Abstract
In his recent book, In Praise of Blame, George Sher argues (among other things) that a bad act can reflect negatively on a person if that act results in an appropriate way from that person’s “character,” and defends a novel “two-tiered” account of what it is to blame someone. In these brief comments, I raise some questions and doubts about each of these aspects of his rich and thought-provoking account.
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Notes
Sher (2006).
Christine Korsgaard gives a nice description of the view I do not mean to be endorsing when she writes, “When you deliberate it is as if there were something over and above all of your desires, something which is you, and which chooses which desire to act on” (Korsgaard 1996: 100). Sher is in my view rightly critical of this view on pp. 36–38.
I spell out some of these conditions more fully in Smith (2007a).
I am grateful to Sandra Reiter for very helpful discussion on this point. This understanding of the particular force of judgments of blameworthiness traces back, again, to the work of T. M. Scanlon, and is also illuminatingly explicated and defended in Hieronymi (2004).
I find the propriety of the locution “I blame P for X” remarkably puzzling. Do I “blame” Bill Clinton for cheating on Hillary? I find it odd to say so, though I certainly judge him blameworthy for his behavior toward her, think poorly of him on the basis of it, and think he is subject to legitimate criticism for it. Do I “blame” Saddam Hussein for his horrible treatment of his citizens? Again, I find it somewhat odd to say so, but here I have even stronger emotional reactions of disgust and outrage. This leads me to think that we will not find helpful clues about what’s involved in “blaming” a person, as distinct from “judging him blameworthy” by looking at our use of these expressions.
References
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Smith, A. (2007b). Control, responsibility, and moral assessment. Philosophical Studies. doi: 10.1007/s11098-006-9048-x.
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Smith, A.M. Character, blameworthiness, and blame: comments on George Sher’s In Praise of Blame . Philos Stud 137, 31–39 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9165-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9165-1