Holding Ourselves vs. Others Responsible

My colleague Antony Aumann and I are wondering if anyone knows of work on a purported asymmetry in norms regarding holding oneself responsible as opposed to holding others responsible. The Christian tradition often emphasizes it, as we see in famous dicta: "judge not lest ye be judged," "take the log out of your own eye before the splinter out of your brother's," etc. Kant and Kierkegaard also both appear to recommend giving others, but not ourselves, the benefit of the doubt.

From what we understand of Kant and Kierkegaard’s position, their reason for recommending going easy on others is that we can't directly infer others' motivations from their actions and we have an obligation to interpret others in the best possible light. What's puzzling is that both appear to accept that we do not infallibly know our own motivations, either. Yet they recommend that we treat ourselves more harshly and thus risk blaming ourselves when we are not blameworthy. 

Suppose someone accepts both that motivations are the proper objects of praise and blame and that our knowledge of our own minds isn't infallible. What resources does such a person have to defend the asymmetry in holding responsible? 

We’re interested in any work that discusses the asymmetry, whether or not it accepts that motivations are the proper target of praise and blame.

 

Comments

[Joe Campbell]

Do pragmatic resources count? With others, the lessening of blame carries with it benefits since resentment can take its toll.

But if you were to make excuses for all of your own actions, it would take you out of seat of control. If the reason you rage is because of childhood circumstances beyond your control, then it isn't up to you whether you rage. So YOU can't change it. If it is up to you, you have a shot at making it otherwise. Practically speaking, it is better to blame others less but have a tighter set of standards when it comes to judgments about one's own actions.

[Zac Cogley]

Thanks for your comment, Joe!

I don't see any reason why pragmatic considerations are out of bounds, but I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning for how they generate the asymmetry. If I entertain the idea that my rages aren't a reasonable response to my students' boredom in my classes but are instead due my formative circumstances, doesn't that give me information relevant to my blameworthiness for raging? My thought is that if such information would undermine the blameworthiness of a colleague who also rages, it should similarly undermine my blameworthiness.

It may be that I can, and should, do different things with this information in my case than my colleague's (i.e. I should put myself in counseling, but I shouldn't attempt the same thing with my colleague). But I'm interpreting the recommendation as one about whether to look for appropriate grounds for blaming. We're urged to accept such grounds in our case, but try to reinterpret them in the case of others. But why think we're better (or worse) at identifying them in our case?

I guess I'm imagining the upshot of the recommendation is I should be more likely to accept in my own case that I rage because I'm a jerk but that in my colleague's case that she rages because she's stressed. If the best thing is for me to stop raging and it's really due to stress, it certainly seems like the best thing to do is identify the real reason!

I guess I want to grant that making excuses for all my actions would take me (or others) out of the seat of control. But wouldn't that be disrespectful of the agency of others, as well?

[Nick]

Kevin Tobia's "Moral Intuition: Are Philosophers Experts?" could be germane: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1923260

[Zac Cogley]

Thanks for the suggestion, Nick. I just skimmed the paper quickly and I'm worried I'm not getting quite the point you intend. Could you say more about why it might be germane?

[Nick]

Sure. One part of tobia's research demonstrates that If professional philosophers judged themselves before judging the general public (I presume the "judge yourself..." spiel should apply to professional philosophers a much as anyone else), then they would actually judge themselves harsher: they would be more responsible and/or more blameworthy than others in their position. So it would seem that philosophers, as a whole, might not need to be reminded to judge themselves. After all, the dictum alleges that when you judge yourself before others you will realize that you too are at least as guilty as the person you are tempted to judge. If philosophers already consider themselves at least as guilty as others, then telling them to "judge yourself..." could be like preaching to the choir.

[Nick]

Sure.

One part of tobia's research demonstrates that If professional philosophers judged themselves before judging the general public (I presume the "judge yourself..." spiel should apply to professional philosophers a much as anyone else), then they would actually judge themselves harsher: they would be more responsible and/or more blameworthy than others in their position. So it would seem that philosophers, as a whole, might not need to be reminded to judge themselves. After all, the dictum alleges that when you judge yourself before others you will realize that you too are at least as guilty as the person you are tempted to judge. If philosophers already consider themselves at least as guilty as others, then telling them to "judge yourself..." could be like preaching to the choir. Philosophers already show the allegedly proper asymmetry.

I was thinking that in addition to an appeal to the theoretical claims of two dead philosophers, you could include an appeal to the today's philosophers actually judge themselves v. others. It would seem that the data will only make the thrust of your inquiry more powerful.

[Nick]

*appeal to the WAY philosophers...*

[Daniel Breyer]

For what it's worth, I have a new article in Sophia on the Buddhist view of freedom and responsibility, in which I argue that the best interpretation of the Buddhist view is a form of Perspectivalism, according to which we should view ourselves as responsible, while viewing others as non-responsible. The article is called 'Freedom with a Buddhist Face' (and it is currently an online first article).

This view picks up on Joe's comments about pragmatic considerations. I argue that Buddhists endorse a thesis I call 'Successful Practice,' which says that we are more likely to eliminate duḥkha and achieve liberation if we see others as non-responsible and ourselves as responsible, than if we view others and ourselves differently.

I am currently 'naturalizing' the position and defending it as a live option, which is distinctive from the views of Kant, Double, Smilansky, etal.

If you're interested, you can contact me at dbreyer@ilstu.edu. (I'm an assistant professor of philosophy at Illinois State University.) I normally don't comment on blogs, but I thought I'd do some shameless self-promotion this one time. :-)

[Paul Torek]

When I practice archery, at first I almost always hit above the bullseye. Then I learn to aim low. Voila, at least now my shots are scattered evenly all around the bullseye.

Presumably Kant and Kierkegaard are aware of the human tendencies to judge self too leniently, and others too harshly. So they tell us to aim high at oneself, and aim low at others, when assigning blame. Does it really need to be more complicated than that?

[Zac Cogley]

Thanks, Nick, Daniel and Paul for your thoughts!

Paul, it may not be any more complicated than that, but I'm hoping it is.

[Roman]

I'll take a stab a following up on Joe's suggestion. I don't know if this is what he (or Kant--where does he discuss the asymmetry?) had in mind, but something like the following seems right to me.

The asymmetry doesn't follow from considerations about the appropriate grounds for blaming by themselves. But responsibility is closely tied to obligation, insofar as we are responsible (morally) only with respect to obligation. And obligation does incorporate a self/other asymmetry. While I may have the same obligations as anyone else, only I can discharge my own obligations. And while I may not have complete knowledge about my motives, Kant does stress that I have an obligation to improve them--I have both a direct obligation to do my duty and an indirect obligation to enable myself to do so (to seek happiness, to cultivate empathy toward others, etc.). If I see my raging as somehow a product of my childhood circumstance, if I were to undermine my blame by putting weight on those circumstances, I would thereby undermine my ability to resist the direction in which they incline me, and then in turn I would undermine my ability to discharge my duty by adopting and following correct maxims. I cannot, however, have any direct effect on whether others adopt and discharge correct maxims, so while stringency in accepting responsibility for my own actions can affect my performance of my duty, the same doesn't work (or at least not directly) in the case of others. So I would suggest that the asymmetry involved in obligation transfers to responsibility.

Of course this could be wrong, since it's possible that focusing on my obligation is mostly ineffectual in leading to right action unless I also set out to focus on the conditions undermining my agency and thus (apparently) lessening my blame. Again, though, my focusing on others' responsibility *can't* directly improve them morally; lessening my own responsibility, however, can undermine my ability to improve myself morally.