The Limitations of Blame

Blame plays a significant, but contentious, role in our moral lives. We use blame to hold wrongdoers accountable, oppose injustice, and express care and respect for victims, including ourselves. But there are limits to blame: blaming can be painful and exhausting; it can be ineffective when others ignore or dismiss our grievances; our tendency to blame can be exploited by demagogues and manipulated with technology; and blame can be counterproductive, eroding trust and damaging relationships rather than restoring and repairing them.

In general, the success and significance of blame depends on features of its social, cultural, and political context.

Given the ubiquity of blame—we all have blamed and been blamed—and the need to do it well, we must ask: What are the limits of blame? And how should we understand its role and value in light of these limits? My project will answer this question in three parts. It will: i) identify novel and neglected challenges to appropriate and effective blame, ii) explain how these challenges constrain what blame can do for us, and iii) reevaluate the norms that govern blaming.

To accomplish these tasks, I will extend the ethics of blame beyond its traditional focus on justification (when to blame), proportionality (how much to blame), and standing (who has authority to blame). I will develop an ethics of blame that accounts for neglected factors like trust and trustworthiness, affective injustice, and useful alternatives to blame.