Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically oriented culture and has been far less discussed by philosophers than such related notions as responsibility and punishment. This book seeks to show that neither the opposition nor the neglect is justified. The book’s most important conclusion is that blame is inseparable from morality itself — that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnation of those who violate the principles. Because blame has not received much sustained attention, the ... More

Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically oriented culture and has been far less discussed by philosophers than such related notions as responsibility and punishment. This book seeks to show that neither the opposition nor the neglect is justified. The book’s most important conclusion is that blame is inseparable from morality itself — that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnation of those who violate the principles. Because blame has not received much sustained attention, the book works its way toward its conclusions by first raising, and then seeking to resolve, a series of conceptual and normative questions. These questions include: How are blameworthy acts related to the characters of the agents who perform them? Can agents deserve blame for their bad traits as well as their bad acts? Is blame best understood as a kind of action, a kind of belief, a kind of feeling, a combination of these elements, or something entirely different? What sort of moral concept is blameworthiness? How do blame and blameworthiness — correlative concepts — fit together? Although the book draws both on Hume’s treatment of the relation between character and blame and Strawson’s landmark discussion of the “reactive attitudes”, the theory that emerges is neither Humean nor Strawsonian. It is a new theory that seeks to do more justice than its predecessors to the indispensable role that blame plays in our moral lives.