Blame Without Reasons

Abstract

AbstractWilliams argues that A’s reasons are restricted to facts about actions that would serve A’s subjective motivational set S. A challenge to this internalist perspective on reasons comes from our ordinary conception of blame. We blame A if we think A had reasons to act otherwise. If blame is connected with reasons, this suggests a blame-implies-reasons restriction: blame is restricted to reasons to act otherwise related to A’s S. But this restriction conflicts with our everyday understanding of the scope of blame. To meet this worry, Williams advances a qualified blame-implies-reasons restriction: blame is restricted to proleptic reasons A might have had to act otherwise. The author argues that Williams’s strategy is unconvincing and proposes a practice-based view of blame that is not connected to reasons. By focusing on the practice of blame rather than its function, the practice-based view conserves both internalism and our intuitions about the scope of blame.