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A Second-Personal Solution to the Paradox of Moral Complaint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2020

Adam Piovarchy Open the ORCID record for Adam Piovarchy [Opens in a new window]
Adam Piovarchy*
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney
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E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Smilansky (2006) notes that wrongdoers seem to lack any entitlement to complain about being treated in the ways that they have treated others. However, it also seems impermissible to treat agents in certain ways, and this impermissibility would give wrongdoers who are themselves wronged grounds for complaint. This article solves this apparent paradox by arguing that what is at issue is not the right simply to make complaints, but the right to have one's demands respected. Agents must accept the authority of others to make second-personal demands on them before they can expect others to treat their own demands (or complaints) as legitimate. Wrongdoers’ previous wrongdoing shows they do not treat others’ demands as authoritative. However, as they are still beings with dignity, which acts as a source of moral reasons for others, wronging them remains impermissible.

Type
Reply
Information
Utilitas , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 111 - 117
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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