Blame as performance
Mona Simion
Abstract
Abstract This paper develops a novel account of the nature of blame: on this account, blame is a species of performance with a constitutive aim. The argument for the claim that blame is an action is speech-act theoretic: it relies on the nature of performatives and the parallelism between mental and spoken blame. I argue that the view scores well on prior plausibility and theoretical fruitfulness, in that: it rests on claims that are widely accepted across sub-disciplines, it explains the normativity of blaming and it accounts for associated psychological phenomena.
Topics & Concepts
BlamePhilosophy of languageMetaphysicsPhilosophy of scienceArgument (complex analysis)EpistemologyPerformative utterancePhilosophy of mindParallelism (grammar)Action (physics)PsychologyPhilosophySocial psychologyLinguisticsPhysicsChemistryBiochemistryQuantum mechanicsFree Will and AgencyPsychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentEpistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics