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Moral Diversity and Moral Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2018

BRIAN KOGELMANN  and
ROBERT H. WALLACE
BRIAN KOGELMANN
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]
ROBERT H. WALLACE
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]
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Abstract

In large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising, and resenting—we communicate a desire to maintain good will to those in the community we are imbedded in. Participating in such practices alone will not get the job done, though, for expressions of our reactive attitudes are often what economists call cheap talk. But when we praise and blame in cases of moral diversity, expressions of our reactive attitudes act as costly signals capable of solving our social dilemma.

Keywords

moral responsibilityStrawsoncheap talkcostly signalmoral disagreement
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , Fall 2018 , pp. 371 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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