Research Catalog

Title

Ways to be blameworthy : rightness, wrongness, and responsibility / Elinor Mason.

Author

Mason, Elinor

Publication

• Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2019.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 237 pages; 23 cm

Summary

There must be some connection between our deontic notions, rightness and wrongness, and our responsibility notions, praise- and blameworthiness. Yet traditional approaches to each set of concepts tend to take the other set for granted. This book takes an integrated approach to these questions, drawing on both ethics and responsibility theory, and thereby illuminating both sets of concepts. Elinor Mason describes this as 'normative responsibility theory': the primary aim is not to give an account of the conditions of agency, but to give an account of what sort of wrong action makes blame fitting. She presents a pluralistic view of both obligation and blameworthiness, identifying three different ways to be blameworthy, corresponding to different ways of acting wrongly. First, ordinary blameworthiness is essentially connected to subjective wrongness, to acting wrongly by one's own lights. Subjective obligation, and ordinary blame, apply only to those who are within our moral community, who understand and share our value system. By contrast, detached blame can apply even when the agent is outside our moral community, and has no sense that her act is morally wrong. In detached blame, the blame rather than the lameworthiness is fundamental. Finally, agents can take responsibility for some inadvertent wrongs, and thus become responsible. This third sort of blameworthiness, 'extended blameworthiness', applies when the agent understands the objective wrongness of her act, but has no bad will. In such cases, the social context may be such that the agent should take responsibility, and accept ordinary blame from the wronged party.

Subject

• Right and wrong
• Blame

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Call Number

JFD 19-2617

ISBN

• 0198833601
• 9780198833604

OCLC

1061797354

Author

Mason, Elinor, author.

Title

Ways to be blameworthy : rightness, wrongness, and responsibility / Elinor Mason.

Publisher

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Copyright Date

©2019

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Research Call Number

JFD 19-2617