Beyond benefits: gratitude as a response to moral regard

ABSTRACT

What are the fittingness conditions of gratitude? One assumption seems unquestioned in the literature: that whenever it’s fitting for you to be grateful to me, that’s because I’ve benefitted or tried to benefit you. In this paper, I argue that that’s false. You may sometimes fittingly be grateful precisely because I refrained from benefitting you. Or you may be grateful because I omitted to instrumentalise you, or treated you justly – where this isn’t reducible to benefits. Morality isn’t all about benefits, so gratitude isn’t either. Instead, gratitude is the proper response to being shown more positive moral regard than you’re owed – where such regard might consist in beneficence, or respect, or in whatever kind of positive moral attitude.

KEYWORDS:

• Gratitude
• gratefulness
• beneficence
• moral regard
• paternalism

Acknowledgements

For very helpful comments, I thank Barbara Bleisch, Samuel Hughes, Adam Lovett, Jörg Löschke, Jennifer Page, Peter Schaber, Thomas Schmidt, audiences in Ujué, Zurich and at the Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Conference in Cardiff, and an anonymous reviewer for Inquiry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As I indicate below (in Section 6), there are moral views on which feeling resentment towards you can be a form of positively morally valuing you. On these views, it’s valuable that you’re a responsible agent. And the fact that you warrant resentment is a manifestation of this value. I take it it’s much less plausible that feeling contempt for you can be a form of positively valuing you. At any rate, it’s at least conceptually possible that you ground reasons for contempt, purely as a manifestation of your disvalue. And to illustrate the conceptual point I wish to make, that’s what I’m assuming.

2 There are cases where, or perhaps moral views on which, you ground a positive moral reason not to benefit you at the cost of the others in this way. For instance, suppose that out of a sense of fairness you want me to cast lots among all candidates, rather than benefit you outright. If I don’t respect this, and benefit you outright, I don’t give the positive moral reasons you ground more weight than you can demand of me. But it’s at least conceptually possible that all the positive moral reasons you ground speak in favour of benefitting you in this way. And to illustrate the conceptual point I wish to make, that’s what I’m assuming.