Consequentialism and the ethics of blame, Draft version

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Consequentialism and the Ethics of Blame

Draft, Andreas T. Schmidt, University of Groningen

Abstract: Instrumentalism seeks to justify praise and blame by their instrumental value. Previously considered moribund, instrumentalist approaches to responsibility and blame have recently seen a revival. This article makes two contributions to this revival. First, I defend a new, complex structure for an instrumentalist ethics of blame (‘Complex Instrumentalism’). Drawing on sophisticated consequentialism and relational theories of blame, Complex Instrumentalism is dispositional in its structure and content, and pluralist and relational in its justification. Second, I argue that Complex Instrumentalism makes consequentialism more plausible. Several ethicists, including Sidgwick and Parfit, have drawn on praise and blame to defend consequentialism, for example against the charge that consequentialism is too demanding and leaves insufficient room for partiality. Those traditional arguments become far more effective, if they adopt Complex Instrumentalism. To this end, I also develop a ‘multi-level’ dispositional account of blameless wrongdoing. I conclude that Complex Instrumentalism is a promising compatibilist approach to blame and adds plausibility to consequentialism.

Key words: consequentialism; blame; instrumentalism; moral responsibility; utilitarianism; reactive

attitudes; demandingness; partiality; blameless wrongdoing

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1 Introduction

J.J.C. Smart was an early champion of an instrumental approach to praise and blame:

Praise itself comes to have some of the social functions of medal giving: we come to like praise for its own

sake, and are thus influenced by the possibility of being given it. Praising a person is thus an important act

in itself – it has significant effects. A utilitarian must therefore learn to control his acts of praise and

dispraise... (Smart 1973, 49–50)

Instrumentalism justifies praise and blame by their instrumental value, focusing, for example, on how

they might incentivise better moral behaviour. For quite some time, most philosophers were

unimpressed by instrumentalist theories such as Smart’s. Richard Arneson even called it ‘the position

everyone loves to hate.’ (Arneson 2007, 233)1 Recently, however, instrumentalist approaches to

responsibility and blame have enjoyed a revival.2

In this article, I add to this revival by making two contributions. First, drawing on sophisticated

consequentialism and relational theories of blame, I defend a new, complex structure for an

instrumentalist ethics of blame (‘Complex Instrumentalism’). Second, I argue that Complex

Instrumentalism makes consequentialism more plausible.

Complex Instrumentalism differs from Simple Instrumentalism – Smart’s theory for example – in

three ways.

First, Complex Instrumentalism is ‘doubly dispositional’. The object of blame is people’s dispositions

rather than just their acts. And, rather than acts of blaming, Complex Instrumentalism is about blaming

practices and their underlying dispositions to blame. Second, Complex Instrumentalism is relational in

1 Also see (Smart 1961). Other ‘early instrumentalists’ include (Schlick 1939; Dennett 1984), although their views also differ from Smart’s, inter alia, by

sticking closer to de facto responsibility practices.

2 See, for example, (Arneson 2007; Barrett 2020; Jefferson 2019; McGeer 2014; 2015; McGeer and Pettit 2013; Vargas 2013).

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that it locates the meaning and function of reactive attitudes like blame in the social relationships in

which they are embedded. Third, Complex Instrumentalism is pluralist in that it recognises that blaming

dispositions do not have one but various functions in social relations, including a motivational,

communicative and constitutive function.

Next, I show how Complex Instrumentalism makes consequentialism more plausible.

Consequentialists sometimes divorce an act’s deontic status, the question of whether an act is right or

wrong for example, from whether we should blame a person for performing that act. This way, various

ethicists – including Henry Sidgwick, Derek Parfit and more recently Rick Morris – respond to some

classic objections, including the worries that consequentialism is too demanding and leaves insufficient

room for partiality (Morris 2017; Parfit 1984, 25). For example, imagine a middle-class person who

gives ten percent of their income to a cost-effective charity. Imagine further that she would do the

most good, if she gave 70 percent. However, for consequentialism to demand so much is excessive,

or so the worry goes. Consequentialists sometimes respond that even though the person could still do

more good, we should typically not blame them. If anything, as they give more than most other people,

we should typically praise them (Sidgwick 1907, 221). Or consider a person who regularly acts from

dispositions that are not impartial yet do much good. For example, Parfit discusses Clare, a mother

who loves her son. Clare’s disposition to love her son does a lot of good but will sometimes result in

actions that do not do the most good. Parfit argues that consequentialists should then say that while

such acts are wrong, they are blameless wrongdoing (Parfit 1984, 25). This way, consequentialists can

respond to the worry that they accord insufficient space to partial dispositions.

However, I argue that such blame-based arguments are of limited success, as they rely on (something

like) Simple Instrumentalism. I then show that they do become powerful arguments, however, if

consequentialists adopt Complex Instrumentalism. To this end, I also develop a novel dispositional

account of blameless wrongdoing.

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Overall, Complex Instrumentalism makes for an auspicious compatibilist approach to the ethics of

blame and adds plausibility to consequentialism.

Before we start, note three quick clarifications.

First, I mostly remain neutral about axiology. Complex Instrumentalism is open to instrumentalists

and consequentialists – and anyone who cares about consequences pro tanto – across most common

theories of the good. I focus mostly on the structure of instrumentalism and only make minimal

axiological assumptions.3

Second, blame is one among many other reactive attitudes, such as praise, indignation, resentment,

and gratitude. To keep things manageable, I focus on blame and praise. But most of what I say applies,

mutatis mutandis, to other reactive attitudes too.

Finally, much writing on instrumentalism focuses on delineating under what conditions individuals

are morally responsible (Jefferson 2019; McGeer and Pettit 2013; Vargas 2013). I focus only on the

ethics of blame. Complex Instrumentalism is not a theory of responsible agency.4

I proceed as follows. In section 2, I outline Simple Instrumentalism and its shortcomings. In 3, I

outline Complex Instrumentalism. In 4, I show how it overcomes Simple Instrumentalism’s

shortcomings. In 5, I argue that incorporating Complex Instrumentalism helps consequentialism

answer important objections. I conclude in section 6.

3 My strategy thus is not to try to ‘consequentialise blame’. See (Dolinko 1997) for a similar debate about whether retributivism about punishment can

be consequentialised and (Brown 2011) on consequentialising more generally.

4 Although this is more a shift of emphasis, as these two topics are related for instrumentalists.

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2 Simple Instrumentalism

According to Simple Instrumentalism, people like praise but dislike blame. The role of praise and

blame is to get people to act in morally desirable ways. Acts of praising and blaming are like giving out

medals and penalties and therein also lies their justification: they influence people’s moral behaviour

(Smart 1961; 1973). Simple Instrumentalism is compatibilist, because its justification of praise and

blame is available to us, even if people do not have free will (in a metaphysically demanding sense).

However, Simple Instrumentalism conflicts with our phenomenology of blaming practices and with

various normative intuitions about what shape such practices should take, for at least the following

reasons.

First, whether blaming someone is effective depends on whether her future behaviour is responsive

to blame. Simple Instrumentalism thus focuses on people’s future behaviour. This, however, gets

things the wrong way around temporally. Real blaming practices involve a backward-looking appraisal

of people’s past behaviour. Simple Instrumentalism seems phenomenologically off. Moreover, it

seems to yield inappropriate prescriptions: it seems inappropriate to blame someone based on future

effects instead of past behaviour. Forward-looking considerations are, as some put it, the wrong kind

of reasons. Call this the Past and Future Objection (Wallace 1994, 56; Vargas 2013, 170–71).

Second, a related and more general worry is that Simple Instrumentalism focuses on the wrong

explanandum (or ‘justificandum’). An ethics of blame, or so the critic would argue, should be about

when it is appropriate to blame someone (or when they are blameworthy). When is it appropriate to have

the mere attitude of blame and when is it appropriate to communicate this attitude and how?5 Simple

Instrumentalism does not answer these questions. Instead, it focuses on contingent features that can

5 See (Coates and Tognazzini 2012) for an overview of these questions.

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make acts of expressing blame expedient. For example, it might be appropriate for Pamela to hold a

blaming attitude towards Pablo, even if it is wrong for Pamela to express such blame (because, say,

expressing blame might crush Pablo). Conversely, it might be inappropriate for Pamela to hold

blaming attitudes towards Jorge, even if in this instance it is right for Pamela to blame Jorge publicly

(because, say, blaming Jorge might deter others from committing immoral acts). In both cases, it makes

a great difference whether we focus on whether blame is appropriate or on whether acts of blaming

will have good consequences. Call this the Appropriateness Objection.

Third, Strawson objects to Simple Instrumentalism, because it would require the ‘objective attitude’,

that is, a stance void of genuine reactive attitudes. Reactive attitudes are a class of evaluative attitudes we

have in response to other people’s or our own behaviour and, so Strawson argues, feature as important

components of (many) social relationships:

To adopt the objective attitude to another human being is to see him, perhaps, as an object of social policy;

as a subject for what, in a wide range of sense, might be called treatment… it cannot include the range of

reactive feelings and attitudes which belong to involvement or participation with others in interpersonal

human relationships; it cannot include resentment, gratitude, forgiveness, anger, or the sort of love which

two adults can sometimes be said to feel reciprocally, for each other. (Strawson 1962, 126–27)

The Relationship Objection thus contends that Simple Instrumentalism ignores reactive attitudes and their

central role in social relationships.

Of course, Smart meant for his theory to be revisionist, so he might not be worried if it does not

capture real-world blaming practices all that well. However, I assume that an instrumentalist ethics of

blame should have a good answer to the above objections: it should capture the right phenomenon

and its structure should somewhat account for central intuitions about blame and the role it plays in

social life.6

6 The latter makes sense, for example, if you think reflective equilibrium should play some role here.

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We should reject Simple Instrumentalism.

3 Complex Instrumentalism

I now defend Complex Instrumentalism. Complex Instrumentalism differs from Simple

Instrumentalism in that it is (doubly) dispositional, relational and pluralist.

3.1 Dispositional

Complex Instrumentalism is ‘doubly dispositional’. To understand what that means, we need some

background on consequentialism and the role dispositions play therein.

According to act consequentialism, an act is right, if and only if there is no other act available with better

consequences. However, all consequentialists, including act consequentialists, accept that achieving

good outcomes also requires that individuals rely on decision-making procedures other than a

consequentialist criterion of rightness. What is sometimes called indirect or sophisticated

consequentialism holds that, first, decision-making procedures should be subject to a consequentialist

evaluation and that, second, the decision-making procedures that do well will often not be the

consequentialist criterion of rightness. The arguments for sophisticated consequentialism are well

explored in the literature, so let me be brief.7

Consider first decision-making dispositions (henceforth just dispositions) in patterned individual

decision-making, what I call individual practices. We often have consequentialist reason to make

7 See, for example, (Bales 1971; Hare 1981; Mill 1871, 131–33; Parfit 1984, chap. I; Pettit and Brennan 1986; Railton 1984; Rawls 1955; Sidgwick 1907,

413). We could also assume global consequentialism which evaluates everything directly by its consequences. Global consequentialism lends itself

naturally to instrumentalism about blame, but I here neither assume nor reject global consequentialism. See (Kagan 2000; Ord 2009; Pettit and Smith

2000).

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decisions in ways that systematically diverge from trying to do the most good. For example,

behavioural psychology provides ample evidence that heuristics, mental shortcuts, intuition, and habits

play an important role in achieving good decisions and outcomes (Gigerenzer 2010; Todd and

Gigerenzer 2012a)[redacted]. Determining the act with the best consequences in each situation is hard

work. Individual practices reduce complexity and save time and effort (Lipman 1991; Payne, Bettman,

and Johnson 1993, chap. 3). What is more, simple decision rules and heuristics often outperform

maximising case-based reasoning (Todd and Gigerenzer 2012b). Moreover, we often lack the

epistemic basis to work out the exact consequences of our behaviour in the long run. Heuristics are

particularly important under uncertainty. And, as Mill argues, we often need to also rely on general

rules and our own and other people’s experiences (Mill 1863, chaps. 2–3; Sidgwick 1907, 480–92).

Clearly, besides regularly patterned individual decision-making dispositions – what I called ‘individual

practices’ – social practices are important to achieve good outcomes. Good outcomes require a range

of social phenomena, which I all call ‘social practices’ for simplicity, including behavioural regularities,

institutions, and social relationships. And such practices again require dispositions to make decisions

in ways that deviate from trying to do the most impartial good. So, a world in which people are

disposed to honour their promises, tell the truth, follow the rule of law, be partial and loyal to their

partners, family and friends, for example, might contain more goodness than one without people

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having such dispositions.8 Consequentialists thus recommend goodness-increasing social practices and

the dispositions necessary to sustain them.9

The claim so far has been:

(A) To bring about good outcomes requires disposition-based, individual and social practices.

Note that I here talk of ‘good outcomes’ rather than ‘best outcomes’ to leave room for different types

of consequentialist theorising, including non-maximising and scalar versions of consequentialism.10

Complex Instrumentalism now takes on these consequentialist lessons and builds on (A). It makes the

following two claims:

Disposition 1: the proper object of blaming practices typically are people’s dispositions.

Disposition 2: rather than acts of blaming, the ethics of blame should primarily be about blaming

practices and the dispositions involved in them.

Start with Disposition 1. Blame plays an important part in getting people to adopt good dispositions.

Here blame differs from judgements about an act’s deontic status. In contrast, in our blaming practices

…we care deeply about the underlying attitudes that motivate and thereby explain what others do. … We

… care about a person’s underlying attitudes because we take these to be reliable indicators of patterns of

8 Of course, this does not imply that consequentialists will tell us to never think like consequentialists. Instead, it typically asks us to have different levels

of decision-making, such that our dispositions should sometimes be evaluated by much good they do (Hare 1981; Pettit and Brennan 1986). The same

is true for rational decision-making in general, see my [redacted].

9 In social ontology, ‘social practices’ has a more specific meaning. Social practices are more than just behavioural regularities. Some argue that they also

require interdependent behavioural equilibria, others that they require (regulative and/or constitutive) rules and some propose a mix of the two. Finally,

‘institutions’ are often described as social practices (partially) governed by more formal norms. See (Hindriks and Guala 2015) for more.

10 See (Norcross 2008; Sinhababu 2018) on scalar and (Slote 1985) on satisificing. In [redacted], I also argue that consequentialism about social practices

should be comparative rather than maximising, as that allows flexibility on how ideal and non-ideal consequentialism can be.

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behaviour – that is, how that person is likely to act toward others, or again toward ourselves. (McGeer

2012, 173–74)11

Blaming typically involves a judgement about a person, and a person’s disposition is thus a typical

object for such judgements.12

Next, Disposition 2 holds that we should think about blame itself as a disposition-based practice. Instead

of acts, the proper focus in an ethics of blame should be on blaming practices and the dispositions

underlying them.13 Throughout the article it will become clear why a shift from acts to dispositions is

so important.

Note that blaming practices often consist not only of first-order dispositions to blame but also higher-

order dispositions to blame blaming behaviour. We might, for example, applaud the courageous

activist who, against all odds, calls out the chauvinist bully. Or we might blame the classist who –

adding insult to injury – blames young disadvantaged people for their own disadvantage. I come back

to higher-order blaming dispositions in section 5.2.

3.2 Relational

Blaming practices have a more complex function – and thus instrumental value – than suggested by

Simple Instrumentalism. The value does not only reside in acts of blame and, rather than being only

about ‘influencing’ people to act in better ways, its value is relational and pluralist. Let me first outline

how Complex Instrumentalism is relational.

11 I only claim that blaming is typically (also) about persons, not that it is necessarily so. See (Malle, Guglielmo, and Monroe 2014, 150–51) for an overview

of the empirical literature that supports thusly drawing a distinction between moral wrongness judgements and blaming. Also see (Brandt 1969, 357–58)

and (Sidgwick 1907, chap. III.ii.) on this point.

12 Also see (Sidgwick 1907, 428).

13 Also, see (Barrett 2020; Vargas 2015) on this.

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Strawson’s account of holding other people morally responsible is pragmatic and thus detached from

metaphysical questions of free will. Holding one another morally responsible implies reactive attitudes

such as blame, gratitude, indignation and so on. Moreover, his account is relational in that he argues

that such reactive attitudes underlie – or are interwoven with – many of the social relationships we

have with one another. Relational theories of blame, more generally, place great emphasis on how

blaming is interwoven with the very attitudes and expectations (partly) constitutive of many

interpersonal human relationships.14 To fully understand the value of blame, we thus need to

understand its connection to social relationships.

Importantly, relational conceptions of blame show that unlike cajoling, manipulation and so on, blame

is often connected to the normative expectations that underlie many of our social relationships (Scanlon

2008). Consider friendship. As a friend I expect you to be responsive to the right kind of normative

considerations. The trust I have in you is more than a mere predictive expectation that you will act in

certain ways. Instead, I expect your decision-making dispositions – particularly for those acts that

affect me – to be responsive to certain types of normative considerations (Nickel 2007). Moreover, I

believe I have good reason to have this normative expectation. I might, for example, expect you to

honour your special obligations I think you have towards me. If I find out that you have been behaving

contrary to this expectation – say you have been badmouthing me behind my back – I will typically

blame you for this behaviour (or hold some other more complex reactive attitude). The attitudes and

normative expectations underlying many human relationships on the one side and dispositions to

14 Before Strawson, similar ideas can arguably be found in Hume (Hume 1739, chap. II.iii.1 and II.iii.2; Russell 2002). See, for example, (Coates and

Tognazzini 2012) for recent work inspired by pragmatic relational accounts. I here focus mostly on Strawsonian accounts. But Scanlon’s relational view

would also be suitable, as both Strawsonians and Scanlon stress the intimate link between human relationships and blame (Scanlon 2008). I am somewhat

sympathetic to objections raised to Scanlon’s account (Wallace 2011; Sher 2012). Luckily, I need not commit to one ‘correct conceptual analysis’ for my

arguments to work.

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blame on the other are intimately connected.15 To hold another person to a certain standard and to

have a normative expectation towards her typically goes hand in hand with dispositions to blame her,

if important expectations are not met.

Note that this function often applies outside intimate relationships too. Even social practices and

relations involving many participants and strangers are often regulated or even constituted by norms

and normative expectations. For example, to control the Coronavirus spread, we must make a

collective effort. This will include behavioural norms, such as keeping our distance, ventilation,

facemasks, and generally being considerate. Such behavioural norms typically imply normative

expectations. And for our collective public health effort to be genuinely norm-governed, we must

have some disposition to respond with negative reactive attitudes when encountering gross violations.

Note how the relational nature of blame links up with the focus on blaming practices rather than acts:

blame is interwoven with the social practices and the dispositions that sustain them. So, it makes sense

that blame itself should be understood along dispositional lines.

3.3 Pluralist

Simple Instrumentalism had a simplistic theory of the function of blame: much like medal giving, it

incentivises better behaviour. But drawing on relational theories of blame, we should adopt a more

varied and nuanced picture of the functions blame performs within social relationships. I focus on

three functions: motivational, communicative, and constitutive.16

15 The claim is not that all but only that an important proper subset of relationships necessarily involves dispositions to blame. We could also envisage

friendships – for example with non-human animals – in which such dispositions play a much less important or even no role at all.

16 I only focus on the main social functions of blame and do not cover all ways in which blame can be valuable. I exclude, for example, benefits blame

might have for the blamer. See, for example, (Brandt 1969; Vargas 2013) on internalisation and remorse

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Complex Instrumentalism shares with Simple Instrumentalism that it thinks blame has a motivational

function. But even that motivational function is more nuanced.

First, motivation works not only through individual acts of blaming but already through dispositions to

blame. If ‘potential wrongdoers’ believe that others have adopted certain blaming dispositions, such

dispositions can motivate people to behave better even without instances of actual blaming. For

example, Karl knows that his partner is disposed to blame him should he act unreliably. For this

reason, Karl succeeds being reliable without a single instance of being blamed.

Second, the motivational force of blame is not only about incentivising better acts but also better

dispositions. For example, Karl is disposed to act reliably and to take his partner’s concerns seriously.

Karl’s disposition will have important benefits over and above the benefits of individual good acts.

His partner might, for example, derive great benefits – ‘non-act mediated benefits’ – from simply

knowing she can trust Karl.17

Finally, and relatedly, as recent instrumentalists have argued, blame can have an even more ambitious

motivational aim. Blame typically has persons as its object. The function of blaming practices also lies

in the acknowledgement and development of other people’s moral capacities – in cultivating moral

agency or, in Vargas’ memorable phrase, building better beings (Vargas 2013; McGeer 2014). Expressing

reactive attitudes sometimes carries with it an implicit message that one believes a person can do better

and that one will continue to hold that person accountable. ‘So reactive attitudes communicate a

positive message even in their most negative guise’ writes McGeer somewhat optimistically, they

17 See (Pettit and Smith 2000) on ‘non-act mediated benefits’.

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‘express that we see them [the recipients] as individuals who, going forward, can certainly do better in

understanding and living up to the norms that make for moral community.’ (McGeer 2014, 77)18

Blame’s second function is communicative. In recent decades, communicative theories of punishment

have gained popularity. The basic idea is that the (nature and) purpose of punishment is to

communicate moral censure and a common commitment to certain values and to make wrongdoers

focus and reflect on their wrongdoing. We could say similar things about a practice of blame. Blaming

practices play an important part in publicly upholding and coordinating shared moral understandings

and normative expectations. Moreover, through addressing persons directly, blaming can be a way to

get potential wrongdoers face up to what they have done whilst also communicating that one takes

seriously their continuing status as moral agents (as described in the McGeer quotation above).19 But

blame – along with the discourses around when blame is appropriate – also helps us coordinate and

negotiate normative expectations and norms: discourses about whether blame is appropriate – should

the politician be blamed for their insensitive language? – can also help us coordinate and negotiate

norms for our moral community. Blaming practices are thus important for the communication,

coordination and negotiation of shared moral understandings as well as for the education and

recognition of others involved in a social practice.

Finally, a third function is that blaming dispositions themselves are sometimes constitutively important:

blaming dispositions partly constitute certain valuable relationships. If so, they are important for such

18 Unlike McGeer, I only view this as a common but not necessary (or universal) feature of holding people responsible. Moreover, my theory here is

normative rather than descriptive, so it is not committed to vindicating all the reactive attitudes we have. Note also that, unlike McGeer, Vargas and

others, I am less drawn to a unifying story of what responsibility practices do and think a pluralist story might better capture the multifarious ways in

which real-world blaming practices create value.

19 See for example (Hirsch 1996, chap. 2; Duff 2003) and see (Holroyd 2007; McKenna 2012; Fricker 2014) on communicative and conversational

theories of blame.

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relationships simply because those relationships are not possible without them. For example, if real

friendship implies holding your friend to certain normative standards, and if holding someone to

normative standards implies some disposition to blame, then friendship implies dispositions to

blame.20

Complex Instrumentalism thus has a good story about how blaming practices work and why they are

valuable. They can of course agree with Simple Instrumentalism that blaming sometimes simply elicits

better actions. But with its dispositional, relational, and pluralist structure, it also adds a more complex

story. A world that contains social cooperation, functioning institutions, friendships, people with

virtuous dispositions, solidarity, romantic relationships and so on will be a better world than one in

which goodness-increasing individual and social practices are absent. Blaming practices can help

sustain and shape such valuable practices through their motivational, communicative and constitutive

role.21

20 See (Shabo 2012; Milam 2016) for a discussion of the relationship between reactive attitudes and relationships.

21 As said earlier, I am largely neutral on axiology. My argument need not assume that some relationships or practices are intrinsically valuable. Even if

only instrumentally valuable, functioning social practices and institutions and having a good social network improve wellbeing and support physical and

psychological health (see, for example, (Bruni and Stanca 2008)). Similarly, depending on what value we assign to relationships, dispositions to blame

can be valuable in different ways. If such dispositions are constitutive components of intrinsically valuable relationships, they can be (constitutively)

intrinsically valuable. If they are necessary for but not constitutive of such relationships – or if such relationships are merely instrumentally valuable –

then they are instrumentally valuable. Also, blaming dispositions matter outside of close-knit relationships, as even relationships between strangers can

involve trust and normative expectations too, for example. Again, even if trust and social capital are not intrinsically valuable, they are instrumentally

valuable. See (Beugelsdijk, Groot, and Schaik 2004) on trust and economic development and (Helliwell and Wang 2011; Bjørnskov 2003) on trust and

subjective well-being.

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4 Objections Revisited

In contrast to Simple Instrumentalism, Complex Instrumentalism is (doubly) dispositional, relational,

and pluralist. I now show why these features help Complex Instrumentalism overcome the

shortcomings that beset Simple Instrumentalism. I mentioned three objections in particular: The Past

and Future, the Appropriateness and the Relationship Objection.

Start with the Relationship Objection. The charge was that instrumentalism would enjoin people to

adopt the ‘objective attitude’ and that doing so would undermine attitudes necessary for deep human

involvement and relationships. Focusing on blaming dispositions rather than individual instances of

blame and attending to relational theories of blame gives us an obvious response: blaming dispositions

are part of the nature of (some) human relationships. Many of those relationships are valuable.

Therefore, instrumentalists should prescribe dispositions which help bring about outcomes in which

such relationships flourish. Rather than Strawson’s ideas being an objection to instrumentalism,

relational theories should be a central building block in instrumentalism.22

Second, the Past and Future Objection was that Simple Instrumentalism justifies blaming by its future

consequences rather than backwards-looking considerations. One might worry that this is

phenomenologically off and normatively troubling. However, because Complex Instrumentalism

focuses on practices rather than acts, Complex Instrumentalism has, at least, two good responses to the

Past and Future Objection.

22 McGeer argues that Strawson himself is committed to an instrumentalist picture (McGeer 2014). My argument does not depend on this exegetical

claim. But I certainly agree with recent instrumentalists that various elements in Strawson are easily fitted into an instrumentalist picture (Barrett 2020;

Jefferson 2019).

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First, blaming itself is best understood as a (partly disposition-based) practice. And while the justification

of blaming practices is forward-looking, the practice itself will include dispositions to blame that have

strong backward-looking elements. It is easy to see why dispositions to blame – rather than individual

acts – should often be backward-looking. Even if blaming dispositions were understood merely as

tools for motivation, they are far more effective, if they include backward-looking considerations. A

comparison brings out why. Imagine, for example, that we implemented an overriding law that would

require us to punish people, if and only if doing so would positively influence people’s behaviour in

the future (and such influence is necessary to bring about best possible outcomes). Such a rule would

be much less effective than normal systems of criminal law that consist of backward-looking rules.

For within a purely forward-looking system of punishment, it would be unclear what one should do

to avoid punishment.23 Something similar can be said about a practice of blame. Other people’s

dispositions to blame will only influence my behaviour now, if I can adjust my behaviour in a way that

avoids such blame. However, because considerations that come after possible acts of blaming are not

under my control now, dispositions to blame based purely on future considerations will be ineffective

in guiding my behaviour.

Second, the second way in which Complex Instrumentalism is dispositional is that the object of blame

is, at least typically, people’s dispositions rather than simply their acts. And one of the goals of blaming

practices was to get people to adopt good dispositions. Accordingly, good blaming dispositions will

be sensitive to people’s dispositions and, thereby, to backwards-looking considerations. For judging a

person’s ‘disposition’ implies some intertemporal judgement about a recipient.

23 Also see (Barrett 2020; Rawls 1955) for further defence of this point.

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Finally, the Appropriateness Objection was that Simple Instrumentalism’s focus on acts of blaming

was simply the wrong ‘explanandum’. Instead, an ethics of blame should be about when it is appropriate

to blame someone (or when someone is blameworthy).24 Complex Instrumentalism can counter this

objection, because it is about blaming practices and not acts of blaming. The idea is that Complex

Instrumentalism can give us guidance on when blame is appropriate, because good blaming practices

will have appropriateness standards baked into their practice-internal normative logic.

It is a common observation that social practices come with practice-internal or ‘immanent’ normativity

(Sangiovanni 2016; Stahl 2013)[redacted]. Practices and many social relations are often (partly)

constituted by the normative expectations and norms that structure them. Small-scale clubs and

groups can have internal rules and expectations, such as ‘the first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk

about Fight Club’. But, as political philosophers attest, large-scale social practices and social

organisations have their own internal normativity too, such as Calvinism or societies built around

social democracy. Analogously, normative expectations and the accompanying blaming dispositions

can likely be found in larger groups, relations and social practices too. I have also mentioned above

that blaming dispositions can themselves be subject to higher-order dispositions to blame. These

multi-level dispositions and their applicability conditions then partly structure an internal normative

logic for blaming practices and the standards for when blame is appropriate.

The practice-internal approach could dispose of external, sui generis moral appropriateness standards.

Accordingly, it could give an account of appropriateness but also remain thoroughly instrumentalist.

Moreover, practice-internal appropriateness would also explain and justify why we should adopt some

appropriateness standards over others. So, rather than having to rely just on intuition, instrumentalists

24 Alternatively, one could say it should be about when it is fitting to blame (Chappell 2012).

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can justify appropriateness standards when they are required for practices that bring about good

outcomes.25 Of course, I have only suggested that focusing on blaming practices and their practice-

internal normativity gives instrumentalists the right structure to develop an account for appropriateness.

I have not shown that the appropriateness standards in good blaming practices will cohere with

enough of your favourite intuitions about when it is appropriate to blame. This would be a project for

another day.26

But note that Complex Instrumentalism could also give a slightly different response. Complex

Instrumentalism does not imply consequentialism more generally. Accordingly, one could think that

blaming practices are justified entirely by their consequences but also hold that some non-

consequentialist standards should constrain or guide when it is appropriate to blame someone.27 On

this view, practice-internal appropriateness would then not exhaust all appropriateness standards.

While this is not the position I take – or assume in this article – it is entirely compatible with Complex

Instrumentalism. If we replace ‘punishment’ with ‘blame’, H.L.A. Hart’s theory of punishment is an

instructive parallel. Hart argued that a plausible justification of the institution of punishment must be

consequentialist (the ‘general justifying aim’). But whether and how we punish in individual cases

needs to be guided and constrained by non-consequentialist considerations (the ‘distribution’ of

punishment) (Hart 1968, chap. I).

25 (Brandt 1969, 360–61) makes a similar point. Also see (Barrett 2020, 22–24).

26 This is a project pursued, at least partly, by (Vargas 2013).

27 I interpret (Jefferson 2019) along these lines.

20

5 How Complex Instrumentalism strengthens consequentialism

I have argued that Complex Instrumentalism is an auspicious approach to the ethics of blame, far

more auspicious than Simple Instrumentalism at any rate. I now argue that Complex Instrumentalism

also helps makes consequentialism more plausible.

The first simple thought is that while instrumentalism about blame does not imply consequentialism,

consequentialism implies (some form of) instrumentalism about blame.28 Having a plausible

instrumentalist account of blame helps consequentialists, because it helps them avoid an implausible

implication.

But the second, more interesting argument I discuss now is that Complex Instrumentalism helps

consequentialists respond to common objections, including the Impartiality and Demandingness

Objection.

5.1 Blame-based arguments

Most forms of consequentialism ask of us to bring about the most good, impartially considered. For

now, when I write ‘consequentialism’, I mean (a version that implies) act consequentialism, i.e. the

view that an act is right, if and only if there is no other act that would do more good. The Impartiality

Objection is the worry that consequentialism does not leave enough room for personal relationships

and commitments. Not only are such commitments and relationships important to us, we often think

they create weighty moral reasons in ways that having a duty of beneficence towards strangers does

not – an intuition that tends to resonate with parents.

28 Unless one ‘consequentialises’ blame, see footnote 3@.

21

Sophisticated (act) consequentialism, of course, has a reply: a world with personal commitments and

relationships will, on balance, be a better world than one without. Therefore, we should often be

disposed to be partial in our feelings and decisions (Railton 1984). Without such partiality dispositions,

goods like friendship, romantic relationships and family would not be available and the world would

contain far less value.

However, some critics are unsatisfied. Sophisticated consequentialism would regularly lead to

situations where following dispositions that are good to have will bring about acts that, according to

act consequentialism, are wrong. And that makes consequentialism look both counterintuitive and

incoherent. Consider:

Clare’s Decision: ‘Clare could either give her child some benefit, or give much greater benefits to some

unfortunate stranger. Because she loves her child, she benefits him rather than the stranger.’ (Parfit

1984, 25)

In Clare’s Decision, assume that Clare ought to have the disposition to love her child, because that

disposition does a lot of good. However, given that helping the stranger would have the best

consequences in this instance, Clare also ought to benefit the stranger instead of her child. This might

strike one as incoherent. How can we hold that Clare ought to have the disposition to love her child yet

judge it wrong when she then acts on that disposition? Call this the Incoherence Objection.29

29 Streumer, for example, defends a stronger version of this argument: it is inconsistent to hold that Clare ought to have the disposition to love her child

and to hold that she ought to act contrary to that disposition ((Streumer 2003; 2005), also see (Lang 2004)). But I am convinced by responses by (Brown

2005; Ord 2009). Note also that some consequentialists try to weaken consequentialism’s strong impartiality. (Scheffler 1994), for example, builds in

agent-centered prerogatives and (Portmore 2001) proposes a form of consequentialism that allows for agent-relative reasons. Alternatively, (Pettit 2015)

argues consequentialists should keep agent-neutrality but that some intrinsic goods are modally robust, like personal attachment, and require partial

behavioural dispositions. My aim is to show that my arguments work even in austere views, like classical utilitarianism. But they are compatible with such

alternative consequentialist views too.

22

This is where instrumentalism about blame comes in useful. The key is to sever judgements about the

deontic status of acts from judgements about blame. As Sidgwick wrote ‘we must carefully distinguish

between the recognition of goodness in dispositions, and the recognition of rightness in conduct’

(Sidgwick 1907, 428) In Sidgwick’s spirit, Parfit gives the following response: while it is true that Clare’s

benefiting her child is wrong, it is a case of blameless wrongdoing (Parfit 1984, 31–35). This allows us to

keep both a consequentialist intuition that benefitting the needier child would have been better but

that one should not blame Clare for acting from dispositions she ought to have.30

To drive home the point, consider a converse case in which we intuitively think there is something

wrong about being too impartial:

Max: Max has recently become obsessed with maximising the good in every decision he takes.

He now decides not to visit his partner in hospital, because he has calculated – correctly on

this occasion – that he can do more impartial good by spending his time on something else.

Assume Max’s act of not visiting his partner happens to be morally right according to

consequentialism. Consequentialists can now say that such an action could still be a case of praiseless

rightdoing or even blameworthy rightdoing (excuse those neologisms). Max’s disposition to think along

purely impartial lines might be far from optimal. Going forward, this disposition might, for example,

undermine his relationship and, let’s assume, that would make the world less good.

Consider next how consequentialists can and have used a similar blame-based response to the

Demandingness Objection. The Demandingness Objection, roughly, is that fulfilling your

consequentialist obligations would be excessively demanding. Consider

30 I here do not discuss scalar views, like Norcross’s, that focus act evaluation only on betterness (Norcross 2008). Such a view would then say that some

acts are not the best acts one can take but are not blameless, which would sound a little more intuitive. My view is compatible with scalar consequentialism.

23

Philippa: Philippa loves philanthropy and gives away ten percent of her income to a cost-

effective charity that does a lot of good.

However, on a maximising version of consequentialism, Philippa ought to give away more, up to point

where the marginal benefit of giving her resources to charity would equal the marginal benefit she

would derive from it. Assume that this happens when Philippa gives away 70% of her income.

Requiring agents to make such sacrifices is, according to The Demandingness Objection, excessively

demanding. And it speaks against a moral theory – or so the assumption – if its prescriptions are so

demanding.

Sidgwick has a response. Again, we should first distinguish

the questions ‘what a man ought to do or forbear’ and ‘what other men ought to blame him for not doing

or forbearing’: and recognising that the standard normally applied in dealing with the latter question is

laxer than would be right in dealing with the former. (Sidgwick 1907, 221)

The second question typically has a consequentialist answer. So, when we encounter someone who

does more good than others, Sidgwick argues

we think that moral progress will on the whole be best promoted by our praising acts that are above the

level of ordinary practice, and confining our censure – at least if precise and particular – to acts that fall

clearly below this standard. (Sidgwick 1907, 221)

This sounds intuitively right: we should praise rather than blame Philippa, particularly considering

most people give next to nothing to charity. And we should praise her, even if she could do far more

still. So, invoking praise and blame helps us defuse some of the intuitions motivating the

Demandingness Objection.31

31 Rick Morris has recently defended such an argument in more detail (Morris 2017). As Morris writes, while this response captures important common-

sense intuitions behind demandingness, it will not persuade those critics who think theories must never yield demanding obligations (or ‘oughts’) (Morris

2017, 1864–65). But, even then, blame-based responses are still valuable for consequentialists. For consequentialists have provided other responses to

24

However, as they stand, I think such responses are problematic, as they rely (on something like) Simple

Instrumentalism. Most problematically, they all focus on acts of blaming. Consider Parfit and Clare’s

Decision. What could ‘blameless wrongdoing’ mean, if we focused solely on acts of blaming?

Blameless Wrongdoing 1: φ-ing is an instance of blameless wrongdoing, if and only if φ-ing was

wrong according to act consequentialism and not blaming the person for φ-ing has better

consequences than blaming her for it.

Blameless Wrongdoing 1 reveals why the above responses are less effective than they could be.

First, whether we can provide the right response in the above cases is highly contingent on external

conditions. Not blaming Clare might sometimes have better consequences, but it might also not have.

So, Blameless Wrongdoing 1 does not give us the conclusion that Clare’s action is of a type that is

blamelessly wrong. Imagine, for example, that blaming Clare in this situation is the act with the best

consequences, because there is a person who would be extremely happy if given the chance to vent

some anger. According to Blameless Wrongdoing 1, Clare’s act would then not be considered a case

of blameless wrongdoing. Similar problems beset the other arguments: can we really say that Philippa

is praiseworthy for giving to charity? Imagine several people who dislike charity and take pleasure

telling people like Philippa that they are ‘self-righteous do-gooders’. Seeing that they greatly enjoy

doing so, there could be circumstances where consequentialism would consider such blaming acts

better than not blaming.

Second, the purported aim is to show that invoking blame can account for central intuitions. However,

our intuition is arguably not just that we should not blame Clare, if and only if – and because – doing

so has better consequences going forward. Blame, as we saw earlier, typically involves backwards-looking

the demandingness objection (Ashford 2000; Braddock 2013; Sobel 2007). Blame-based responses accompany those arguments and thereby strengthen

consequentialism’s overall case.

25

considerations. And in Clare’s Decision, for example, it really matters that Clare acted from

dispositions that were good to have.

Moreover, consequentialism would better capture our intuitions, if it could show not just that blaming

Clare can have bad consequences but that acts like Clare’s are generally or typically blameless. This

worry echoes the Appropriateness Objection to Simple Instrumentalism. We should distinguish

between someone being blameless/blameworthy/praiseless/praiseworthy and it having good or bad consequences to

blame someone. A convincing intuitive response, I suggest, would be about the former.

5.2 Back to Complex Instrumentalism

You will not be surprised to learn that Complex Instrumentalism solves these problems. Remember

that Complex Instrumentalism was ‘doubly dispositional’. This gets us closer to a plausible notion of

blameless wrongdoing (and praiseworthy wrongdoing, blameworthy rightdoing, and so on).

First, the object of blame, typically, is not just an act but a person and their dispositions to act a certain

way. In Clare’s Decision, blameless wrongdoing should thus not boil down to the question of whether

blaming Clare would have best consequences, because that is not the proper object of blame to begin

with. Instead, the proper object is the disposition from which Clare acted. This was also one way to

ward off the Past and Future Objection: blameless wrongdoing here should focus on considerations

that lie in the past and present, namely Clare’s dispositions to act. Blameless wrongdoing thus does

not boil down to the expected consequences of blaming.

Second, instead of acts of blaming, Complex Instrumentalism focuses on blaming practices and the

dispositions underlying those. That way, I suggest, we arrive at a new and more plausible

understanding of blameless wrongdoing:

26

Blameless Wrongdoing 2: φ-ing is an instance of blameless wrongdoing, if and only if φ-ing was

wrong according to act consequentialism and not blaming the person for φ-ing follows from

good blaming dispositions.

A similar account could be developed, mutatis mutandis, for praiseworthy wrongdoing, and praiseless

and/or blameworthy rightdoing. For simplicity, I focus mostly on blameless wrongdoing. To see how

exactly this helps with Clare’s Decision, I will go through the individual steps. In section 3, I argued:

(A) To bring about good outcomes requires some set S of disposition-based, individual and

social practices.

Then I argued:

(B) A good practice of blame is a member of S.

(B) is plausible for various reasons, not least of which:

(C) A good practice of blame will typically help motivate people to adopt dispositions to act

which are good to have (those in S).

So, having good dispositions to blame will help people adopt dispositions that do good. Next, we need

to make the following, plausible assumption:

(D) A practice of blame will do better at getting people to adopt dispositions that are good to

have, if it typically does not imply blaming people for acting from dispositions which are good

to have.

Again, we could adjust (D) by also talking about praise: good praising practices will reinforce that

people adopt dispositions that are good to have.

Therefore,

(E) A good practice of blame will typically not imply blaming people for acting from

dispositions which are good to have.

27

Conclusion (E) makes Blameless Wrongdoing 2 plausible in Clare’s Decision. We should think it quite

likely that, if (E) is true, good dispositions to blame will typically not imply blaming Clare for acting

from dispositions which are good to have. Therefore, Clare’s action is an instance of blameless

wrongdoing. By focusing on dispositions to blame (rather than acts) and by taking other people’s

dispositions to be the (main) object of blame, we arrive at a plausible notion of blameless wrongdoing.

The account then also salvages the other consequentialist blame-based responses. We can say that,

typically, good dispositions to praise will tend to praise – rather than blame – people like Philippa who

are disposed to do much more good than others, even if they could still do more. Or consider Max.

A good practice of blame could countenance Max’s right act as ‘praiseless rightdoing’ and, in some

scenarios, even blameworthy rightdoing: We should expect that Max’s obsession with case-based

maximisation, including in his relationship, will lead to suboptimal outcomes. Accordingly, it might

be good, if his partner has a disposition to respond with negative reactive attitudes to Max’s decision

not to come visit them in hospital.

These responses, I submit, improve on the previous act-based responses. Now we capture our

intuition that blame here should involve backwards-looking considerations. Moreover, as I argued earlier,

Complex Instrumentalism gives us the structure for an account of when it is appropriate to blame

through the appropriateness standards internal to a good blaming practice. This allows blame-based

responses to say something about whether, within a good blaming practice, blame is appropriate rather

than focusing purely on whether individual acts of blame will have good consequences.

5.3 Higher-order dispositions

My account is not complete yet. A central worry about my account of blameless wrongdoing is that

rather than meet the Incoherence Objection, we just move it one step upwards. For the question of

whether I should express blame does not go away. And for act consequentialism, that question still

28

has a simple answer: blame the person, if doing so has better consequences than other available acts.

So, what role, if any, does blameworthiness and other related notions play? Consider:

John’s Decision: John needs to decide whether to expressly blame Clare for her decision to benefit her

own child rather than the stranger. Blaming Clare is, for some reason, the act with the best

consequences. Because John is disposed not to blame people for acts which are implied by dispositions

which are good to have, he does not blame her.

In John’s Decision, John ought to blame Clare, because this would have best consequences. Does this

not seem incoherent with our insistence that he ought to adopt good blaming dispositions, likely

including the disposition to not blame Clare for acting from dispositions that are good to have? The

Incoherence Problem, it seems, resurfaces. Moreover, what good does a consequentialist notion of

blameworthiness do, if consequentialism ultimately enjoins people to blame whenever doing so does

the most good?

Luckily, Complex Instrumentalism offers a neat solution to this problem. As previously mentioned,

practices of blame comprise not just first-order dispositions to blame but also second-order

dispositions to blame blaming dispositions. This framework now allows us to apply blameless wrongdoing

to blaming itself – the framework supports itself, as it were. Dispositions to blame should work like

dispositions more generally. We can use our analysis of Clare’s Decision and apply it to John’s

Decision. First, John acted from blaming dispositions which are good to have. Second, we need to

introduce a higher-order disposition about blaming other people’s blaming behaviour. For such

higher-order dispositions to blame, we need to assume:

(E*) The best dispositions to blame other people for their blaming behaviour will typically not

imply blaming people for acting from dispositions to blame which are good to have.

The argument for (E*) would run the same way as our argument for (E). An important role of higher-

order dispositions is the same as those of first-order dispositions to blame, namely to get people to

29

adopt good dispositions. And as some blaming dispositions can be very valuable, we have reason to

get people to adopt them. And higher-order dispositions to appraise blaming behaviour can be used

to do so.

Accordingly, John’s not blaming Clare is a case of blameless wrongdoing, if our best higher-order

dispositions to blame would not imply blaming John. Let me illustrate this:

Hannah’s Decision: Hannah needs to decide whether to expressly blame John for his decision not to

blame Clare. Because Hannah is disposed not to blame people whose blaming behaviour is influenced

by dispositions to blame which are good to have, she does not blame John even though doing so would

have better consequences.

If Hannah’s dispositions are good to have, John’s not blaming Clare becomes itself an instance of

blameless wrongdoing. For if (E*) is true, good dispositions to blame are such that we typically do not

blame people whose blaming behaviour is guided by dispositions which are good to have.

We could, of course, now ask whether Hannah’s not blaming John for not blaming Clare is a case of

blameless wrongdoing by introducing a further higher-order disposition to blame. We can do so ad

infinitum as a theoretical exercise, but we will not have consequentialist reason to do so in our actual

practice of blaming.

6 Conclusions

In this article, I have offered a ‘complex’ structure for an instrumentalist ethics of blame and argued

that such a structure is of great value to consequentialism. More specifically, I made the following

contributions.

I argued that instead of Simple Instrumentalism – which focuses on acts of blaming and their potential

to incentivise better behaviour – we should go for Complex Instrumentalism. First, Complex

30

Instrumentalism is doubly dispositional: the object of blame is dispositions rather than acts, and

instrumentalism is about blaming practices and their underlying dispositions rather than acts of blaming.

Second, Complex Instrumentalism locates the meaning and function of reactive attitudes like blame

in the social relationships in which they are embedded. Third, Complex Instrumentalism recognises

that blaming dispositions have various functions within relationships and practices including a

motivational, communicative and constitutive function. Overall, Complex Instrumentalism avoids the

problems that beset Simple Instrumentalism and makes for an auspicious compatibilist ethics of

blame.

I then argued that Complex Instrumentalism is of great value to consequentialists. First, Complex

Instrumentalism helps make sophisticated consequentialism more coherent: consequentialists

acknowledge that individual practices, social practices, relationships and institutions are important for

bringing about good outcomes. Blaming practices, in turn, play an important role in getting people to

adopt dispositions that are conducive to sustaining such practices. Blaming practices thus help bring

about good outcomes. Moreover, Complex Instrumentalism – and my multi-level account of

blameless wrongdoing – provides consequentialism with plausible blame-based responses to

important objections, including the charge that consequentialism leaves insufficient space for partiality

and is too demanding.

31

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