Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T21:45:53.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mere moral failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Julie Tannenbaum
Julie Tannenbaum*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Pomona College, 333 North College Way, Claremont, CA91711, USA
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When, in spite of our good intentions, we fail to meet our obligations to others, it is important that we have the correct theoretical description of what has happened so that mutual understanding and the right sort of social repair can occur. Consider an agent who promises to help pick a friend up from the airport. She takes the freeway, forgetting that it is under construction. After a long wait, the friend takes an expensive taxi ride home. Most theorists and non-theorists react to such cases by either judging the agent’s action as a violation of her obligation to help or as having satisfied the only obligation she really had, namely to try to help. However, as I show, there are serious difficulties that arise from categorizing this agent’s action as satisfying or violating her obligation – difficulties that are avoided if we instead add “mere moral failures”; to the basic categories for moral evaluation. An agent merely fails when she neither satisfies nor violates her obligation. She is responsible for what she has done, yet without thereby having done wrong. Moreover, there is a recognizable (though nameless) reactive attitude reflecting the agent’s responsibility that falls between blame and mere regret, and is also importantly different from agent-regret. What I show is that we need not reach for blame as our only way of registering that an agent has morally failed another. While thus far overlooked, mere moral failure is by no means a rare occurrence, but rather a regular part of life among friends, family, investors and clients, police and citizens, doctors and patients, and many others.

Keywords

moral obligationviolation, wrongdoingblamefailureagent-regret
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 58 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Austin, J. L. 1979. “A Plea for Excuses.”; In Philosophical Papers, 175–204. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buss, Sarah. 1997. “Justified Wrongdoing.”; Nous 31: 337–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Norman. 1967. “‘Ought’ and Blameworthiness.”; Journal of Philosophy 64: 418–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. 2000. “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions.”; Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61: 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, Peter. 2010. “In Defense of Objectivism about Moral Obligation.”; Ethics 121: 88–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, John, ed. 1986. Moral Responsibility. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, John, Kane, Robert, Pereboom, Derk, and Vargas, Manuel. 2007. Four Views on Free Will, edited by Pereboom, Derk and Vargas, Manuel. Walden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Foot, Philippa. 1978. “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives.”; In Virtues and Vices, 157–173. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara. 1993a. “What Happens to the Consequences.”; In The Practice of Moral Judgment, 94–112. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Herman, Barbara. 1993b. “Integrity and Impartiality.”; In The Practice of Moral Judgment, 23–44. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hieronymi, Pamela. 2004. “The Force and Fairness of Blame.”; Philosophical Perspectives 18: 115–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, Pamela. 2009a. “Two Kinds of Agency.”; In Mental Actions, edited by O'Brien, Lucy and Soteriou, Matthew, 138–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, Pamela. 2009b. “Believing at Will.”; Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume 35: 149–187.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1979. “Moral Luck.”; In Mortal Questions, 24–38. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Prichard, H. A. 1949. “Duty and Ignorance of Fact.”; In Moral Obligation: Essays and Lectures, edited by Ross, W. D.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. 2002. “Culpability and Ignorance.”; Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103: 61–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, W. D. 1939. Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. 2008. Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, and Blame. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, George. 2006. “Out of Control.”; Ethics 116: 285–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sher, George. 2009. Who Knew?: Responsibility Without Awareness. Oxford; NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, John. 1979. Moral Principles and Political Obligations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.”; Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 229–243.Google Scholar
Smith, Angela. 2005. “Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life.”; Ethics 115: 236–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael. 2004. “Rational Capacities.”; In Ethics and the A Priori, 114–135. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stocker, Michael. 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories.”; Journal of Philosophy 68: 543–466.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. 1962. “Freedom and Resentment.”; Proceedings of the British Academy 48: 1–25.Google Scholar
Tannenbaum, Julie. 2007. “Emotional Expressions of Moral Value.”; Philosophical Studies 132: 43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarfon, . 1962. Ethics of the Fathers, translated by Hyman Goldin. NY: Hebrew Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1989. “Morality and Bad Luck.”; Metaphilosophy 20: 203–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1990. The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1991. “Self-Defense.”; Philosophy and Public Affairs 20: 283–310.Google Scholar
Watson, Gary, ed. 2003. Free Will. Oxford; NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1981. “Moral Luck.”; In Moral Luck, 20–39. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Susan. 2001. “The Moral of Moral Luck.”; Philosophic Exchange 31: 4–19.Google Scholar