Kyle Fritz (Department of Public Policy Leadership, University of Mississippi); Daniel Miller (Department of Philosophy, West Virginia University)
A Commitment to Moral Equality: The Role of Unfairness in Undermined Standing
It is widely accepted both in social practices and in philosophical theory that even if an individual is blameworthy for some wrongdoing, not just anyone is entitled to blame them. Perhaps the most familiar illustration of this is the hypocritical blamer; one isn’t entitled to blame a blameworthy individual if one’s blame would be hypocritical. Philosophers typically refer to this entitlement as moral standing. We can observe claims that hypocritical blamers lack moral standing to blame others in interpersonal social interactions, in political arguments, and even in international relations, as when the United States hypocritically condemns international human rights abuses. Despite the prevalence of this claim, however, what might explain why hypocritical blamers lack the moral standing to blame others for similar wrongdoings?
So far, the Commitment Account has been the dominant explanation: hypocritical blamers are not sufficiently committed to the norms underlying their blame, and one is entitled to blame only if they are so committed. Yet this account faces challenges that have largely gone underappreciated in the literature. There appear to be cases in which an agent is sufficiently committed to a norm yet nevertheless lacks standing to blame for that norm due to their hypocrisy, showing that lack of commitment isn’t necessary for undermined standing. These counterexamples suggest that what undermines standing in hypocritical blame is not a lack of commitment, but unfairness. The best way to understand this unfairness is in terms of a denial of the moral equality of persons. Accordingly, even in cases where the hypocritical blamer lacks sufficient commitment to a norm, the deeper explanation for their undermined standing lies with the Moral Equality Account. This account can capture what is intuitively plausible in the Commitment Account while providing a more satisfying explanation of our blaming practices.
A hybrid event for Uehiro Oxford Institute Members and Associates (booking not required).
