Episode 101: Miranda Fricker discusses blame and forgiveness
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What is the purpose of blame and how does it function in everyday interactions?
Hey, Matt Teichman here from Elucidations. Before we get going, I just thought I'd put in a quick plug for PIPA. We've been doing our hosting with them since 2016. It's been a fantastic experience. So if you have a podcast, you might check them out. They have great analytics, the service is free, and they make it easy to migrate. So if you're curious, visit their website at pippa.io. All right, thanks. Hello and welcome to Elucidations. I'm Matt Teichman.
And I'm Emily Dupree.
With us today is Miranda Fricker, Presidential Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. And she is here to discuss blame and forgiveness. Miranda Fricker, welcome. Thank you. So blame and forgiveness, I think, is a pretty live topic in the zeitgeist today. But nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting to just discuss a couple standard examples. What would be some examples of one person blaming another for something they did?
Well, to take a very everyday trivial kind of example, I think, you know, among friends, for instance, or among colleagues, there can be small wrongs, misdemeanors for which blame can be in order. So somebody, if I borrow a friend of mine's book and take it on holiday without asking her, and then it turns out she really needed it while I was away, that's something for which she might blame me. Pro tem. Pro tem.
I see. Right. So, yeah, these little kind of like slights of etiquette between friends, at least be one case in which we're familiar with the practice of blaming each other for things.
Exactly. And we hope those sorts of trivial everyday kinds of blame don't last very long because then I say I'm sorry and she lets it go and then it's all over with. Of course, there can be much more serious kinds of blame which are not so easy to draw to a close. somebody's unfaithful to their partner, somebody seriously betrays a friendship, publicises secrets all over the internet. These sorts of things tend to solicit longer-term blame and much stronger blame. And we think of blame as something, I think, that if it's in order at all, it needs to be proportionate to the wrong that's being done. And that's just one of the kind of rules of appropriate blame that we naturally go by, it seems to me.
If somebody borrows my book and goes on holiday, I blame her deeply and forever and I don't let it go. And I say, this is the end of our friendship. We'd say that my blame is ridiculously disproportionate for such a small little wrong as borrowing a book without asking.
Right. And if she borrows your car without telling you and crashes it into a ditch or something and you treat it as though it's nothing, maybe that would be like not blaming her enough?
Yeah.
I agree. I mean, some people will differ on this, but I think the issue of proportionality and blame cuts both ways. So it's proportionate and appropriate to blame people, not too much for what they've done, but also there's something wrong about not blaming people enough, it seems to me. And the obvious sorts of examples are when you might observe of a friend, oh, he's just letting his partner get away with mistreating him endlessly and he keeps letting it go and he never seems to blame her. What's he thinking? He needs to stick up for himself more. That would be an example of not blaming someone enough, it seems to me. Not blaming someone disproportionately where it's insufficient rather than too much.
So it seems like there's some sort of Goldilocks principle going on here. You want to make sure that you're not giving too much blame, not too little blame. You want to make sure it's just right.
I agree. However, I would also want to add that I don't think that blame is compulsory. I mean, it seems to me there can be also situations rather different from the one I just imagined, but where you might observe someone keeps getting wronged by a friend of theirs or a partner or an employer, whatever it might be, and they choose to let it go. They choose just not to go there with the blaming energy. They might have good reasons for that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of blame and how does it function in everyday interactions?
0:00–4:38
2
How do we determine when blame is proportionate or excessive in personal relationships?
4:38–10:47
3
What is communicative blame and why is it considered a moral‑educative practice?
10:47–18:39
4
When can blame become pathological, and what are the risks of over‑blaming?
18:39–24:35
5
How does the transition from blame to forgiveness work in a moral dialogue?
24:35–30:15
6
What are the different models of forgiveness – moral‑justice vs. unconditional (gifted) forgiveness?
30:15–37:18
7
How can forgiveness practices go wrong, especially in unequal power relationships?
37:18–44:03
8
Why is it important to clarify the purposes of blame and forgiveness for better moral decision‑making?
44:03–49:22
Speakers
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