Relation to others· Moralsdifficulty
Moral responsibility
Should we assign blame and credit?
Praising a child, resenting a friend, taking pride in a success, blaming ourselves for a fault: we spend our days assigning blame and credit. Yet what each of us is, talents as much as leanings, was largely made without us, and one can admire a skill while knowing its acquisition owed nothing to the will. Whether our acts are determined is a neighbouring question, with its own axis; what is decided here is an attitude: to take merit and fault seriously, to keep them as tools, or to let go of them. To take a position is to say what we owe one another in praise, reproach, and forgiveness, and what would become of our bonds if we stopped keeping accounts.
Giving each their due
1Blame and merit should be assigned, for they are real: when an act is voluntary, done knowingly and without constraint, praise and blame are owed, not merely useful. To refuse to assign them would be to see no longer actions but events, and to treat no one as the author of their life.
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Hegelexplicit
To hold the criminal responsible and inflict on him what he deserves is to honor him as a rational being, author of his deed, and not to treat him as an animal trained by threat. Merit and fault are real, not mere instruments of social utility.
Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §100
Correct, not retaliate
0We should keep responding to acts, blaming, sanctioning, praising, not because it is deserved at bottom, but because it works: understanding does not rule out acting. We give up resentment, not response; the question is no longer "is it deserved?" but "what will make things better?".
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Keeping no accounts
0We should let go of assignment itself: no one is the ultimate author of what they are, and our acts issue from us as fruit from a tree. In place of reproach and pride come other responses: to understand, to pity, to rejoice or to laugh, as one responds to the beauty of a gesture or the sorrow of a shipwreck, without seeking a culprit. This is not indifference: it is the end of the tribunal, not the end of feeling.
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See the problem map in the Atlas →
- Descriptive QuestionThe lottery of merit
Two identical reckless drivers, a child crosses in front of only one: chance makes one a killer and the other lucky. And what we praise, talents, character, was no more chosen: if luck pervades everything, what remains of merit properly one's own?
the part of luck in merit
Sub-problems to deepen this axis's discussion
- DescriptiveResponsible for one's character?
The drunk man no longer controls himself, but he made himself so, glass after glass: for Aristotle, we impute the disposition one has let grow. Yet to be accountable for one's character, would one not have to have chosen it, and so on to infinity?
the acquired disposition - DescriptiveDoes understanding all excuse all?
If every act has its causes, the excuse valid for one, the tumour, the constraint, should hold for all, and no one would be to blame. Unless the excuse precisely distinguishes between causes, and understanding is not excusing.
the universal excuse - PrescriptiveMoralCan we give up resentment?
Would a world cured of resentment be gentler or less human? To give up holding things against people, is that an attainable wisdom, or the end of person-to-person relations?
resentment - PrescriptivePolitical & legalFrom blame to punishment
If no one deserves at bottom, retribution collapses, but is it to be mourned? Protecting, deterring, and repairing may suffice to ground punishment, without ever speaking of a debt.
deserved punishment - DescriptiveReal merit or necessary practice?
Does assigning blame presuppose a merit grounded in metaphysics, or does the practice carry itself, no discovery about determinism able to make us treat persons as objects?
the ground of assignment