Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:48:54.203Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Blameworthiness Forever?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2018

ANDREW C. KHOURY  and
BENJAMIN MATHESON
ANDREW C. KHOURY
Affiliation:
ARIZONA STATE [email protected]
BENJAMIN MATHESON
Affiliation:
STOCKHOLM [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many of those working on moral responsibility assume that once blameworthy, always blameworthy. They believe that blameworthiness, like diamonds, is forever. In this article, we argue that blameworthiness is not forever; rather, it can diminish through time. We begin by showing that the view that blameworthiness is forever is best understood as the claim that personal identity is sufficient for diachronic blameworthiness. We argue that this view should be rejected because it entails that blameworthiness for past action is completely divorced from the distinctive psychological features of the person at the later time. This is because on none of the leading accounts of personal identity does identity require the preservation of any distinctive psychological features, but merely requires some form of continuity. The claim that blameworthiness is forever should therefore be rejected. We then sketch an account of blameworthiness over time, and consider two objections.

Keywords

blamediachronic blameworthinessmoral responsibilitypersonal identitytime
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Summer 2018 , pp. 204 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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.)

Footnotes

This paper was inspired by a discussion led by Matt King on the Flickers of Freedom blog (http://philosophycommons.typepad.com/flickers_of_freedom/2014/09/blameworthiness-over-time.html). We have benefited from audiences at the University of Gothenburg and the 2018 Eastern APA. Thanks especially to Sofia Jeppsson, Per-Erik Milam, Christian Munthe, Shyam Nair, Ángel Pinillos, David Shoemaker, and several anonymous referees.

References

Butler, Joseph. (1736) 1975 ‘Of Personal Identity’. Reprint, in Perry, John (ed.), Personal Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press), 99–105.Google Scholar
Coates, D. Justin, and Tognazzini, Neal A.. (2012) ‘The Nature and Ethics of Blame’. Philosophy Compass, 7, 197–207.Google Scholar
Coleman, Jules, and Sarch, Alexander. (2012) ‘Blameworthiness and Time’. Legal Theory, 18, 101–37.Google Scholar
DeGrazia, David. (2005) Human Identity and Bioethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Gareth. (1978) ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ Analysis, 38, 208.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. (1970) Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glannon, Walter. (1998) ‘Moral Responsibility and Personal Identity’. American Philosophical Quarterly, 35, 231–49.Google Scholar
Glannon, Walter. (2002) The Mental Basis of Responsibility. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Graham, Peter A. (2014) ‘A Sketch of a Theory of Moral Blameworthiness’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88, 388–409.Google Scholar
Haji, Ishtiyaque. (1998) Moral Appraisability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Matthew, Brett, Caroline, Johnson, Wendy, and Deary, Ian (2016) ‘Personality Stability from Age 14 to Age 77 Years’. Psychology and Aging, 31, 862–74.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Daniel. (2013) ‘Regret, Agency, and Error’. In Shoemaker, David (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 95–125.Google Scholar
Khoury, Andrew C. (2013) ‘Synchronic and Diachronic Responsibility’. Philosophical Studies 165, 735–52.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Locke, John. (1694) 1975 ‘Of Identity and Diversity’. Reprint, in Perry, John (ed.), Personal Identity. (Berkeley: University of California Press), 33–52.Google Scholar
Matheson, Benjamin. (2014) ‘Compatibilism and Personal Identity’. Philosophical Studies, 170, 317–34.Google Scholar
Milam, Per-Erik (unpublished manuscript) ‘Forgiveness as Change’.Google Scholar
McKenna, Michael. (2012) Conversation and Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Eric. (1997) The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek. (1984) Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Radzik, Linda. (2001) ‘Collective Responsibility and Duties to Respond’. Social Theory and Practice, 27, 455–71.Google Scholar
Reid, Thomas. (1785) 1975. ‘Of Memory’. Reprint, in Perry, John (ed.), Personal Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press), 107–12, 113–18.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. (2015) ‘The Alethic Conception of Moral Responsibility’. In Clarke, Randolph, McKenna, Michael, and Smith, Angela (eds.), The Nature of Moral Responsibility (Oxford. Oxford University Press), 65–87.Google Scholar
Schechtman, Marya. (1996) The Constitution of Selves. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, David. (2012) ‘Responsibility without Identity’. Harvard Review of Philosophy, 18, 109–32.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, David. (2016) ‘The Stony Metaphysical Heart of Animalism’. In Blatti, Stephan and Snowdon, Paul (eds.), Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 303–28.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney, and Swinburne, Richard. (1984) Personal Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sider, Theodore. (2001) ‘Criteria of Personal Identity and the Limits of Conceptual Analysis’. Philosophical Perspectives, 15, 189–209.Google Scholar
Smith, Angela M. (2007) ‘On Being Responsible and Holding Responsible’. Journal of Ethics, 11, 465–84.Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen. (2011) Locke on Personal Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis (1997) ‘People and Their Bodies’. In Dancy, Jonathan (ed.), Reading Parfit (Oxford: Blackwell), 202–29.Google Scholar
Tognazzini, Neal A. (2010) ‘Persistence and Responsibility’. In Campbell, Joseph, O'Rourke, Michael, and Silverstein, Harry (eds.), Time and Identity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 149–63.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael J. (1988) An Essay on Moral Responsibility. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar