Blame Is Not Revenge: A Philosopher Argues We Should Blame Less
Miranda Fricker argues that retributive blame makes no sense, and that the most valuable blame is "communicative blame" — aimed at getting the other person to genuinely understand the moral significance of what they did, and reaching a shared moral understanding.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
There is no single definition of blame
Fricker points out that the philosophical literature holds a great many different views of blame: some say it is a hostile emotion, some a reactive attitude, some merely a judgment, some a rupture in a relationship, and some a form of protest. She suspects these views are not even talking about the same thing. She holds that the object of blame can be any agent — an individual, an institution, or even a collective as large as a nation — as long as it has done something wrong, it is a fitting object of blame.
— Miranda FrickerRetributive blame has no logic to it
Fricker defines retributive blame as: you wronged me, I am at a disadvantage, so I am entitled to even the score by making you suffer a little too — "getting even" is its most apt metaphor. She says she does not believe this logic in interpersonal morality, and does not find it useful. She concedes she does not want to say anything specific about criminal punishment, but admits she is strongly inclined to think the retributive idea there is rather distasteful. She believes genuinely useful alternatives exist.
— Miranda FrickerCommunicative blame wants shared understanding
Fricker holds that the morally most valuable model of blame is the one aimed at getting the other person to fully grasp the moral significance of their conduct. If you blame me for wronging you, perhaps I have not fully understood the moral weight of what I did; you put it into the conversation, and I either come to understand what I did or push back that it was "not that serious," and in the end the two of us reach a shared moral understanding of what happened between us. She concedes this is an ideal, but one worth pursuing, and calls it "communicative blame."
— Miranda FrickerBlame is at bottom a judgment of moral wrongdoing
After the functional analysis, Fricker gives her own definition of blame: blame is a judgment of moral wrongdoing, and that judgment is in some sense activated or motivated by a disposition suited to holding someone responsible. She stresses that this is the context of moral blame. The definition is minimalist, and she thinks its advantage is that it transplants across domains — when she studies epistemic blame, for instance, she need not assume the blamer harbours a hostile emotion toward the blamed; there need only be an epistemic fault, and a judgment made from a responsibility-holding stance rather than passive observation.
— Miranda FrickerAn apology must be made to the right person
Fricker points to a key difference between apology and blame: communicative blame can be broadcast anywhere, and conveying the meaning of blame to a third party can be derived from conveying it to the person concerned — both promote shared moral understanding; but apologising to someone you did not wrong is not an apology at all. Apology is essentially second-personal moral address, and must be done to the right person. She also notes that apology's reparative power is bound up with an ongoing relationship — wronged at random by a stranger in the street, there is no need to chase an apology, and we all have to learn to let things go.
— Miranda FrickerSincerity is not all-or-nothing
Fricker rejects treating sincerity as all-or-nothing. She holds that in most apology practices, a person need only be "sincere enough" to count as apologising, and sincere enough in the right way to be accepted by the particular person being apologised to. She cites the philosopher Jeffrey Helmich's notion of the "apology stance": an apology is a speech act that not only expresses but "enacts" the appropriate sorry inner state. She adds that an over-elaborate apology is merely irritating — an apology is a social performance, and must fall within the bandwidth of aptness to be accepted.
— Miranda FrickerResponsibility is a social construction, not metaphysics
Confronted with the minority view that genes and environment determine everything and no one is ever responsible, Fricker argues that this line of thinking locates the threshold of responsibility in a metaphysical rather than a natural place. She understands responsibility as something that grows out of the practice of human beings living together, for the sake of social coordination and harmony, and for building a shared moral consciousness. She draws on Peter Strawson's approach: whatever the metaphysics, in everyday life we simply cannot help praising and blaming. She holds that separating metaphysics from the practice of responsibility is itself a way of leading people astray.
— Miranda FrickerBlaming less is a trainable choice
Fricker says that if blame is a judgment of fault, and the judgment comes from a responsibility-holding moral stance, then we can choose how much of human behaviour to bring under this "fault-finding" construction. She gives the example of lateness: some people are highly moralistic about others being late, others are not offended at all. She admits she prefers a world in which everyone is a bit more relaxed about lateness of up to 15 minutes, where it need not be constructed as a matter of respect — it is just "you were a little late," and that is all.
— Miranda FrickerGiving up blame breeds something more toxic
Fricker says she cares about both blame and forgiveness, that her real focus is moral address, and that apology is the middle term between the two. She thinks we blame too much, and that the wrong ways of blaming really are toxic; but she disagrees with those who think blame is necessarily toxic and should be abolished altogether. She thinks frankly asking "What did you do? You treated me badly that day" matters for everyone's moral development. She adds that the fear of blame being toxic leads to something more toxic still — passive aggression, dishonesty, gaslighting blame.
— Miranda FrickerIn their own words · checked verbatim
I personally think that retributive forms of blaming that are basically a kind of vengeful payback for a wrong done don't make any sense.
Miranda Fricker2:05
the most morally valuable mode of blaming is a mode of blaming that aims to bring the other person to fully appreciate the moral significance of what they've done.
Miranda Fricker3:08
In my view, what blame is is a judgment of moral fault because we're talking about moral blame here for the moment. a judgment, a moral fault that's in some way activated or animated by some disposition which is appropriate for holding someone responsible.
Miranda Fricker5:11
But apologizing to someone who isn't the one that you've wronged really is no apology at all.
Miranda Fricker7:11
I think it sets the bar for responsibility somewhere metaphysical rather than somewhere natural.
Miranda Fricker12:15
I also think that the fear of blame being toxic can lead to something even more toxic that I detest, which is kind of passive aggressive, dishonest, gaslighty blaming.
Miranda Fricker21:21
Glossary
- communicative blame
- Fricker's proposed model of blame, aimed at getting the other person to grasp the moral significance of their conduct and reach a shared moral understanding.
- reactive attitude
- Strawson's concept for the attitudes such as praise and blame that we naturally have in interpersonal interaction.
- apology stance
- Jeffrey Helmich's concept: an apology not only expresses but "enacts" the appropriate sorry inner state.
- epistemic blame
- Blame that holds someone responsible in the epistemic rather than the moral domain, as when blaming someone for sloppy calculation.
How to listen
Readers interested in moral philosophy, responsibility and forgiveness; founders and managers who want to understand how "blaming less" avoids sliding into permissiveness.