How to Blame People Responsibly

Abstract

In recent accounts of moral responsibility that are inspired by P.F. Strawson’s wellknown essay ‘‘Freedom and Resentment,’’ moral blaming is construed as a social relationship in which the blamer expresses ‘‘reactive attitudes’’ of blaming toward someone. Reactive attitudes of blaming include resentment, indignation, and guilt. According to Strawson, the reactive attitudes in general presume a social relationship with another person as members of the same moral community. The reactive attitudes also assume that the recipient is a morally competent agent and they call on her to show an adequate level of moral understanding. Reactive attitudes include more than simply blame, but the present discussion focuses only on reactive attitudes of moral blame. (When used by itself, the term ‘‘blaming’’ is here intended as an abbreviation for ‘‘moral blaming.’’) Someone can be morally blamed either for her behavior or for her general character. This discussion is limited to blame directed to someone’s behavior, in particular, behavior of moral wrongdoing by morally competent people. Blaming does not have to be expressed; it can be kept silent. When blame is expressed to the blame recipient, it may lead to painful consequences for her, perhaps criticism, censure, ostracism, or punishment. Also, expressed blame is an action in its own right that might not be deserved by the recipient. Because expressed blame may be painful to the recipient or bring painful consequences in its wake and be undeserved by the recipient, expressed blaming is something that can be done irresponsibly. One important question, then, is how to express blame responsibly.