An Argument from Blame

This subsection employs the notion of blameworthiness to form an argument for the Weak Difficulty Thesis. One motivation for proceeding in this way is the thought mentioned earlier that moral wrongness is an elusive or in- tractable notion, so it may be better understood via some other concept. I will present two generally accepted claims, and put forward the case that the best explanation for these is the Weak Difficulty Thesis.

Consider two phenomena we may consider worthy of explanation:

1. We suppose that being too demanding is a reason to reject a moral theory.

That this claim is true is evident by the mass of literature regarding the demandingness of morality. That we are correct to suppose this is essentially what I argue for in chapter 2, in rejecting the extremist positions that dismiss the objection. If we think that some moral theories should be rejected simply because of how demanding they are — or because they could ask too much13 — of some moral agents, we accept this claim. I shall take this as given.

For the reasons discussed in 2.1, appealing simply to costs imposed can- not explain a theory’s being too demanding. Now consider the second claim:

2. Our blaming (and praising) practices do, and appropriately, make al- lowances for difficulty.

I take at very least the descriptive component of this claim to be fairly uncontroversial. To be clear, I intend this claim to include shifts in blam- ing/praising in both directions, i.e. making an otherwise praiseworthy act less or non-praiseworthy (e.g. if it is extremely easy in a particular circum- stance) or making an otherwise blameworthy act less or non-blameworthy (e.g. if it would be extremely difficult to refrain from doing it in this partic- ular circumstance).

In practice, if an agent fails to perform a desirable action in a certain situation, but further contextual features come to light which make it clear that performing that action would have been particularly difficult for that agent, we are likely to find them less (or not at all) blameworthy.

Consider, for example, the agent suffering from depression mentioned earlier, and a colleague casting verdicts about them. Though the colleague might originally deem him blameworthy for, say, missing an unimportant meeting, the discovery that his depression made it extremely difficult for him to motivate himself to perform even ordinary tasks, might cause them

13

I add this caveat because we may imagine a moral theory which we deem appropri- ately demanding given the current state of affairs, but which may seem too demanding if, for example, much/all of the easily relievable suffering has been eliminated. Ashford makes the observation that Scanlon-style contractualism is extremely demanding in any practically realisable state of the world (2003). This may still serve as cause to reject a given theory.

to rescind that judgment, or at least make them judge the conduct less blameworthy.

More controversial is the question of whether it is appropriate that our verdicts of blameworthiness (and praiseworthiness) vary in this way. In considering this, it is useful to think back to what we have said (in 5.1) about the role or function of blame. One feature of blame is that the blaming agent will be disposed to modify her evaluation of the blamed person’s character. Would we accept that we should differently modify (or not at all modify) our evaluation of a person for notφ-ing, if we discover that, φ-ing, for her, would have been extremely difficult?

It seems at least plausible that the difficulty experienced by the agent is relevant here. It makes sense that our praising and blaming practices, having a significant role in our actual social interactions, would be catered to account for human failings or weaknesses. Perhaps some accounts of blame and blameworthiness could make defending this claim more troublesome, but I regard this as fairly uncontentious.

Accepting these two claims as true, we might hypothesise that the best explanation for both these claims is that the permissibility (or impermis- sibility) of an action can depend (at least in part) upon its difficulty (i.e. that the Weak Difficulty Thesis is true). If then, we accept the truth of these claims, and that the best explanation for them is the Weak Difficulty Thesis, we should also accept this thesis.

The conclusion to this argument aims at the Weak Difficulty Thesis. This is tentatively defended by McElwee, though he rejects the Strong Difficulty Thesis. After arguing that “considerations of difficulty appear independently relevant in determining the extent of appropriate moral demands” (2016b, p.31), he argues that costs to the agent are also important, even without reference to difficulty. In attempting to support this position, he makes the following claim:

It seems plausible to say that the simple fact that performing some act, A1, will lead to a cost to me, while some alternative act, A2, will lead to a larger cost falling instead upon someone else, can be sufficient to ground a moral permission to perform A2 instead of A1,even if somehow performing A1 is as easy as performing A2.

(2016b, p.31)

A few thoughts about this type of example should be mentioned. McEl- wee notes that it is “difficult to have firm intuitions” about it because “given the motivational structures humans almost universally have, imposing a cost upon oneself is almost invariably more difficult that imposing a cost on a stranger” (2016b, p.31). This is certainly a difficulty we might have here. Another consideration that we should note is that even if McElwee is cor- rect for some assignment of costs in A1 and A2 (which again is hard to say because of the nature of the case), it definitely isn’t the case for all costs meeting these descriptions. If you could accept a very small cost on yourself in A1 or impose a terrible one on someone else in A2, this definitely does not seem to ground any permission to perform A2.

Contra McElwee (and Cohen), we might also speculate that costs can be disregarded entirely. Against the inclusion of costs in demandingness at all, I would offer several points. Firstly, it looks like costs will be accounted for any plausible moral theory. Understanding the costs of an action as Cohen does, as “what I would lose (but would have preferred to keep) as the result of performing it” (2000a, p.23), these include losses of possessions, abilities, health, time, opportunities and all manner of uncontroversially good things. They are losses to interests, and any theory which cannot account for their goodness (or that they provide a pro tanto reason in favour of some course of action), and factor these into certain moral decisions, is a theory that has failed independently of its understanding of demandingness. If we are already involving difficulty in our understanding of demandingness, then this includes the difficulty of imposing costs on oneself, so we might wonder what work costs are doing.

That this is the case does nothing to undermine McElwee’s case above, as it stipulates that there is no difference in difficulty between the cases, but it is important to keep in mind that costs are being counted somehow, as costs to an agent (just like costs to a moral patient) do enter one’s moral evaluations. Why then, should we expect costs to feature as an aspect of demandingness at all?

To spell this out further, here is the claim: high costs to an agent cannot make an action too demanding, unless these costs outweigh the costs to others,14 in which case the action will not be morally required anyway.

I have little more to say here, but it might be suggested – if we accept that costs are ruled out, and no other factors seem able to contribute to shifting obligations – that McElwee should be committed to the Strong Difficulty Thesis. On the other hand, there may be independent reasons for thinking that costs to an agent matter, or additional considerations of import.

Regardless, for the reasons given in the following subsection, I will ulti- mately reject both these positions.