are subject to a variety of moral obligations. However, there is a persistent and underappreciated concern that the competitive pressures of the market somehow provide corporate actors with a far-reaching excuse from meeting these obligations. Here, we assess this concern. Blending resources from the history of philosophy and strategic management, we demonstrate the assumptions required for and limits of this excuse. Applying the idea of ‘the state of nature’ from Thomas Hobbes, we suggest (...) that corporate actors would be excused from duties if complying with them threatened their vital interests. We show how this excuse is not available for most individuals within firms; instead, it is an excuse perhaps available to firms themselves, but only given substantive assumptions about corporate personhood. For those willing to make these assumptions, we apply the competitive advantage construct to delimit the scope of this excuse. We suggest that firms are excused from fulfilling an obligation when complying leads to a competitive disadvantage, as this imperils the firm’s vital interests. After revealing why this excuse does not generalize, we conclude by considering when we should reform the market to avoid the legitimacy of this excuse. (shrink)

Blaming others for things that are not our business can attract charges of meddling and dismissals of blame. It is well known that such charges are often contentious because the content and applicability of anti-meddling norms can be difficult to nail down. This paper argues that another important source of contention is that it is often not settled in advance whether some wrongdoing is or is not the business of a would-be blamer. Thinking about the grounds of anti-meddling norms—privacy, intimacy, (...) and respect for the victim—shows that it is sometimes up to those involved to set these boundaries. Rather than pointing out violation of a pre-established anti-meddling norm, charges of meddling may be aiming to put such a norm or boundary in place. An important upshot is that anti-meddling norms, and norms of blame more generally, are often up for negotiation. This has important implications for the ethics of blame. In addition, it helps us understand a common source of conflict in interpersonal relationships. (shrink)

It is widely held that whether a person is morally responsible for an outcome partly depends on whether certain causal relations obtain between that person and the outcome. This paper argues that, regardless of whether the preceding claim about moral responsibility is true, moral blameworthiness is independent of such causal considerations. This conclusion is motivated by considering cases from Carolina Sartorio and Sara Bernstein. The causal structures of these cases are complex. Sartorio and Bernstein believe that reaching conclusions about moral (...) responsibility and blameworthiness requires wading through this complexity. But it is argued here that getting clear on these causal structures does not help us assess blameworthiness (regardless of the relevance of such considerations for drawing conclusions about moral responsibility). Moral blameworthiness simply does not turn on the considerations relevant to figuring out whether an agent causally contributed to an outcome. (shrink)

Pragmatic vindicatory genealogies provide both a cause and a rationale and can thus affect the space of reasons. But how far is the space of reasons affected by this kind of genealogical argument? What normative and evaluative implications do these arguments have? In this paper, I unpack this issue into three different sub-questions and explain what kinds of reasons they provide, for whom are these reasons, and for what. In relation to this final sub-question I argue, most importantly, that these (...) arguments are ambiguous about what they give us reasons for, meaning that they can be interpreted both as justifications for recognizing the normative standing of certain norms, values, and practices - and thus for living by them - and as excuses for those that do so. I illustrate this point by reference to the genealogical vindication of honour cultures, showing how the vindicatory argument can illuminate such case as one of excusing moral ignorance. Drawing on legal theory and moral philosophy, I show that different evaluative and normative implications hang on the result of the interpretation as either justification or excuse, and show that this ambiguity is a virtue rather than a limitation. (shrink)

Blame abounds in our everyday lives, perhaps no more so than on social media. With the rise of social networking platforms, we have access to more information about others’ blameworthy behaviour and larger audiences to whom we can express our blame. But these audiences, while large, are typically not diverse. Social media tends to create what I call “blame bubbles”: systems in which expressions of blame are shared amongst agents with similar moral outlooks while dissenting views are excluded. Many have (...) criticised the blame expressed on social media, arguing that it is often unfitting, excessive, and counterproductive. In this talk, I’ll argue that while blame bubbles can be guilty of these charges, they are also well placed to do important moral work. I’ll then attempt to identify the causal source of these bad-making features and explore potential structural interventions that can make blame bubbles better at performing their moral function and less likely to generate harmful consequences. (shrink)

Following the social conception of moral agency, this paper claims that many beings commonly exempted from moral responsibility, like young children, adults with late-stage dementia, and nonhuman animals, may nevertheless qualify as participants in moral responsibility practices. Blame and other moral responsibility responses are understood according to the communicative emotion account of the reactive attitudes. To blame someone means having an emotion episode that acts as a vehicle for conveying a particular moral content. Therefore, moral agency is argued to be (...) manifested in communicative exchanges between a claimant and a defendant. While many human and nonhuman agents are justifiably exempted from ascriptions of moral responsibility, this does not necessarily exclude such agents from the community of moral agents altogether. Toddlers and dogs, for instance, seem capable of other-directed reactive attitudes, like resentment, and could, therefore, qualify as participants in moral responsibility practices with respect to the claimant position. Therefore, we may have reason to adopt a distinct claimant-directed participant stance to some beings, even if they fail to qualify as apt targets of blame. This expanded theoretical room for moral agency is argued to make explicit further normative considerations. (shrink)

This book is about our practice of criticizing one another for epistemic failings. We clearly evaluate and critique one another for forming unjustified beliefs, harboring biases, and pursuing faulty methods of inquiry. But what is the nature of this criticism? Does it ever rise to the level of blame? The question is puzzling because there are competing sources of pressure in our intuitions about “epistemic blame,” ones not easy to reconcile. The more blame-like a response is, the less at home (...) in the epistemic domain it seems—but the more at home in the epistemic domain a response is, the less blame-like it seems. These competing sources of pressure constitute a puzzle about epistemic blame. The most promising solution to this puzzle focuses on the interpersonal side of epistemic normativity. Members of an epistemic community stand in an “epistemic relationship,” and epistemic blame is a way of modifying this relationship. Understanding epistemic blame as a distinctive kind of relationship modification locates a response that is both robustly blame-like, and entirely at home in the epistemic domain. Epistemic relationships can also illuminate a unique set of issues in the “ethics of epistemic blame,” ones that mirror corresponding issues in the ethics of moral blame. The book examines the scope of appropriate epistemic blame, standing to epistemically blame, and the value of epistemic blame in our social and political lives. Throughout the investigation, a better understanding of the parallels and points of interaction between the epistemic and other normative domains emerges. -/- **Front matter, ToC, and Introduction uploaded here**. (shrink)

Here is a crucial principle for debates about moral luck, responsibility, and free will: a subject is blameworthy for an act only if, in acting, she did what she ought not to have done. That is, ‘blameworthiness’ implies ‘ought not’ (BION). There are some good reasons to accept BION, but whether we should accept it depends on complex questions about the objectivity of ought and the subjectivity of blameworthiness. This paper offers an exploratory defence of BION: it gives three prima (...) facie reasons to accept it, provides a plausible interpretation of it, and shows how holding out against objections can yield fruitful lessons. Five objections to BION are considered: the objection from conscience, from reasons, from suberogation, from objectivity, and from excuses. Their main problem is to either over-subjectify blameworthiness or to over-objectify obligations. To accept BION, we must occupy a desirable middle ground. (shrink)

It is uncontroversial that something goes wrong with the blaming practices of hypocrites. However, it is more difficult to pinpoint exactly what is objectionable about their blaming practices. I contend that, just as epistemologists have recently done with blame, we can constructively treat hypocrisy as admitting of an epistemic species. This paper has two objectives: first, to identify the epistemic fault in epistemically hypocritical blame, and second, to explain why epistemically hypocritical blamers lose their standing to epistemically blame. I tackle (...) the first problem by appealing to an epistemic norm of consistency. I address the second by arguing that the epistemically hypocritical blamer commits to an opting-out of the set of shared epistemic standards that importantly underlies our standing to epistemically blame. I argue further that being epistemically hypocritical undermines a blamer’s standing even to judge epistemically blameworthy. (shrink)

The present paper considers controversial utterances that were erroneously taken as derogatory. These examples are puzzling because, despite the audiences’ error, many speakers retract and even apologise for what they didn’t say and didn’t do. In recent years, intuitions about retractions have been used to test semantic theories. The cases discussed here test the predictive power of theories of derogatory language and help us better understand what is required to retract a slur. The paper seeks to answer three questions: are (...) the cases considered genuine retractions? If the speakers didn’t derogate by using a slur, how are the cases retractions of derogatory acts? Do these examples support expressive accounts of slurs? I argue that the examples provide evidence for an expressivist account of slurs: a slurring utterance (defeasibly) makes a derogatory speech act where the speaker expresses a commitment to a morally questionable appraisal state, such as disgust or contempt for a target group. A retraction of a derogatory speech act requires undoing the enactment of that commitment, which can be achieved with a genuine apology. This helps explain the conduct of audiences who misunderstand what the speaker says, and the speakers’ reactions. -/- . (shrink)

An emerging strand of research claims that blame is justified on the basis of its instrumental role in serving to ‘cultivate’ or ‘scaffold’ moral agency in those to whom it is directed. On these instrumentalist accounts, our actual collective responsiveness to moral considerations is largely explained by the scaffolding or cultivating force of blame as directed at us. We believe that there is some reason to be sceptical of the instrumental role assigned to blame on these accounts. This is because (...) there is evidence from the psychology literature on prosocial behaviour and moral development that blame may be directly ineffective; it may be ineffective in inculcating moral norms in the children and young adults to whom it is directed. We concede that blame may have this proximate instrumental role in scaffolding moral behaviour in adults, however we believe that such accounts overlook what we think is likely the more central instrumental role of blame. This is the role blame plays in the moral ecology: the models, narratives, scripts, and cultural frameworks that we internalize. The most central instrumental role of blame, we claim, is to indirectly foster moral considerations responsive agency in third parties through modelling behaviour observed in the moral ecology. (shrink)

I argue that the blameworthy deserve to suffer in that they deserve to feel guilt, which is the unpleasant experience of appreciating one’s apparent culpability for having done wrong. I argue that the blameworthy deserve to feel guilt because they owe it to those whom they’ve culpably wronged to (a) hold themselves accountable, (b) manifest the proper regard for those whom they’ve wronged, and (c) appreciate their culpability for, and the moral significance of, their wrongdoing. And I argue that the (...) blameworthy must feel guilt to satisfy a–c. What’s more, I argue that, in thinking about whether the blameworthy deserve to feel guilt, we need to compare the world in which the blameworthy feel guilt to the world in which the non-blameworthy feel guilt, for, as I argue, it’s insufficient to compare only the world in which the blameworthy feel guilt to the world in which the blameworthy don’t feel guilt. (shrink)

In this paper I explore some ideas inspired by Federico Picinali’s Justice In-Between: A Study of Intermediate Criminal Verdicts. Picinali makes a case for the introduction of intermediate options in criminal trials – verdicts with consequences that are harsher than an acquittal, but not so harsh as a conviction. From a certain perspective, the absence of intermediate options in criminal trials is puzzling – out of kilter with much of our everyday decision-making and, perhaps, with the recommendations of expected utility (...) theory. I will argue, however, that the lack of intermediate options is much less puzzling when put in the context of our ordinary practices of blame and non-legal punishment. (shrink)

When someone blames you, you might accept the blame or you might reject it, challenging the blamer’s interpretation of the facts or providing a justification or excuse. Either way, there are opportunities for edifying moral discussion and moral repair. But another common, and less constructive, response is to simply dismiss the blame, refusing to engage with the blamer. Even if you agree that you are blameworthy, you may refuse to engage with the blame—and, specifically, with blame coming from this particular (...) person. This is a common response if the blamer is being hypocritical or meddlesome in blaming the wrongdoer. This paper aims to make sense of this kind of response: What are we doing when we dismiss blame? A common thought is that we dismiss demands issued by blame, but we still must identify the content of the relevant demands. My proposal is that when we dismiss blame, we dismiss a demand to respond to the blame with a second-personal expression of remorse to the blamer. (shrink)

Groups have committed historical wrongs (e.g., genocide, slavery). We investigated why people blame current groups who were not involved in the original historical wrong for the actions of their predecessors who committed these wrongs and are no longer alive. Current models of individual and group blame overlook the dimension of time and therefore have difficulty explaining this phenomenon using their existing criteria like causality, intentionality, or preventability. We hypothesized that factors that help psychologically bridge the past and present, like perceiving (...) higher (a) connectedness between past and present perpetrator groups, (b) continued privilege of perpetrator groups, (c) continued harm of victim groups, and (d) unfulfilled forward obligations of perpetrator groups would facilitate higher blame judgments against current groups for the past. In two repeated-measures surveys using real events (N1 = 518, N2 = 495) and two conjoint experiments using hypothetical events (N3 = 598, N4 = 605), we find correlational and causal evidence for our hypotheses. These factors link present groups to their past and cause more historical blame and support for compensation policies. This work brings the dimension of time into theories of blame, uncovers overlooked criteria for blame judgments, and questions the assumptions of existing blame models. Additionally, it helps us understand the psychological processes undergirding intergroup relations and historical narratives mired in historical conflict. Our work provides psychological insight into the debates on intergenerational justice by suggesting methods people can use to ameliorate the psychological legacies of historical wrongs and atrocities. (shrink)

This dissertation contributes to feminist critiques of moral responsibility by exposing cases where asymmetries of blame perpetuate oppression by diminishing or disabling the moral agency of individuals from traditionally subordinated social groups. It also engages the recent literature on “affective injustice,” briefly defined as a wrong done to someone at the level of their emotional life. In the first chapter, I connect feminist critiques of moral responsibility with the concept of affective injustice by arguing that the moral wrong that lies (...) at the heart of affective injustice is the disabling of moral agency of oppressed groups through inapt and oppressive blaming practices. In the following chapters, I expand on this claim by exposing cases where blame diminishes the agency of some and bolsters the agency of the oppressor. Chapter two details how cultural domination produces alienation from a community, resulting in the disabling of agency. Chapter three problematizes the assumed function of blame as agency-enhancing by developing examples where blame instead augments emotions like fear and shame, which diminish agency. Chapter four focuses on the case of catcalling in which the victim takes responsibility for the aggression, thus protecting and enabling the perpetrator. To conclude, I discuss the limitations of focusing on blame and gesture to future directions that work on affective injustice could take by shifting the focus to feminist emotions. (shrink)

In a well-known apocryphal story, Theresa of Avila falls off the donkey she was riding, straight into mud, and injures herself. In response, she seems to blame God for her fall. A playful if indignant back and forth ensues. But this is puzzling. Theresa should never think that God is blameworthy. Why? Apparently, one cannot blame what one worships. For to worship something is to show it a kind of reverence, respect, or adoration. To worship is, at least in part, (...) to praise. You cannot praise and blame simultaneously. Indeed, Paul counsels against “back-talk” against God, suggesting we lack the standing to blame our creator (Romans 9:20). Drawing on Strawsonian theorizing about praise and blame, this paper argues that, surprisingly, a person can both blame and worship God. Although blameful worship is possibly epistemically akratic, it may sometimes be acceptable given our nature as finite, emotional beings. In fact, blaming God might on occasion be the only way we have to stand with God’s goodness despite apparent evidence of evil in the world. This suggestion, I’ll argue, should change the way we think about the problem of evil. The problem has interpersonal and moral psychological dimensions that merit serious attention. (shrink)

In deciding whether to forgive, we often focus on the wrongdoer, looking for an apology or a change of ways. However, to fully consider whether to forgive, we need to expand our focus from the wrongdoer and their wrongdoing, and we need to consider who we are, what we care about, and what we want to care about. The difference between blame and forgiveness is, at bottom, a difference in priorities. When we blame, we prioritize the wrong, and when we (...) forgive, we shift our priorities away from the wrong. Recognizing this essential role for priorities in forgiveness allows us to address a thorny puzzle in thinking about forgiveness: how is it that forgiveness can be both principled and elective? If there is sufficient reason to forgive, as will sometimes be the case because forgiveness is principled, how can it be reasonable to withhold forgiveness? Recognizing that forgiveness is a shift in our priorities dissolves this apparent tension between forgiveness being principled and forgiveness being elective. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to show that Thomas Aquinas, in his _Disputed Questions on Evil_, presents a theory of free will that is compatibilist but still involves a version of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) and even requires alternative possibilities for a certain kind of responsibility. In Aquinas’ view, choosing between possibilities is not the primary power of the will. Rather, choice arises through the complex interaction of various parts of human psychology, in particular through the indeterminacy (...) of the intellect and through the interaction between reason and passion. Both of these ways provide cases where Aquinas not only allows for alternative possibilities but thinks that they are necessary for moral responsibility, all the while remaining, strictly speaking, a compatibilist. (shrink)

Can we hold agents responsible for their implicitly biased behavior? The aim of this text is to show that, from the nurturing stance, holding subjects responsible for their implicitly biased behavior is justified, even though they are not blameworthy. First, I will introduce the nurturing stance as Daphne Brandenburg originally developed it. Second, I will specify what holding somebody responsible from the nurturing stance amounts to. Third, I show how and why holding responsible can help a subject develop an impaired (...) capacity. Fourth, I analyze empirical data about holding prejudiced subjects responsible and highlight that the internal motivation to control prejudiced reactions decreases implicit attitudes’ influences. Furthermore, the data show that in order to be appropriate moral demands have to acknowledge the target's autonomy and competence. In sum, from the nurturing stance, holding implicitly biased subjects responsible is appropriate if they can adequately respond to the moral demands. (shrink)

Can nonhuman animals and artificial intelligence (AI) entities be attributed moral agency? The general assumption in the philosophical literature is that moral agency applies exclusively to humans since they alone possess free will or capacities required for deliberate reflection. Consequently, only humans have been taken to be eligible for ascriptions of moral responsibility in terms of, for instance, blame or praise, moral criticism, or attributions of vice and virtue. Animals and machines may cause harm, but they cannot be appropriately ascribed (...) moral responsibility for their behavior. This thesis challenges the conventional paradigm by proposing an alternative approach where moral agency is conceived as the competence to participate in moral responsibility practices. By shifting focus from intra-individual to contextual and socially situated features, this practice-focused approach appears to make the attribution of moral agency to nonhuman animals and AI entities more plausible than commonly assumed. Moreover, considering the current and potential future prevalence of nonhuman animals and AI entities in everyday settings and social contexts, a potential extension of moral agency to such entities could very well transform our social, moral, and legal practices. Hence, this thesis proposes that the attribution or withholding of moral agency to different entities should be carefully evaluated, considering the potential normative implications. (shrink)

1. We sometimes angrily confront, pointedly ostracize, castigate, or denounce those whom we think have committed moral offences. Conduct of this kind may be called blaming behaviour. When genuine,...

I argue for responsibility internalism. That is, moral responsibility (i.e., accountability, or being apt for praise or blame) depends only on factors internal to agents. Employing this view, I also argue that no one is responsible for what AI does but this isn’t morally problematic in a way that counts against developing or using AI. Responsibility is grounded in three potential conditions: the control (or freedom) condition, the epistemic (or awareness) condition, and the causal responsibility condition (or consequences). I argue (...) that causal responsibility is irrelevant for moral responsibility, and that the control condition and the epistemic condition depend only on factors internal to agents. Moreover, since what AI does is at best a consequence of our actions, and the consequences of our actions are irrelevant to our responsibility, no one is responsible for what AI does. That is, the so-called responsibility gap exits. However, this isn’t morally worrisome for developing or using AI. Firstly, I argue, current AI doesn’t generate a new kind of concern about responsibility that the older technologies don’t. Then, I argue that responsibility gap is not worrisome because neither responsibility gap, nor my argument for its existence, entails that no one can be justly punished, held accountable, or incurs duties in reparations when AI causes a harm. (shrink)

A growing body of literature has revealed ordinary causal judgement to be sensitive to normative factors, such that a norm-violating agent is regarded more causal than their non-norm-violating counterpart. In this paper, we explore two competing explanations for this phenomenon: the Responsibility View and the Bias View. The Bias View, but not the Responsibility View, predicts features peripheral to the agent’s responsibility to impact causal attributions. In a series of three preregistered experiments (N = 1162), we present new evidence that (...) the Norm Effect arises from such peripheral features, namely from nonpertinent or entirely silly norm violations. Furthermore, we show that this effect cannot be explained by recourse to the agent’s foreknowledge or desire of the outcome, nor by its foreseeability: the Norm Effect arises even when participants judge the norm-violating agent’s doing as equally foreseeable. This, we argue, provides evidence in favour of the Bias View. (shrink)

Charging others with hypocrisy often acts as a way of rejecting the practical reasons they attempt to give (Herstein, 2017). There are some merits to a practice of rejecting reasons. To accept others’ provided reasons as valid is to affirm their authority in the relevant normative domain (Isserow and Klein, 2017). Conversely, to reject these reasons as invalid is to undermine the reason-givers’ authority in the domain. However, this practice can be rife with abuse—if we allow charges of ‘Hypocrite!’ to (...) take hold too broadly, we risk compromising the entire enterprise of reason-giving. I propose that one form of such abuse has already entered into our normative vocabulary with the concept of ‘hypocritical advice.’ At best, this term plays a superfluous role in our normative vocabulary; at worst, its vagueness perpetuates a vicious practice of reason-rejecting. Regardless of the severity of its impact on normative discourse, I will argue herein that we should do away with talk of ‘hypocritical advice.’ -/- I begin by echoing a standard distinction between second- and third-personal reasons and the corresponding types of authority that ground agents’ abilities to give reasons of each kind (sec. 2). After briefly discussing the connection between authority and hypocrisy (sec. 3), I argue that most purported cases of hypocritical advice-giving rest on a confusion between an utterance as communicating second- or third-personal reasons (sec. 4). Against recent suggestions that reasons given unambiguously as advice can be hypocritical, I demonstrate that the basis for rejecting third-personal reasons given in hypocritical advice is an interestingly different one than for rejecting second-personal reasons given through blame (sec. 5). I close with some final considerations against keeping ‘hypocritical advice’ in our normative vocabulary. (shrink)

There is an ethics of blaming the person who deserves blame. The Christian scriptures imply the following no-vengeance condition: a person should not vengefully overtly blame a wrongdoer even if she gives the wrongdoer the exact negative treatment that he deserves. I explicate and defend this novel condition and argue that it demands a revolution in our blaming practices. First, I explain the no-vengeance condition. Second, I argue that the no-vengeance condition is often violated. The most common species of blame (...) involves anger; anger conceptually includes a desire for vengeance; and there are many pleasures in payback. Third, I clarify that it is possible to blame non-vengefully in anger and highlight three good uses for anger in non-vengeful blame. Fourth, I offer two reasons that justify the divine command prohibiting vengeance, and I note that the Christian God is merely sufficient to make non-vengeance morally obligatory. Fifth, I defend the no-vengeance condition against four biblical objections. (shrink)

In a series of ten preregistered experiments (N=2043), we investigate the effect of outcome valence on judgments of probability, negligence, and culpability – a phenomenon sometimes labelled moral (and legal) luck. We found that harmful outcomes, when contrasted with neutral outcomes, lead to increased perceived probability of harm ex post, and consequently to increased attribution of negligence and culpability. Rather than simply postulating a hindsight bias (as is common), we employ a variety of empirical means to demonstrate that the outcome-driven (...) asymmetry across perceived probabilities constitutes a systematic cognitive distortion. We then explore three distinct strategies to alleviate the hindsight bias and its downstream effects on mens rea and culpability ascriptions. Not all are successful, but at least some prove promising. They should, we argue, be taken into consideration in criminal jurisprudence, where distortions due to the hindsight bias are likely considerable and deeply disconcerting. (shrink)

In this paper, I first argue that sometimes freely and knowingly manipulating oneself does not fully preserve moral responsibility – namely, in cases of practically distinct self-manipulation. However, I argue that practically distinct self-manipulation preserves moral responsibility to some extent because such a self-manipulated person is more morally responsibility than an other-manipulated person. This is an important result: manipulating oneself doesn’t always fully preserve one’s moral responsibility for one’s actions. But in what sense is the self-manipulated person more morally responsible? (...) I argue the self-manipulated person is not a fitting target of the reactive attitudes but continues to have wrongdoing-incurred reparative obligations. This explains the intuitive judgement about the self-manipulated person, provides a better explanation of “tracing” cases, and reveals important requirements for a plausible theory of moral responsibility. (shrink)

While the contemporary philosophical literature is replete with discussion of the control or freedom required for moral responsibility, only more recently has substantial attention been devoted to the knowledge or awareness required, otherwise called the epistemic condition. This area of inquiry is rapidly expanding, as are the various positions within it. This chapter introduces two major positions: the reasonable expectation view and the quality of will view. The chapter then explores two dimensions of the epistemic condition that serve as fault (...) lines along which these two views diverge. The first dimension concerns different kinds of ignorance. The second concerns what agents can be directly blameworthy for. The chapter closes by sketching a novel approach that incorporates advantages of opposing positions on this topic. (shrink)

Philosophers have argued that subjects who act wrongly in the situationist psychology experiments are morally responsible for their actions. This paper argues that though the obedient subjects in Milgram’s ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiments are blameworthy, since most of us would have acted in the same manner they did, it is inappropriate for most of us to blame them. On Todd’s ([2019]. “A Unified Account of the Moral Standing to Blame.” Noûs 53 (2): 347–374.) recent account of standing to blame, agents (...) lack the standing to blame others for a wrong when they are not sufficiently committed to the moral values which would condemn that wrong. I argue that the obedient subjects lack sufficient commitment to the kinds of values which would condemn their wrongdoing. This is evidenced by the fact that the wrongdoing was severe, that the subjects had the capacity to avoid wrongdoing, and that there was very little cost to avoiding wrongdoing. Since these studies are very well-replicated, most of us in the moral community would have acted as they did for similar reasons. At least 80% of us therefore lack the standing to blame the obedient subjects. (shrink)

According to the thesis of doxastic wronging, our beliefs can non-derivatively wrong others. A recent criticism of this view claims that proponents of the doxastic wronging thesis have no principled grounds for denying that credences can likewise non-derivatively wrong, so they must countenance pervasive conflicts between morality and epistemic rationality. This paper defends the thesis of doxastic wronging from this objection by arguing that belief bears distinctive relationships to inquiry and blame that can explain why beliefs, but not credences, can (...) non-derivatively wrong. First, forming a belief (but not updating one’s credence) closes inquiry, and suspending judgment (but not updating one’s credence) opens inquiry. Consequently, beliefs can distinctively wrong others by prematurely closing inquiry or inappropriately opening inquiry. Second, beliefs (but not credences) can constitute blame. Unfittingly blaming someone can wrong them, and hence beliefs which constitute unfitting blame can distinctively wrong. In addition to defending the claim that only beliefs can non-derivatively wrong, this paper gestures towards an ethics of belief which attends to the relationship between belief and attitudes such as inquiry, faith, trust, and blame. (shrink)

Should we use the same standard of proof to adjudicate guilt for murder and petty theft? Why not tailor the standard of proof to the crime? These relatively neglected questions cut to the heart of central issues in the philosophy of law. This paper scrutinises whether we ought to use the same standard for all criminal cases, in contrast with a flexible approach that uses different standards for different crimes. I reject consequentialist arguments for a radically flexible standard of proof, (...) instead defending a modestly flexible approach on non-consequentialist grounds. The system I defend is one on which we should impose a higher standard of proof for crimes that attract more severe punishments. This proposal, although apparently revisionary, accords with a plausible theory concerning the epistemology of legal judgments and the role they play in society. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon posits a universal moral relationship in response to the worry that his relational approach to blame cannot answer the question of how strangers can fittingly blame one another. However, commentators have noted that appealing to universal moral standards seems to explicitly deviate from a relational approach’s basis in actual relationship norms. This paper argues that Scanlon’s idea of a moral relationship can nevertheless provide a basis for response to the problem of strangers if we recognize that actual (...) and ideal moral relationships both play a role within the relational approach. An interesting consequence of this recognition is that it seems to undermine the moral relationship’s universality. However, a presumptive case for assuming the relationship exists even between strangers can be found in seeing our blaming practices as akin to public policy nudges, where blame operates like an opt-out choice architecture with respect to the moral relationship. On this understanding, though the moral relationship is escapable, individuals are naturally encouraged to participate through the expression of interpersonal attitudes that communicate relational norms and expectations. (shrink)

I advocate scepticism about epistemic blame; the view that we have good reason to think there is no distinctively epistemic form of blame. Epistemologists often find it useful to draw a distinction between blameless and blameworthy norm violation. In recent years, this has led several writers to develop theories of ‘epistemic blame.’ I present two challenges against the very idea of epistemic blame. First, everything that is supposedly done by epistemic blame is done by epistemic evaluation, at least according to (...) a prominent view about the social role of epistemic evaluation. Parsimony considerations count against introducing an idle mechanism that does the same work as an existing one. Second, no current theory of epistemic blame includes a plausible account of the force of epistemic blame or the practices that could express it. I conclude that we should give up the notion of epistemic blame. (shrink)

Both in everyday life and in moral philosophy, many think that our own past wrongdoing can undermine our standing to indignantly blame others for similar wrongdoing. In recent literature on the ethics of blame, we find two different kinds of explanation for this. Relative moral status accounts hold that to have standing to blame, you must be better than the person you are blaming, in terms of compliance with the norm. Fault-based accounts hold that those who blame others for things (...) of which they are also guilty exhibit familiar moral faults, such as making an exception of oneself, and that these faults explain why they lack standing. I argue in support of relative moral status accounts, showing that they both better trace our practice of dismissing blame on the basis of lack of standing, and that they have more explanatory resources than have been appreciated. (shrink)