The department is delighted to welcome Sara Koeglsperger from Univ of Frieburg. She will give a self-contained talk at the Higher seminar in practical philosophy entitled:

"Fitting blame and the partiality problem".

Abstract: Blameworthiness is commonly understood in terms of fittingness of blame: an agent X is blameworthy to degree n for an action A if and only if it is fitting to blame X to degree n for A. The problem with this biconditional is that whether and what kind of blame is fitting seems to depend on the interpersonal relationship between the blamer and the wrongdoer or the blamer and the victim. Different blaming responses toward the same wrongdoer are, prima facie, fitting depending on the relationship between the parties. This is the partiality problem for blame. In the paper, I argue that we cannot solve the problem by appealing to wrong-kind-of-reasons, i.e. non-fittingness reasons. Instead, we should accept that different blaming reactions toward the same wrongdoer are in fact fitting. To solve the partiality problem, I propose distinguishing between two usages of the notion “blameworthiness”, one practice-independent notion and one that is essentially positional. In the talk, I will focus on my solution to the partiality problem for blame (sections 4 and 5 of the paper). 

Welcome!

Toni