The Stance of Moral Protest

Abstract

Chapter 2 sets out a conception of blame without the notion of deserved pain or harm. To blame is instead to take on a non-retributive stance of moral protest. The reasons for taking on this stance are forward looking: moral formation or reconciliation in a relationship that has been impaired as a result of the wrongdoing, protection from wrongdoing, and restoration of the integrity of its victims. Regret, a painful response to one’s own wrongdoing which by contrast with guilt (by stipulation) does not involve the supposition that the pain it involves is basically deserved, may appropriately accompany self-blame. The pain of guilt, an attitude distinct from regret, conceptually involves basic desert since it involves the supposition that it would be prima facie permissible for those who are suitably situated to intentionally impose it on a wrongdoer for a non-instrumental reason. The pain of regret does not involve this supposition.