Chapter 4 - Solving the Problem of Blame

Summary

Here I argue that both the desert-based and value-based desiderata for a normatively adequate account of reactive blame can be met. First, adopting a victim-centered approach highlights the importance of blame for appropriately valuing other persons, and reactive blame is the variety of blame uniquely suited to serve this function. Thus the value-based desiderata for a normatively adequate account of reactive blame can be met. I then offer two arguments for thinking that the desert-based desiderata can be met. The first is a parity of reasons argument. Given epistemically relevant similarities between the negative reactive attitudes and a privileged subset of our moral judgments, we ought to extend the same privileged status to beliefs about the objects of the negative reactive attitudes. The second argument appeals to a similarity between our emotional experiences and perceptual experiences. Attending to this relation suggests that we have good reason to think some of our emotional experiences – those constitutive of the negative reactive attitudes in particular – provide indirect evidence for the existence of moral reasons that would render their content correct. Thus we have at least some good reason for thinking that the desert-based desideratum for normatively adequate reactive blame can be met.