A Potential Path to Integration of Blame Judgments

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

¹ “Reasons are conceptualized as mental states in light of which and on the grounds of which the agent formed an intention to act” (p. 308).

² One might argue that what people really mean when they say “he felt blame” is “he felt guilt.” It is not clear that this is true, and in any case, that counterargument seems self-defeating here, because invoking “well, what they really mean is …” undercuts the validity of using descriptions of what words people use as evidence for the meaning of a psychological concept (such as “anger” or “blame”)—which is precisely what the authors are doing here.