Partiality and Retrospective Justification

Abstract

Sometimes changes in an agent's partial values can cast a positive light on an earlier action, which was wrong when it was performed. Based on independent reflections about the role of partiality in determining when blame is appropriate, I argue that in such cases the agent shouldn't feel remorse about her action and that others can't legitimately blame her for it, even though that action was wrong. The action thus receives a certain kind of retrospective justification. Some decisions that look unjustified at the time start to look better when we assess them in retrospect. Often, this is merely because we later have access to information that wasn’t available at the time. But in the more interesting cases, it is instead because ‘what matters’ seems different when we look back. Two potential examples (not necessarily equally convincing) include: