Fame and redemption: On the moral dangers of celebrity apologies

Abstract

Like most celebrity apologies, Woods offered his apology publicly. But he did not just apologize to those he directly wronged. He also apologized to his fans.

Why do celebrities sometimes apologize to their fans? Why do celebrities typically publicly apologize? In this paper, I first consider three possible explanations for why celebrities typically apologize publicly and sometimes also include their fans among the targets of their apology. I then identify three moral dangers of celebrity apologies, the third of which arises specifically for fan-targeted apologies, and each of which teaches us important lessons about the practice of celebrity apologies. From these individual lessons, I draw more general lessons about apologies from those with elevated social positions. So, while my initial focus is on celebrities and on learning about an important and undertheorized social phenomenon, this investigation into celebrity apologies aims to illuminate a more general social phenomenon by using celebrity apologies as a case study.

In Section 2, I outline an account of apology and redemption, drawing primarily on Radzik's (2009) work. In Sections 3, 5, I consider three possible explanations for why celebrities apologies are often both fan-targeted and publicly given. Because my focus is on such apologies, I set aside standard reasons for why people might apologize (e.g., a desire to make amends), though I discuss the relevance of celebrities also being motivated by these other reasons. The first explanation I consider is that celebrities are motivated to set the public record straight. The second I consider is that celebrities see themselves as having role model obligations. And the third is that celebrities aim to maintain their fame—that is, their positive celebrity status—and its associated powers.

In Sections 6, 8, I then identify three moral dangers of celebrity apologies and then draw out lessons each danger teaches us about the practice of celebrity apologies. First, by apologizing publicly celebrities can set the public narrative about their misdeed in their favor. So, we have reason not to trust celebrity apologies. Second, even when they do not set the public narrative in their favor, a publicly given celebrity apology can still function to disempower the victim from having control over their own life narrative. So, celebrity apologies can present an additional harm to victims. Third, publicly given fan-targeted apologies block a celebrity from, what I will call, moral redemption. So, celebrities ought to be concerned about caring about their fame more than anything else. Additionally, the third moral danger also risks exacerbating the first two moral dangers.

According to Linda Radzik (2009, p. 113), redemption is the “proper end state of responses to wrongdoing.” She holds that “When one is redeemed, one has justifiably regained one's moral standing” (Radzik, 2009, p. 113). On her view, moral standing is “the degree of esteem and trust to conduct oneself appropriately that we merit with the moral community” and we ought to be trusted to a particular degree by default (Radzik, 2009, p. 82). When we act wrongly, we demonstrate that we are not that trustworthy. When we are redeemed, we are seen to be trustworthy and thus have regained our standing within the moral community. Radzik draws on Karen Jones's account of trust according to which trust is “an attitude of optimism that the goodwill and competence of another will extend to cover the domain of our interaction with her, together with the expectation that the one trusted will be directly and favorably moved by the thought that we are counting on her” (Jones, 1996, p. 4; cited in Radzik, 2009, p. 114).

To understand her account of redemption, we must first appreciate her account of wrongdoing. On Radzik's view, wrongdoing damages relationships through presenting insults and threats that persist over time (see also Murphy & Hampton, 1988). For example, a solitary thief may have no friends or family, but she might still damage possible relationships between herself and others, and herself and the moral community, through her past wrongs grounding the persistent threat that she will steal from others. Because her past actions send this message, others will not trust her and so her moral standing is at least diminished. To redeem herself, the thief must therefore remove this threat—that is, she must stop her past action sending such messages. Once the threat is removed, the thief merits reconciliation—that is, she is such that her victims and the moral community ought to reconcile with her. Importantly, removing threats requires more than just the wrongdoer morally transforming.

Moral transformation is still crucial for meriting reconciliation. By morally transforming herself, the wrongdoer becomes trustworthy. However, merely being transformed is not enough. Wrongdoers are responsible for their own diminished moral standing, so they are responsible for letting others know they have changed. In other words, they must communicate that they are now (or again) trustworthy. So, they must also communicate their transformation. Finally, the wrongdoer must meet any claims they have incurred through acting wrongly. In doing so, the wrongdoer demonstrates their trustworthiness. Thus, to merit reconciliation and thereby be redeemed, a wrongdoer must do three things: (i) morally transform, (ii) communicate that transformation, and (iii) meet any claims incurred through acting wrongly (Radzik, 2009, p. 85).

Moral transformation has backward- and forward-looking elements, which Radzik (2009, p. 86) takes to be tantamount to repentance. The transformed wrongdoer looks back at her wrongs and sees them in the proper light. This involves acknowledging her responsibility for what she has done, the wrongness of the relevant acts, the authority of the norms she violated, and that she should not have acted as she did. She must also care about the effect her actions have had. This involves feeling negative emotions, such as guilt, remorse, regret, and shame, with the right target and to an appropriate extent. The person who feels regret just because they have been caught acting wrongly does not feel regret with the right target. The person who feels slightly and briefly remorseful for a significant wrong does not feel bad enough. But the person who spirals into self-hatred for a minor wrong takes things too far. In short, wrongdoers ought to assess themselves and the impact their actions have had correctly. The transformed wrongdoer also looks forward to future behavior: she resolves not to repeat her past wrongs, to improve her character if more improvement is required, or to maintain her character improvements.

Because wrongdoing involves expressive harms—in particular, threats to victims and the moral community—wrongdoers ought to communicate their moral transformation—for example, by apologizing, truth telling, and undertaking reparative work (e.g., care and charity work). Radzik does not hold that any are essential to meriting moral reconciliation. Rather, they are all possible ways to communicate one's moral transformation. Which forms of communication are appropriate will depend on the details of the wrong and the impact it has had.

Apologies are a common and important way to meet this communication requirement. An apology can explicitly help to counter the harmful messages that one's earlier wrongs sent by demonstrating one's respect for the victims and community, as well as one's humility in response to one's earlier wrongs. Wrongdoers can make explicit that they are responsible for an earlier wrong, that they feel appropriately bad about the wrong, and so on. However, sometimes wrongdoers do not conceptualize or understand everything they ought to understand immediately. For this reason, Radzik endorses the view that apologies are often a negotiation between wrongdoer and victim/community (see also Battistella, 2014; Lazare, 2005; MacLachlan, 2014; Smith, 2008). Through this negotiation, a wrongdoer's feelings of guilt, regret, shame, and remorse, as well as her commitments for future behavior, can become more accurate and articulate.

In short, public apologies have a public record setting function and can send a message of respect to those subject to similar wrongs as the victim (see also MacLachlan, 2014, 2018; Smith, 2008).

If an apology serves the communication requirement of merited reconciliation, it counts as a morally good apology. Such an apology can also help to meet some of the claims the wrongdoer incurred in acting wrongly—such as repairing any damage done to the victim's reputation. A wrongdoer must meet any claims she has incurred through acting wrongly just so that they rectify their wrong, but this also has the initial benefit of communicating their transformation and renewed trustworthiness. While Radzik (2009, p. 84) holds that certain wrongs are beyond the pale and the wrongdoer cannot ever subsequently merit full reconciliation, she believes that wrongdoers often can atone for their past wrongs.

Importantly, all aspects of redemption can be feigned, misleading, or otherwise illicit. We can fall for a dodgy apology or believe someone has changed and trust them again, even though they have not changed and are not trustworthy. Even if we still distrust them, others can come to think that the wrongdoer has full moral standing again. In short, we can mistakenly believe someone has redeemed even though they do not in fact merit reconciliation. This, of course, is not genuine redemption, but rather a merely apparent redemption. To mark the distinction between these two types of redemption, call the former moral redemption and the latter public redemption.

Let us now turn to consider the first of three possible explanations for why celebrity apologies are sometimes both fan-targeted and given publicly. This is that celebrities are motivated to set the public record straight. For example, in his apology for masturbating in front of junior colleagues, comedian Louis CK (2017) begins by saying “These stories are true” which reflects a clear effort to set the public record straight.

He identifies the fact he was widely admired as a reason why his accusers were not believed. When a wrongdoer is widely admired, this can lead to a form of testimonial injustice for the wrongdoer's victims (Archer & Matheson, 2019, 2021). Unlike standard cases of testimonial injustice that focus on a person being judged to be less epistemically credible than she is because of features of her identity (Fricker, 2007), this form involves a victim being seen as less epistemically credible than she is because she contradicts a wrongdoer who has excessive epistemic credibility—that is, the wrongdoer is believed more than they ought to be. As I discuss in Section 5, the fact a celebrity can disable others from being believed when they ought to be believed means the celebrity has not only excessive epistemic credibility, but also excessive epistemic power. CK seems aware he has such power. Because he had the power to stop his victims being believed, he might have felt he ought to wield that same power so that his victims would now be believed.

Setting the public record is often a morally commendable motivation for apologizing—for example, when a person establishes an accurate and verifiable record of what wrongs they committed. However, it is not always. Consider an evil person who is motivated to set the public record straight so that the public know all the wicked things they have done. They could do this through an insincere apology, or simply by boldly stating what they have done. While this motivation is not always morally commendable, it remains that it often is.

Being motivated to set the public record straight is also not necessary for a celebrity apology to be a morally good one. A celebrity apology that was just motivated by usual motives for apologizing (e.g., a desire to make amends) could be morally commendable. For example, Samantha Geimer (2013, p. 291), who was drugged and raped by Roman Polanski, says that Polanski offered her a written private apology. Polanski's apology might well be a morally good one even though he did not offer it publicly.¹

Correcting the public record helps to explain why celebrity apologies are typically publicly given. By giving the apology publicly, a celebrity acknowledges what they have been accused of doing. However, this motivation does not obviously explain why celebrity apologies are also sometimes fan-targeted. We must look elsewhere for such an explanation.

The second possible explanation for why celebrity apologies are sometimes both fan-targeted and publicly given is that celebrities see themselves as having role model obligation that they can only meet by providing an apology that is both fan-targeted and given publicly.

Several authors have investigated whether celebrities—with a particular focus on athletes—have role model obligations (e.g., Feezell, 2005; Spurgin, 2012; Wellman, 2003; Yorke & Archer, 2020). The idea is that because celebrities occupy a privileged position, they have a special obligation to model good behavior. When they act wrongly, such role models incur greater blame than a person who performs a type-identical wrong. For example, a famous athlete who uses racial slurs is blameworthy for more wrongs than an ordinary person who also uses racial slurs. Both are blameworthy for using racial slurs, but the famous athlete is also blameworthy for not modeling good behavior.

There is a lot of controversy about role model obligation. Some argue that celebrities are not prima facie good role models, and so cannot be thought to have role model obligations (e.g., Feezell, 2005). Others argue that because these obligations violate a person's right to privacy, such obligations can only be acquired by consent (e.g., Spurgin, 2012).

Whether celebrities have role model obligations does not affect my present point. Rather, it is only important that celebrities believe they have role model obligations because this may explain why they sometimes apologize to their fans and in public for their wrongs. This is especially clear in the case of Tiger Woods. He explicitly identifies himself as a role model in his apology, and then apologies to his fans on that basis. It is clear, then, that Woods takes himself to have violated a role model obligation and that his violation calls for an apology to those to whom he was supposed to be modeling good behavior. Because he cannot feasibly apologize to each fan individually, it makes sense that he gave his apology publicly to reach all his fans. Indeed, it is through his public behavior that he is a role model, so it makes even more sense that Woods would apologize publicly.

This motivation for apologizing to one's fans and in public is a morally commendable one: regardless of whether celebrities do in fact have role model obligations, it is a good thing that celebrities acknowledge they have the power to influence the behavior of others and that they then take extra steps to try to stop their wrongs from badly influencing others.

She issued this apology to her fans after they complained that a skincare routine video she uploaded to TikTok mocked a similar one that Hailey Bieber had recently uploaded. While she directs her apology to her fans, Gomez makes no claims about having role model obligations. So, not all fan-targeted and publicly given celebrity apologies are motivated by the celebrity's belief that they have violated a role model obligation.

Let us now consider a third possible explanation for why celebrity apologies are sometimes fan-targeted and publicly given. This is that celebrities offer such apologies simply or primarily to maintain their fame—that is, their positive celebrity status—and its associated powers. In what follows, I will first explain how celebrities depend (to a significant extent) on their fans and potential fans for their social position and associated powers. I will then argue that this dependence helps to explain why celebrity apologies are sometimes both fan-targeted and publicly given. Finally, I argue that if this is a celebrity's sole motivation for apologizing, it is clearly a morally blameworthy motivation. Moreover, even if the celebrity has other motivations for apologizing, if they care about maintaining their fame more than anything else, their overall set of motivations for apologizing is morally blameworthy.

In this and the next section, I consider moral dangers that arise from celebrity apologies being publicly given. In Section 8, I consider a moral danger unique to fan-targeted and publicly given celebrity apologies. This third moral danger is important because, as I discuss, it can further exacerbate the first two moral dangers. I will now argue that publicly given celebrity apologies can be morally dangerous because they can set the public narrative around the celebrity's behavior in a way that is favorable to them.⁹

Consider first how celebrities do not just have epistemic power. They sometimes have agenda setting power. Because of all the attention paid to the things he said before and during his Presidency, Trump had the power to set the agenda about what got spoken about regardless of whether he was loved or hated. Through being able to have strong influence over what gets talked about in the news and in politics, Trump was able to influence who heard him and potentially who might become a fan or a hater. As his one-time press secretary said, “Whatever [Trump] tweets is going to drive the news” (cited in Archer et al., 2020).

Archer et al. (2020, p. 31) consider agenda setting power to be part of epistemic power, but there is good reason to consider it a distinct power. While epistemic power is influenced by the emotions and attitudes of the audience, agenda setting power is not. For example, Trump had agenda setting power over people whether they loved or hated him. Indeed, agenda setting power does not depend on how much we are likely to believe a celebrity or the extent to which she can enable or disable others from exerting epistemic influence. Whereas whether a celebrity has positive or negative epistemic power with respect to a person rather depends on how this person is emotionally and attitudinally orientated toward the celebrity—for example, whether they are fans, haters, potential fans, potential haters, or somewhere in-between. While epistemic power and agenda setting power are distinct, positive epistemic power and agenda setting power can be used in tandem to greater effect. One might frame what people think about while also lending credibility to that framing.

This pairing of positive epistemic power and agenda setting power is especially useful for celebrities in responding to their own wrongs. This pairing can lead to what I will call narrative setting power. This is related to but important different from agenda setting power. Agenda setting power is the power to determine, or help to determine, what gets talked about. Narrative setting power is the power to determine, or help to determine, how something gets talked about. For example, a boss has the power to set the agenda about what gets talked about in their workplace—for example, what projects must be worked on. But just because the boss can set the agenda about what gets talked about, it does not mean they can influence how their workers think about those things—for example, how important the project is. Of course, a boss can also have narrative setting power. They might be charismatic or have persuasive arguments in favor of their view, and so workers can come to share the boss's attitude about, for example, the importance of the project.

Sometimes narrative setting power can be used to deny a celebrity's wrongdoing, and in turn, even if only implicitly, to disparage the accusers. For example, a celebrity might appeal to the common idea that accusers are motivated purely for financial reasons or emotional reasons, such as jealousy. But it can also be used in a celebrity apology. An apologizer might try to frame the narrative around their wrong in a way they hope is favorable to them.

Kevin Spacey's apology to Anthony Rapp provides an instructive example of how a celebrity's narrative setting power can misfire. Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance when Rapp was 14. After issuing his conditional apology to Rapp (“if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior”; Spacey, 2017), Spacey went to announce that he was a gay man, something that had been widely speculated about but never confirmed by Spacey. This seems like a clear attempt to use his “apology” to set the narrative around his (possible) wrong in a way that favors him. I take the suggestion to be that Spacey's behavior (if it happened) was the result of having lived as a closeted gay man and the surrounding societal pressures with respect to homosexuality that were much stronger when Spacey is alleged to have propositioned Rapp. Spacey's apology failed in part because it was at best a conditional apology (and perhaps more accurately a conditional acknowledgement of a duty to apologize), and also in part because his narrative setting power misfired.

However, narrative setting power does not always misfire in this way. Consider, for example, Louis CK's apology. In and of itself, his apology appears to be morally good: it appears humble, appropriately remorseful, it identifies the wrongs, it suggests he cares about the effect his wrongs have on his victims, and so on.¹⁰ But it could also be that this apology is deliberately trying to hit all the right notes to appear as if it is a morally good apology. CK may not use the language of epistemic power, but he implicitly admits to having such power. He also seems to have focused on elements that are more likely to get one's apology accepted—namely, ones that focus on the victim and the suffering they have undergone, on how mortified one is from having made the victim suffer, and outlining what steps one has taken, or will take, to make amends (see Cerulo & Ruane, 2014).

While CK's apology focuses on the victim, there is perhaps also a subtle framing about his redemption: he feels really bad, and he has seen the error of his ways. Of course, his apology still bears many of the hallmarks of a morally good apology. It is certainly hard for an apology not the mention the wrongdoer's change of heart, as this is something that a morally good apology requires. But the fact he—a celebrity with access to public relations experts that can help him intensify his narrative setting power—manages to provide such an apology that makes him look so favorable is something that should give us pause. Again, perhaps his apology is a bit too good. And perhaps by appearing so good, by typical evaluative standards of a morally good apology, we are lured into accepting how CK's apology construes him and his victims, and in particular on him as a person who is trying to redeem himself.

This is somewhat speculative, of course. When narrative setting power is used well, we are unlikely to be aware of its effects. We might not immediately realize that we are focusing more on the wrongdoer's hoped for redemption than on the victim and the wrongs they have suffered. In some cases, the celebrity's narrative setting power might even help them misconstrue the extent of the wrong, the extent to which they truly want to redeem themselves, and so on. We may learn a slightly twisted version of events that helps the celebrity appear better than they are. Narrative setting power is morally dangerous because it means those who have it can establish an inaccurate impression of the wrong and of themselves in social imagination, even if they do not actually exercise that power. The lesson we learn from this is that because celebrities often have narrative setting power, we have reason to be suspicious of publicly given celebrity apologies.

A second moral danger with publicly given celebrity apologies is what I call narrative disempowerment—that is, hindering or removing a person's control over their own life narrative. Being wronged is one kind of narrative disempowerment. A person becomes a victim, and it is often then hard to avoid being seen and seeing oneself as a victim. While we cannot have total control over our life narratives, an important source of meaningfulness in life is the control we can exercise about how our life narratives go (Fischer, 2009); narrative disempowerment therefore lessens the meaningfulness of a person's life. Through apologizing in way that subtly sets the narrative around the wrong in a way that favors the wrongdoer, a wrongdoer further narratively disempowers the victim, who now has even less control over how she and others understand her life story. I consider two forms of narrative disempowerment in what follows.

The first form arises because celebrities typically have greater narrative setting power than their victims. Even if a celebrity does not set the narrative in her favor, the fact she could means the celebrity possesses the power in this situation. It is thanks to the celebrity that a victim's side of the story might be heard and believed. It is not because of the victim's testimony in and of itself. So even when a celebrity does not set the public narrative surrounding the wrong in her favor, the fact the celebrity helps to establish the public narrative about, and the public record of, the wrong still involves narratively disempowering the victim. The victim has to hope for the celebrity's co-operation or else they will not be able to combat the celebrity's narrative setting power. Because of the celebrity's greater narrative setting power, the victim's power to set the narrative around what has happened to them is always at risk of being undermined.

The second form of narrative disempowerment arises because a celebrity apology can place more emphasis on the celebrity, even when it is an otherwise good apology. The celebrity's apology will likely draw more attention to the wrongdoer than the victim. The victim, then, becomes a supporting character in their own story.¹¹ A celebrity apology can draw more attention to the celebrity so that, even if the account is accurate and fair—and even focuses on the victim to a significant extent—the celebrity is still its practical focus and may then become the person we sympathize with more.

The second form of narrative disempowerment is wrongful because victims are no longer protagonists in their own story, and instead must see the story of their lives as inherently connected to the person who wronged them.¹² Whereas the first form is wrongful because victims have had their power to determine their life story reduced. The lesson we learn from this is that even a morally good publicly given celebrity apology can be morally dangerous, because even such an apology can further harm victims.

The final moral danger I consider is that being primarily motivated to maintain one's fame can stop celebrities achieving moral redemption, and instead lead the celebrity toward mere public redemption. Moreover, through being a barrier to moral redemption, it can further exacerbate the first two moral dangers.

As I discussed in Section 5, celebrities can be motivated to apologize to their fans and in public because this will help them maintain their fame. When a celebrity is only motivated for this reason, their apology is morally substandard because this motivation, when considered alone, is a self-serving one. One reason why acting only for such a self-serving reason leads to a morally substandard apology is that a morally good apology requires humility (Bennett, Forthcoming; Radzik, 2009). But when a celebrity apologizes only to maintain their fame, this shows a lack of humility: the celebrity is putting themselves above the victim by aiming to save their own positive celebrity status over seeking reconciliation with the victim.

Failing to be appropriately humble is not just a failure of an apology. It is also something that blocks moral redemption. Even if we accept Radzik's view that apology is not necessary for moral redemption, apologies still serve a communicative function that is necessary for moral redemption. To merit reconciliation and thus be morally redeemed, a wrongdoer must communicate their moral transformation, among other things. Part of this transformation is being appropriately humble as a consequence of having acted wrongly. The problem is that only being motivated to apologize to maintain one's fame demonstrates a complete lack of humility because it means a wrongdoer favors maintaining their fame—that is, their positive celebrity status—and its associated powers over meriting reconciliation with their victims. Such a wrongdoer does not merit reconciliation. As long as they care more about maintaining their own fame, moral redemption is closed off to them. However, the wrongdoer can gain public redemption—that is, they can appear to be redeemed in the eyes of their fans and the public. With public redemption, a celebrity maintains her fame. Apologizing with just this motivation is therefore morally dangerous for the celebrity.

Of course, as I also discussed in Section 5, we often act for multiple reasons. A celebrity might be motivated to apologize to maintain her fame and for other reasons. If the other reasons are morally commendable ones, this can sometimes undermine the badness of being motivated to maintain one's fame. However, as I argued in Section 5, the moral valence of one's overall set of motivations for a particular action depends on how the motivations that make up that set are structured. The upshot is that just because a celebrity has some morally commendable motivations for apologizing does not mean their apology is a morally good one.

Likewise, the fact that a celebrity has some morally commendable motivations for apologizing does not make them appropriately humble. If a celebrity cares more about maintaining their fame, they care more about themselves than they do about, for example, rectifying the harm they have brought upon the victim. This is not what an appropriately humble person would do. Celebrities therefore do not avoid this moral danger just by having some morally commendable motivations for apologizing. It matters what importance they give to those motivations; it matters what they care about more. When celebrities care more about maintaining their fame, any apology that they issue will be morally substandard, and they will be blocked from moral redemption.

Being motivated to apologize to maintain one's fame is morally dangerous when this motivation arises from caring more about maintaining one's fame. There is a lesson for celebrities here: they should be wary of placing too much importance on their fame, and of becoming seduced and consumed by their fame. There is also a lesson for others: when a celebrity cares more about their own fame, they have greater motivation to use their apology to set the public narrative in their favor, as this will help them maintain their fans and thus their fame; celebrities will also care less about narratively disempowering the victims. If what ultimately matters to them is that they maintain their fame, a celebrity can easily silence the morally good reasons they have to apologize to, and make amends with, their victims.

When a celebrity's primary motivation for apologizing is that it will maintain their fame, this is not only morally dangerous in its own right (as it will block the celebrity from moral redemption), but it is also morally dangerous because it makes them more likely to not care about the first two moral dangers of publicly apologizing to their victims. So, when celebrities care about their fame more than anything else, this is also morally dangerous for their victims and us.

In this paper, I first considered three explanations for why celebrities apologize to their fans and in public. I then identified three moral dangers with celebrity apologies. I then drew out four lessons about the practice of celebrity apologies. First, we should not trust celebrity apologies so easily. Second, even a good celebrity apology can still further harm victims. Third, celebrities should be wary of placing too much importance on their fame, as doing so can block their moral redemption. Fourth, the third moral danger also leads to celebrities being more likely to exacerbate the first two moral dangers.

There are wider lessons to learn from this discussion. I focus on three points here. First, these problems do not imply that we should ignore or completely reject celebrity apologies. Rather, they highlight that it is harder for celebrities given their social position and associated powers to give good public apologies and achieve moral redemption. One way to improve celebrity apologies might be for celebrities to enter into dialogue and negotiate with their victims, as Radzik and others propose (see Section 2). So, rather than seeing their apology as a monologue that draws a line under their earlier wrong, a celebrity should take their initial apology to be just one part of an overall process. Importantly, this requires more than just giving multiple apologies, as Will Smith did for slapping Chris Rock. And this might require only giving a private apology, such as the one Roman Polanski gave Samantha Geimer. Of course, private apologies just to victims will not have the same fan-appeasing function as publicly given fan-targeted apologies. Such apologies might also have their own moral dangers.

Second, while I have focused on well-known celebrity apologies and people who are arguably superstars, fame and celebrity are features of many areas of life. For example, small towns have local celebrities, and academic disciplines have superstars. Indeed, the advent of social media has made it easier for anyone to become a celebrity. This might be a domain specific fame, such as a famous academic tweeter. Such “micro-influencers” will have a small but still perhaps excessive epistemic power. This is something they might wield responsibly, but we must still question whether this is appropriate for anyone to have. Just as Archer et al. (2020) investigate the effect that celebrity epistemic power has on democracy, we might also investigate the effect that academic celebrity epistemic power has on academia and other areas of life.

Third, people are often motivated, at least in part, to apologize for their behavior because they wish to maintain their social position and associated powers. While I focused on being motivated to maintain one's fame in Sections 5 and 8, it is likely that any apology that is primarily or solely motivated by a person's desire to maintain her social position and associated powers will block that person achieving moral redemption. So, being primarily motivated to apologize to maintain one's social position is morally dangerous. This suggests that a condition on a morally good apology is that one is not primarily motivated to maintain one's social position, and perhaps one must even be willing to lose one's social position to an appropriate extent. If that is correct, celebrities ought to be willing to cease being famous if they actually wish to achieve moral redemption. Of course, being willing does not amount to not at all caring about continuing to be famous.

Each of these points merits further investigation. Philosophical investigations into fame not only help to illuminate a crucial aspect of contemporary life, but also help to shed light on other structurally similar social phenomenon.¹³