Moral Beliefs and Blameworthiness

Philosophy ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 69 (270) ◽  
pp. 397-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lloyd Fields
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Moral Principles

It is a commonly-held belief that ignorance excuses. But what of moral ignorance? Is a person blameless who acts from “false” moral principles? In this paper I shall try to show that such a person is blameworthy. I shall produce an argument that connects the acceptance of moral principles with character, character with moral responsibility, and moral responsibility with the justifiability of blame.

Blame and Moral Ignorance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Sher
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Situation ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Moral Principles

People can be mistaken either about the truth of the moral principles they accept or about the rightness of their actions. Can they legitimately be blamed for acting wrongly when they know what they are doing but don’t know that it is wrong? This chapter argues that the answer is sometimes “yes,” but that whether blame is appropriate in any given case depends on certain facts about the actor’s epistemic situation. The aims of the chapter are to establish, first, that a morally ignorant wrongdoer’s epistemic circumstances do have a bearing on that person’s culpability, but, second, that giving content to this familiar view is far harder than is generally appreciated.

scholarly journals Evaluating Others If They Stand Up for Their Moral Convictions, and Evaluating Ourselves If We Don't Stand Up

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florien M. Cramwinckel ◽  
Kees van den Bos ◽  
Eric van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Moral Courage ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Situational Demands ◽  
Moral Convictions

AbstractActing on one’s moral principles is not always easy. Upholding one’s moral beliefs may run counter to one’s social environment or situational demands. It may often cause people to remain silent on their convictions, while at the same time some may show the moral courage to speak out. How do people evaluate those who do stand up, and how does it affect their self-evaluations? In two experimental studies (Ns = 207 and 204), we investigated both types of evaluations. The studies demonstrate that people who failed to uphold their moral beliefs still had positive evaluations of others who showed moral courage. More specifically, pro-gay participants who went along with writing an anti-gay essay denouncing equal rights for sexual minorities had positive evaluations of another person who spoke up and refused this task. The failure to display moral courage had negative consequences for participants’ self-concepts. In Experiment 1, we show that pro-gay participants’ positive self-concepts were lowered after writing an anti-gay essay (vs. a pro-gay essay). In Experiment 2, we reveal that participants' positive self-concepts were lowered only when they were confronted with morally courageous behavior and their own failure to uphold their moral beliefs was visible to the experimenter.

Excuse without Exculpation

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-95
Author(s):  
Paulina Sliwa
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Mistaken Assumption ◽  
The Relationship

Can moral ignorance excuse? This chapter argues that philosophical debate of this question has been based on a mistaken assumption: namely that excuses are all-or-nothing affairs; to have an excuse is to be blameless. The chapter argues that we should reject this assumption. Excuses are not binary but gradable: they can be weaker or stronger, mitigating blame to greater or lesser extent. This chapter explores the notions of strength of excuses, blame mitigation and the relationship between excuses and moral responsibility. These ideas open up some principled middle-ground between the two positions staked out in the literature. Moral ignorance may well excuse but it does not exculpate.

Moral sentiments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Jay Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Enlightenment

Moral sentiments are those feelings or emotions central to moral agency. Aristotle treated sentiments as nonrational conditions, capable of being moulded into virtues through habituation. The moral sense theorists of the Enlightenment took sentiments to provide the psychological basis for our common moral life. Kantian approaches deny the primacy of sentiments in moral personality, and treat moral sentiments as conditioned by our rational grasp of moral principles. A central issue is whether moral sentiments incorporate moral beliefs. Accounts which affirm a connection with moral beliefs point to the complex intentionality (object-directedness) of such states as resentment or indignation. Against this, some observe that moral emotions may be felt inappropriately. Of special interest are the sentiments of guilt and shame. These seem to reflect different orientations towards moral norms, and questions arise about the degree to which these different orientations are culturally local, and whether either orientation is superior to the other.

scholarly journals Rescuing Political Theory From Fact-Insensitivity

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Forms Of Life

G. A. Cohen, in his Rescuing Justice and Equality, argues that fundamental moral principles do not rest on factual grounds. I contest that and argue instead that all fundamental moral principles (indeed, all moral principles) are fact-sensitive. They are the most deeply embedded principles in an interdependent web of beliefs—beliefs which include factual beliefs. Indeed, all functioning moral beliefs, moral principles and moral practices are in such interdependent webs. There are no fundamental moral principles which are fact-insensitive. What is fundamental are the most deeply embedded moral principles in interdependent webs of belief and practice. If you will, forms of life. G.A. Cohen, dans son livre Rescuing Justice and Equality, maintient que les principes moraux fondamentaux ne reposent pas sur des bases factuelles. Je conteste cette idée et argumente que tous les principes moraux fondamentaux (en fait tous les principes moraux) sont sensibles aux faits. Ce sont les principes les plus profondément enracinés dans des faisceaux de croyances interdépendantes – croyances qui comprennent des croyances factuelles. Toutes les croyances et pratiques, tous les principes moraux fonctionnels sont pris dans ce genre de faisceaux interdépendants. Il n’y a pas de principes moraux fondamentaux qui soient insensibles aux faits. Plus ils sont fondamentaux, plus les principes moraux sont profondément enracinés dans des faisceaux interdépendants de croyances et de pratiques. Ainsi en est-il des façons de vivre.

scholarly journals Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
High Time ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
Independent Condition ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Full Volume

Philosophers have long agreed that moral responsibility might not only have a freedom condition, but also an epistemic condition. Moral responsibility and knowledge interact, but the question is exactly how. Ignorance might constitute an excuse, but the question is exactly when. Surprisingly enough, the epistemic condition has only recently attracted the attention of scholars, and it is high time for a full volume on the topic. The chapters in this volume address the following central questions. Does the epistemic condition require akrasia? Why does blameless ignorance excuse? Does moral ignorance sustained by one’s culture excuse? Does the epistemic condition involve knowledge of the wrongness or wrongmaking features of one’s action? Is the epistemic condition an independent condition, or is it derivative from one’s quality of will or intentions? Is the epistemic condition sensitive to degrees of difficulty? Are there different kinds of moral responsibility and thus multiple epistemic conditions? Is the epistemic condition revisionary? What is the basic structure of the epistemic condition?

A Single True Morality? The Challenge of Relativism

1996 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Harry Bunting
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Widespread Agreement

Ethical objectivists hold that there is one and only one correct system of moral beliefs. From such a standpoint it follows that conflicting basic moral principles cannot both be true and that the only moral principles which are binding on rational human agents are those described by the single true morality. However sincerely they may be held, all other moral principles are incorrect. Objectivism is an influential tradition, covering most of the rationalist and naturalist standpoints which have dominated nineteenth and twentieth century moral philosophy: there is widespread agreement amongst relativists themselves that objectivism is firmly rooted in common sense.

The Moral Responsibility of Corporations

Dialogue ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Hanly
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Moral Principles

This paper examines the concept of moral responsibility as it applies to the actions of corporations. I argue that it is both conceptually and morally appropriate to hold corporations morally responsible for some of their actions, and I attempt to show that arguments to the contrary are unsound. Although I hold that corporations may legitimately be held morally responsible I also argue that one can expect capitalist corporations to follow moral principles only to a rather limited extent.

scholarly journals Can coherence-based interventions change dogged moral beliefs?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Horne ◽  
Josh Rottman ◽  
Caroline Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles

Coherence-based interventions can change people’s moral beliefs about abstract moral principles, but it is unclear whether these interventions would be similarly effective for everyday moral beliefs that can impact routine behavior. In the present research, we examined whether coherence-based “memes” highlighting the moral similarities of pigs and dogs can likewise shift moral beliefs about consuming meat. Across three experiments, we found beliefs about the permissibility of eating some animals can be subtly shifted by brief coherence-based interventions which highlight moral similarity. Comparing the morally relevant capacities (e.g., intelligence, emotional capacities) of an animal that is frequently eaten by Americans (pig) and an animal that is typically considered forbidden to eat by Americans (dog) shifted participants’ moral beliefs. We discuss the implications of these findings for psychological and ethical theory.

On Knowing What’s Right and Being Responsible for It

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Wrong Thing ◽  
The Right ◽  
Central Claim

The debate about whether moral responsibility has an epistemic condition has traditionally focused on whether and, if so, when moral ignorance can provide an excuse for wrong actions. This chapter takes up the question of moral responsibility for right actions. Its central claim is that whether an agent is morally responsible for her right action depends on whether she knows what the right thing is to do. The chapter’s argument for this appeals to considerations from the philosophy of action. It argues that moral knowledge matters to moral evaluations because it is a central ingredient in intentional action. Our knowledge of what the right and wrong thing is to do partly determines whether we do the right or wrong thing intentionally. Moral responsibility inherits its epistemic condition from the epistemic condition on intentional action.

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