The Nature and Ethics of Blame

Philosophy Compass 7 (3):197-207 (2012)
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Abstract

Blame is usually discussed in the context of the free will problem, but recently moral philosophers have begun to examine it on its own terms. If, as many suppose, free will is to be understood as the control relevant to moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is to be understood in terms of whether blame is appropriate, then an independent inquiry into the nature and ethics of blame will be essential to solving (and, perhaps, even fully understanding) the free will problem. In this article we first survey and categorize recent accounts of the nature of blame – is it action, belief, emotion, desire, or something else? – and then we look at several proposed requirements on appropriate blame that look beyond the transgressor himself, considerations that will form part of a full account of the ethics of blame.

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Author Profiles

Neal Tognazzini
Western Washington University
D. Justin Coates
University of Houston

Citations of this work

Is Blameworthiness Forever?Andrew C. Khoury & Benjamin Matheson - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (2):204-224.
The emotion account of blame.Leonhard Menges - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (1):257-273.
Praise.Daniel Telech - 2022 - Philosophy Compass 17 (10):1-19.
Reasons to forgive.Per-Erik Milam - 2019 - Analysis 79 (2):242-251.

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 1962 - Proceedings of the British Academy 48:187-211.
Moral dimensions: permissibility, meaning, blame.Thomas Scanlon - 2008 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments.R. Jay Wallace - 1994 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Conversation and Responsibility.Michael McKenna - 2011 - , US: Oxford University Press USA.

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