tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post7258222787951834228..comments2024-01-23T11:05:07.492-06:00Comments on MSU PHILOSOPHY CLUB: BlameworthinessUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post-16201523693218598502009-02-22T19:52:00.000-06:002009-02-22T19:52:00.000-06:00tmf:Persons A and persons B, both follow through o...tmf:<BR/><BR/>Persons A and persons B, both follow through on gunning down passerby on campus. We shall say they have the same intentions, desires, etc., all. However, in the aftermath, person A still believes she was totally justified, and is unapologetic. Person B, on the other hand, reevaluates her previous actions, and comes to regret her decisions leading up to and including the killings. She concludes that she was in error.<BR/><BR/>Now, up to and including the killing spree, their desires, intentions, plans, execution of actions, etc., are all the same. Afterward we might say that person B is demonstrating different character. If we want to make character reducible to desire, that's all well and good. We can simply alter our language, and say that person B has demonstrated superior agency. She is able and willing to reevaluate her actions, and rightly deems them inappropriate and unacceptable.<BR/><BR/>Now, if we don't take this into consideration, we might say they are both equally blameworthy. But this seems inconsistent. A child who throws a tantrum to get her way we forgive, for she's a child, and we might say something like, "She doesn't know any better". An adult who does the same is not given such leeway, and rightly so. We assume that she does know better, and is being juvenile. Throwing a tantrum is not how you get things done, and this is no longer permissible behavior.<BR/><BR/>A discrepancy is also present with persons A and B. They are both adults, but we expect more from a person possessed of superior agency. To put it in other terms: sinners sin. But even if sinning is unacceptable, it's still to some degree understandable from sinners. However, it is certainly not acceptable from saints. We expect saints to be saintly. We expect more from them.<BR/><BR/>Certainly, most persons fall somewhere in between. They are not always going to act morally, nor always immorally, however, when superior agency is demonstrated, we expect such agency to be utilized. You were wiser. You were capable of making better choices, yet you did not. Fools act foolishly, but we do not expect this, and do not accept such from those possessed of greater wisdom.<BR/><BR/>In short: person B is more blameworthy than person A. Why? Because person B is more capable of making better, more informed, and wiser moral choices. She knew better. She knows better. She just didn't do anything about it at the time. Person A is still caught up in the fog of her own ignorance. She's not amoral, for that was not part of the premise, and so she is certainly still blameworthy. She's just not <B>as</B> blameworthy.<BR/><BR/>This seems right, but it makes little sense on Parker's grounds.<BR/><BR/><I>The problem is, however, with a bit more imagination I believe that one can construct a case in which an actor’s desires are clearly a function of luck.</I><BR/><BR/>Can you give an example?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post-90069014006971610262009-02-22T09:50:00.000-06:002009-02-22T09:50:00.000-06:00"Your [presented] examples are inadequate".More to..."Your [presented] examples are inadequate".<BR/><BR/>More to be posted specifically on blameworthiness later.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post-66844184024172765762009-02-21T21:00:00.000-06:002009-02-21T21:00:00.000-06:00To be succinct, the article was not about characte...To be succinct, the article was not about character. Moreover, the examples were Parker's not my own. I simply sought to show that Parker's position was subject to a reductio. However, Parker's examples were cast at an appropriate level of specificity to afford a controlled thought experiment concerning blameworthiness --not character. <BR/><BR/>tmfAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post-53755475256791051692009-02-17T17:33:00.000-06:002009-02-17T17:33:00.000-06:00Let us say person A and person B go on the shootin...Let us say person A and person B go on the shooting rampage. But, person B, having fired the first round, sees her first victim fall. Witnessing the reality of the siataution she finally sees throgh the haze of her anger, and frustration. Sure, she thought she wanted them to die. Certainly, she wants them to suffer. But when faced with actual murder, she stops, and runs to the authorities.<BR/><BR/>People squelch on associates all the time, and the unveiliing of the desires--that she wanted them to suffer, but did not actually want them to die, as it turns out--does not occur until faced with the reality of her actions, and the consequences which follow from them.<BR/><BR/>We have--on rare occasion--seen this with rapists. When face-to-face with a past victim, they see the pain, humiliation, suffering, and trauma they caused. And the response is, "Well, I never thought of it that way", or "Well, I didn't want that to happen". The person who shows genuine remose, and a desire to change, to not repeat those past wrongs, etc., certainly seems to be of greater character than those who are unphased and unchanged. But we can't know this until the consequences are already apparent.<BR/><BR/>You can do something deliberately, but not do it intentionally. But it might not be obvious that the results and your intentions don't align, until the consequences are revealed. Otherwise, any commentary on your intentions, motives, character etc., from a third party perspective is simply going to be inconclusive.<BR/><BR/>We can imagine another, simpler scenario. Man A plans to meet a "lady friend" at a hotel while his wife is busy having her friends over. In scenario 1, he does manage to meet up with her, but he does not follow through with the liason. In scenario 2, he gets stuck in traffic, and his cell dies on him, so he can't call ahead. She gets tired of waiting, and leaves. She's gone by the time he arrives.<BR/><BR/>Man B makes the meeting in scenario 1, and chicka-chicka-bow-bow. In scenario 2, he got caught up in traffic, etc.<BR/><BR/>Are man A and man B equally blameworthy? It would be very odd to say that they are.<BR/><BR/>You don't know if you can pull the trigger, until you're actually faced with pulling the trigger. And afterwards, very different characters can be revealed by how you respond to the consequences.<BR/><BR/>To be succinct:<BR/>1. Character is not merely reducible to desires. That's incomplete, insufficient, and a little purerile, honestly.<BR/>2. Your examples are inadequate. Those scenarios could go any number of ways. We can't know that they would continue shooting after the first shot, and we aren't being shown how they respond afterwards.<BR/><BR/>Afterwards, A and B, I would conclude, are equally blameworthy, since that seems to be the focus. But we can't know that until they actually follow through with their actions. It's conceivable that person B would have stopped herself, and no luck need have been involved. And character can be revealed even after the wrong was committed. Thus, even having the same desires, same intentions, same actions, upon witnessing the reality of the situation, the person who is prompted to reevaluate, make changes, and/or attempts to "make it right", seems to be revealing far better character than the one who is nonplus.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3556891643907669554.post-3958269989745654352009-02-16T11:21:00.000-06:002009-02-16T11:21:00.000-06:00What is great about these kinds of cases is that o...What is great about these kinds of cases is that our armchair intuitions and our real-life experiences diverge. From the armchair we think the consequences irrelevant, but when we end up in a situation where we caused real harm we are tortured by it, we rethink it through (if only I had taken a different route, if only I had not stopped for Jujy Fruits on the way out of the theater,...) and we feel additional culpability.<BR/><BR/>This is likely confuting causal responsibility with ethical responsibility in some sense making our more clear-headed armchair intuitions better (and sitting more happily with Todd's Kantian impulses), but there does seem to be something more there.<BR/><BR/>When grievous harm occurs, we are responsible for rectification in some way. More harm, more responsibility to make it right. When we almost end up on the Darwin Awards, the lesson may be learned, but there is a sense in which the lack consequences does let us off the hook. This seems to be the jurisprudence situation, but I think you are right that the need for justice in this case means a lack of applicability of the insight.<BR/><BR/>At the same time, I think the ethical is different from the legal and we do want to say that while we may never have complete access to motives, we still can provisionally judge in the way you want to but won't allow. Why do we need a Cartesian certainty for such judgments?SteveGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12340421785402103210noreply@blogger.com