Why Does Possessing Standing to Blame Matter

Bibliographic Data

ID21408995
AuthorsPhilip Yaure (0000-0001-7569-0825, Virginia Tech, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume54
Issue1
Pages59-73
Publication date2024-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0045-5091 • E-ISSN: 1911-0820
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/can.2024.50
OpenAlexW4406230694
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

I argue that moral dialogue concerning an agent’s standing to blame facilitates moral understanding about the purported wrongdoing that her blame targets. Challenges to a blamer’s standing serve a communicative function: they initiate dialogue or reflection meant to align the moral understanding of the blamer and challenger. On standard accounts of standing to blame, challenges to standing facilitate shared moral understanding about the blamer herself: it matters per se whether the blamer has a stake in the purported wrongdoing at issue, is blaming hypocritically, or is complicit in the wrongdoing at issue. In contrast, I argue that three widely recognized conditions on standing to blame—the business, non-hypocrisy, and non-complicity conditions—serve as epistemically tractable proxies through which we evaluate the accuracy and proportionality of blame. Standing matters because, and to the extent that, it indirectly informs our understanding of the purported wrongdoing that an act of blaming targets

Blame · Business ethics · Complicity · Epistemology · Hypocrisy · Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · Wrongdoing · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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