The Problem of Blame

"In Chapter 1 I attempt to explicate the problem of blame by making use of an analogy with another more familiar problem relevant to permissibility and harm - the problem of punishment. I argue that this comparison serves to highlight two clear desiderata for a normatively adequate account of blame, one concerning the value of blame and another concerning desert. In this first chapter I also argue that the problem of blame concerns the reactive varieties of blame in particular, offer some principled strategies for distinguishing between reactive and non-reactive varieties of blame, and discuss the role that the negative reactive attitudes play in characterizing the former. In Chapter 2 I turn my focus to the desert-based desideratum for a normatively adequate account of reactive blame. I begin with an issue that often plays a central role in obscuring whether the problem of blame can be resolved, namely how we ought to understand the concept of basic desert. Adjacent to the problem of blame, debates about free will and moral responsibility often seem to bottom out in appeals to whether or not the account on offer can deliver basic desert of blame. However, little progress has been made in explicating precisely what basic desert of blame amounts to. I argue that once we have restricted our focus to reactive blame in particular, a clearer picture of basic desert emerges. I go on to offer an analysis of basic desert of reactive blame which I call the fittingness account, and argue that it can provide the first step in resolving the problem of blame"--