Partiality and Blame

Jeanette Kennett (Macquarie University)

It is relatively uncontroversial to claim that we have special duties to some people that we do not owe to everyone. These duties usually arise from our personal, social, and professional roles and relationships. Partialists in ethics further claim that partialist duties are morally basic. They are not derived from or justified by impartialist considerations. This has been a major site of debate in normative ethical theory as played out in e.g., debates over the extent to which we can be justified in favouring friends and loved ones, and whether impartialist theories can justify developing the partial dispositions that can override impartial obligations. 

I approach the issue of the scope and limits of partiality from a different direction. I focus on reactive attitude accounts of the development of morality and the role they give to blame and associated attitudes in securing norm compliance. I argue that the moral systems described are essentially partialist, and that an examination of our blaming practices suggests we should try to chart a way out of the partialist loop.