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Moral Beliefs and Blameworthiness

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Lloyd Fields
Lloyd Fields
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
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Extract

It is a commonly-held belief that ignorance excuses. But what of moral ignorance? Is a person blameless who acts from “false” moral principles? In this paper I shall try to show that such a person is blameworthy. I shall produce an argument that connects the acceptance of moral principles with character, character with moral responsibility, and moral responsibility with the justifiability of blame.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 69 , Issue 270 , October 1994 , pp. 397 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1994

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References

1 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Ross′s translation) III, 1110b28–1111a2.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., III, 5, 1113b30–1114a3

3 Ibid., VII, 8, 1150b29–36.

4 Ibid., VII, 10, 1152a19–24.

5 R., Manvell and H., Fraenkel, Heinrich Himmler (London:Heinemann, 1965), xiii.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 57 (my italics).

7 Ibid., 186–187.

8 H., Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), 26.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 135.

10 Ibid., 136.

11 Ibid., 137.

12 Milo, Cf. R. D., Immorality (Princeton University Press, 1984), 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Cooper, Cf. N. L., The Diversity of Moral Thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 41–42.Google Scholar

14 Harrison, J., Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971), 306.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 309.

16 Ibid., 311.

17 See Walker, A. D., ‘Virtue and Character’, Philosophy 64, No 249 (July 1989), 352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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22 See Adams, R. M., ‘Involuntary Sins’, The Philosophical Review 94, No 1 (January 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Op. cit., note 19, 62.Google Scholar

24 Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Oxford University Press, 1971), 178, 440.Google Scholar

25 I should like to thank my colleague, Professor Neil Cooper, for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.