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Notes
Gideon Rosen’s definition of an excuse is helpful here. Rosen writes: “Call any consideration that blocks the normal inference from bad act to culpable agent an excuse.” (Rosen 2008, p. 592) Elsewhere Rosen emphasizes the extent to which excuses understood as such zero in on facts. “Let’s call any fact that defeats the standing presumption of responsibility an excuse.” (Rosen 2003, p. 61)
The equivalent of excusing our actions from blame would be to justify them—which we are not trying to do here.
For an excellent discussion of the status of moral, as distinct from factual, ignorance, in the making of an excuse, see Guerrero (2007).
For an excellent critical analysis of Watson’s claims here, see: Smith (2008).
As Strawson makes clear, these reactive attitudes are central to both responsibility and blameworthiness. “The central commonplace that I want to insist on is the very importance we attach to the attitudes and intentions towards us of other human beings, and the great extent to which our personal feelings and reactions depend upon, or involve, our belief about these attitudes and intentions.” (Strawson 1962, p. 5.)
Maureen Sie, unlike many other contemporary philosophers, recognizes throughout her work on moral agency that our ascriptions of responsibility are enmeshed in a variety of social norms and psychological practices. She makes clear (Sie 2008, p. 56) that “[our] ascriptions of responsibility to one another primarily serve the function of illuminating, establishing, and consolidating the normative expectations that regulate our shared practices with one another. … These include the normative expectations that regulate the range of bodily movements, actions, and behavior for which we should be held responsible.”
Marilyn Friedman provides us with a very good starting point here in her compelling account of a morally acceptable practice of blame. (Friedman 2013)
I stress the importance of fairness to the practice of blame in Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community (Smiley 1992), pp. 233–235, although I do not, as I do here, start with complex equality or introduce different theories of fairness.
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Smiley, M. Volitional excuses, self-narration, and blame. Phenom Cogn Sci 15, 85–101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9367-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9367-x