The Distortions of Oppressive Praise

Abstract

Practice-dependent approaches to moral responsibility appeal to our practices of moral responsibility in order to identify and justify the conditions for holding each other responsible. Yet, our practices are shaped by oppressive norms. For example, attributions of praise can be shaped by ableist norms, antifat norms, and norms of toxic positivity. I argue that such cases pose methodological and justificatory challenges for practice-dependent approaches of various stripes. In considering what resources these approaches might have to confront these challenges, I formulate some supplementary norms for theorizing about our practices of moral responsibility and for structuring those practices themselves. This paper makes the following novel contributions: First, it advances examples that show that reactive attitudes can be oppressive irrespective of patterns of comparative distribution. Second, it articulates the implications of oppressive reactive attitudes for a range of post-Strawsonian approaches to moral responsibility. Third, it more fully articulates the norms that ought to shape our responsibility practices and locates them in relation to two recently proposed approaches to moral responsibility, from Shoemaker and Ciurria.

Keywords

• moral responsibility
• praise
• oppression
• practice-dependent theories
• amelioration