Deserved Guilt and Blameworthiness over Time

Carlsson, Andreas Brekke

doi:10.1017/9781009179263.010

Cited by 6 publications

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“…27 Problematically, Sheehy's and Diamantis's accounts each imply that a reformed organization is not culpable for its past acts, which does not parallel how moral philosophers typically think about diachronic culpability. (One exception is Khoury and Matheson (2018), who argue that a reformed human cancels their culpability; however, Clarke (2022) and Carlsson (2022) compellingly rebut this argument.) As Carlsson explains, even after radical character change, it can be fitting for an agent to have continued self-directed negative attitudes such as remorse, regret, and guilt-markers of moral culpability.…”

Section: The Identity Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

States’ culpability through time

Collins

2024

Philos Stud

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Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. The argument begins by outlining a picture of states’ agency on which states’ culpability is distinct from the culpability of states’ members. It then outlines, and rejects, a plausible-seeming answer to our question: that culpability transmits from a past state’s action to a present state just if the two states share a numerical identity, for example as determined by international law. I advocate a different answer: culpability transmits from a past action to a present state to the extent that the present state ‘descends from’ the aspects of the past state that underpinned the past action. One potential upshot is that some present-day settler-colonies (such as Australia) are culpable for the centuries-ago invasion of their lands by European powers—even though these states did not perform these invasions and indeed did not exist at the time.

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Section: The Identity Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

States’ culpability through time

Collins

2024

Philos Stud

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“…In response, I agree that the fact of a present threat posed by a past wrong is sufficient to make resentment fitting, but I deny that it's necessary. 7 Consider a case from Andreas Carlsson (2022). Suppose Harry is married to Tim and that Harry cheats on Tim.…”

Section: Forever Fit-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this, I followTierney (2021) andCarlsson (2022).8 Carlsson (2022) argues similarly against an account of fitting blame due toShoemaker (2021).9 This assumes, followingRosen (2015) and others, that it can be fitting for you to resent someone for wronging you even if you lack "standing", e.g., if you've wronged someone else in a relevantly similar way. Perhaps it's "odd and unreasonable" (ibid.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Versions of these worries also seem to arise forCarlsson's (2017Carlsson's ( , 2022 account, according to which someone's being blameworthy for doing something consists in their deserving to feel guilty for doing it. A possible response would be to say that in the above cases neither agent suffers all the guilt they deserve, and this is why they stay blameworthy.…”

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Forever fitting feelings

Howard

2022

Philos Phenomenol Research

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This paper addresses a recent puzzle in the ethics of emotions concerning the fitting duration of emotions. On the one hand, many of our emotions tend to fade with time and can seem to do so fittingly. Think of attitudes like anger, grief, and regret. On the other hand, it's difficult to see how it could be fitting for these feelings to fade since the facts that make them fitting can seem to persist. This is the puzzle in brief; that of explaining how certain feelings can fittingly fade with time. This paper argues that this puzzle has no general solution: in a wide range of true‐to‐life cases our fitting feelings remain fitting forever, until the day that we die. I conclude by exploring the normative significance of this result and its implications for the ethics of attitudes more generally.

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Debt and Desert

Carlsson

2024

J Ethics

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According to what may be called the Debt Model, blameworthiness is defined in terms of deserved suffering. The Debt Model has a significant implication: one is less blameworthy if one has experienced some of the suffering one deserves, and no longer blameworthy once one has experienced the full amount of suffering one deserves. Blameworthiness, according to the Debt model, is not forever. In recent papers, Clarke (2022) and Howard (2022) independently criticize the Debt Model and argue for the opposite conclusion: if one is blameworthy, one will remain blameworthy forever. In this paper, I respond to this criticism as well as a recent argument against the Debt Model from Tierney (2022). I then present a prima facie case for the Debt Model. I argue that Clarke’s attempt to accommodate the intuitions elicited by this and similar cases has unwelcome implications. I will end the paper with some remarks about what roles we want our conceptions of blameworthiness to play. If Clarke’s account were right, the fact that an agent is blameworthy would play a far less significant role in our moral life than we often tend to assume. The Debt Model, I will suggest, makes better sense of our blaming practices.

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Deserved Guilt and Blameworthiness over Time

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

States’ culpability through time

States’ culpability through time

Forever fitting feelings

Debt and Desert

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