Presented By: Department of Philosophy
Ethics Discussion Group: Jada Strabbing (Wayne State)
Blame and Fitting Attitudes
My aim in this paper is to provide a framework for thinking about blame, a framework that connects blame to attitudes with representational content – i.e., attitudes that are fitting or unfitting responses to their targets. Specifically, I argue that blame takes the form of a fitting attitude and expressions of that attitude. To make this argument, I first show that this form is instantiated in two paradigmatic cases of blame – blame as negative reactive attitudes (e.g., resentment and indignation) and blame as negative moral evaluation. I then show that Scanlon’s view of blame works best when it is modified to have this form. Finally, I argue that, plausibly, blame generally has this form. Recognizing that blame has this form is important for two reasons. First, it provides a constraint that accounts of blame must satisfy in order to be plausible. Second, it yields insight into the debate about whether there are different types of moral responsibility and, if so, what they are. For example, I argue that the connection between blame and fitting attitudes gives us good reason to reject David Shoemaker’s idea that answerability is a type of responsibility distinct from attributability and accountability.
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