Praise and Blame

Abstract

This chapter examines the idea of blame, as an activity distinct from judging blameworthy but not equivalent to punishing. There are different sorts of blame, that correspond to different sorts of wrongdoing. Ordinary blame is communicative, and applies to agents who have acted subjectively wrongly. Ordinary praise is, likewise, communicative, and also depends on the agent knowing what she is doing. These can be contrasted with detached praise and blame, which apply to agents outside our moral community. Detached blame is a mixed bag, and this chapter offers a general account of how such blame reactions work. They are not communicative, rather they function from a distance. That does not entail that they are mere appraisals: they are genuinely a species of blame, in that they are a response to wrongdoing that goes beyond a mere judgment. This leads to a discussion of detached blameworthiness, which corresponds to detached blame.