Moral Address, Moral Responsibility, and the Boundaries of the Moral Community

Shoemaker, David

doi:10.1086/521280

Cited by 80 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This claim—what I will call the “communication claim”—is not just widespread but crucial to debates about the capacities necessary for morally responsible agency (Watson , ; Darwall ; Shoemaker ). Communicative acts are intelligibly directed only toward those who have the capacity to give them uptake—it is, for instance, unintelligible to say “Hi” to a tree.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities

Macnamara

2013

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Many theorists claim that the reactive emotions, even in their private form, are communicative entities. But as widely endorsed as this claim is, it has not been redeemed: the literature lacks a clear and compelling account of the sense in which reactive attitudes qua private mental states are essentially communicative. In this paper, I fill this gap. I propose that it is apt to characterize privately held reactive attitudes as communicative in nature because they, like many paradigmatic forms of communication, have representational content and the function of evoking uptake of this content in a recipient.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to Smith and Darwall, who are cited in the main text, also see Shoemaker () and Walker (). …”

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confidence: 99%

Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities

Macnamara

2013

Philos Phenomenol Research

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“…We can fix on their communicative aim by articulating the response at which they aim. 6 The consensus view (Walker 2006;Darwall 2006;Smith 2007;Shoemaker 2007) about the targeted response is described by Colleen Macnamara as acknowledging fault:…”

Section: The Aim Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Basic desert of reactive emotions

Cogley

2013

Philosophical Explorations

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In this paper, I explore the idea that someone can deserve resentment or other reactive emotions for what she does by attention to three psychological functions of such emotions -appraisal, communication, and sanction -that I argue ground claims of their desert. I argue that attention to these functions helps to elucidate the moral aims of reactive emotions and to distinguish the distinct claims of desert, as opposed to other moral considerations.

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“…It makes no sense to blame someone who is not receptive to moral reasons, no matter which factors explain their lack of receptiveness. That is as true of the Outlaw, who does not care the slightest about morality, as it is of the psychopath whose emotional and cognitive impairments make it impossible for him to respond to moral reasons (Blair et al 2008;Shoemaker 2007). 20 Rather than saying of such individuals that ''He deserves to suffer'', then, perhaps the more honest expression is ''We hate him and want to see him suffer''.…”

Section: Three Objections To the Interest-based Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisionism and Desert

Bomann-Larsen

2009

Criminal Law, Philosophy

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Revisionists claim that the retributive intuitions informing our responsibilityattributing practices are unwarranted under determinism, not only because they are false, but because if we are all ''victims of causal luck'', it is unfair to treat one another as if we are deserving of moral and legal sanctions. One (moderate) revisionist strategy recommends a deflationary concept of moral responsibility, and that we justify punishment in consequentialist rather than retributive terms. Another (strong) revisionist strategy recommends that we eliminate all concepts of guilt, blame and punishment, and treat dangerous criminals as we treat people with contagious diseases. I argue against both strong and moderate revisionism that (1) it is not unfair to hold persons desert-entailingly responsible (in a weaker sense of 'desert') insofar as they take an interest in being treated as appraisable, and (2) that it is unfair to persons not to treat them as desert-entailingly responsible (in this weaker sense) contrary to their interests in being treated as such. The interest-based argument, I conclude, give us a justification for communicating retributive attitudes, but may still require a weak revision of our retributive practices, in the direction of a communicative theory of punishment.

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Moral Address, Moral Responsibility, and the Boundaries of the Moral Community

Cited by 80 publications

References 11 publications

Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities

Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities

Basic desert of reactive emotions

Revisionism and Desert

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