The Normativity of Blame

Abstract

The following paper examines the relevance of both Reasons Basicness and The Second-Personal Standpoint as potential explanations as to the nature of accountability. I begin by recognizing the importance of blame as an ethical experience, and start a project that aims to uncover the normative implications of blame. Ultimately I regard that, due to an inextricable link to obligation, normative notions of blame are grounded in morally normative pressures. In doing so, I deny the thesis of Reasons Basicness, and ask the reader to adopt a position sympathetic to the concepts of mutual accountability in Stephen Darwall’s Second-Personal Standpoint.