Academic

Coleman & Sarch on Reactive Attitude Accounts of Blameworthiness

By Lawrence Solum

Jules L. Coleman (Yale Law School) and Alex Sarch have posted Blameworthiness and the Reactive Attitudes on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This paper replaces the earlier draft of the paper previously entitled,'Blameworthiness and Time'. This essay explores recent efforts to analyze the concept of an agent being blameworthy for what he has done or failed to do in terms of correctly held or experienced reactive attitudes - guilt, resentment and indignation. Two notions of correctness for the emotions are available: appropriateness and fittingness. We develop both, present the evidence for them, and present worrisome objections to each. Against the former we discuss the need to provide a theory of right reasons for the attitudes and show how the three major efforts to do so -- those of Parfit, Hieronymi and Darwall -- fall short. Against the latter we argue that the effort to exploit an analogy between belief and the reactive attitudes fails to obtain. More importantly we show that any effort to analyze blameworthiness in terms of the reactive emotions faces an inescapable tri-lemma.

We conclude that skepticism about the prospects of success for any reactive attitude account of blameworthiness is more than adequately justified. As in the previous draft many of our examples designed to drive a wedge between blameworthiness and the blaming attitudes are based on considerations that arise as a result of the passage of time.

I would provide more from the text, but this paper has a "Do Not Qoute" request. Highly recommended.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on January 11, 2011 (boomark / email).