Relation to others· Morals

Giving each their due

Axis: Moral responsibility — Should we assign blame and credit?

Blame 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.

Who holds this position

Philosophers 1

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

Foundations and implications

↑ What grounds it

A leaf — an application that grounds nothing further here.

↑ What grounds it

Freedom of the will

If the will is genuinely free, if the agent could have acted otherwise, then their acts are properly their own and praise as much as blame is deserved. Free will grounds desert in the strong sense: for Kant, only a transcendental freedom makes the moral law binding and the fault imputable.

↓ What it implies

A leaf — an application that grounds nothing further here.

Problems

Descriptive Question
The 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
Descriptive
Responsible 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
Descriptive
Does 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
PrescriptivePolitical & legal
From 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
Descriptive
Real 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