Blame as a Form of Harm

One disagreement I have with most ethicists is that I believe they are too eager to cast blame and impose obligations.  Blame is a form of harm and we need to be especially careful when we are taking action that harms others.  We must not only show that our action will have benefits, but that those benefits will outweigh the costs. But this alone doesn't suffice.  People can still legitimately oppose our action by showing that there are alternative methods of achieving the results we want that are either more efficient or humane.

A discussion of blame must start with thinking about its effects.  When effective blame has a negative effect on a reputation.  This negative effect acts as a deterrent.  In general it will have the effect of discouraging the pattern of behavior that led to the blame.  This could entail abstaining from the conduct that is ostensibly held to be worthy of blame.  Alternatively it could involve additional efforts to conceal the conduct in question or avoiding contact with the one casting the blame.

In addition the reputation of an individual will have an effect on how much other people value interaction with that individual.  A reputation can be thought of as a set of ideas about the benefits and consequences of interaction with a given individual.  If you provide people with useful information about others, then you have done something helpful.  If someone is acting in a manner that is harmful to others, then other people will want to know about it so they can take action to protect themselves and the people that they care about.

When someone casts blame or asserts that certain conduct is worthy of blame, they have a responsibility to show that they have good cause to cast blame.  This will usually involve pointing out that certain conduct is harmful to others or places others at risk of suffering harm.

The first question we will need to ask is whether or not this is always the case.  Is blame ever justified in any other instance?  Those who suggest that there is an exception hold that people have a moral obligation to help others.

Naturally we will have an interest in having people around us help others.  They are likely to help us and the people around us.  There is likely to be a large overlap between the people around us and the people that we care about.  It is likely that the reason why people assert that we have an obligation to help others is that they want people to help others.  It is hard to argue that it would be completely ineffective in this regard.

However, we have to consider whether the benefits derived from blaming others for being unhelpful outweighs the cost.  This is difficult to argue one way or the other.  I will concede this point for a moment because I believe that casting blame for this reason fails the other tests that it must surmount.

Even if we concede that the benefits would outweigh the costs, we can still argue that there are more humane or efficient ways of accomplishing the desired result.  We can praise people for helping others.  Some might argue that I am presenting a false dichotomy since we can praise some while condemning others.  However, our resources are scarce.  If we expend time and energy condemning some, we cannot use that same time or energy praising others.  Nor can we use that time to provide other useful information.

There are other problems with assignment of blame for this reason.  In order to do this we would have to know that they are not helping others.  Usually we will have nowhere near the amount of information at our disposal to make this evaluation.  If we observe someone at a given instant, we might be able to tell that they are not doing anything to help anyone else at that time.  However, this wouldn't necessarily mean that they weren't providing assistance at some point in time that when we weren't available to watch.

Action generally takes place over a shorter period of time than inaction.  It is therefore easier to observe.  This is why it is generally action that ought to be evaluated either positively or negatively rather than inaction.  This is even the case with praise.

When someone wants to praise someone else, this is something that is usually harmless.  If I want to assert that they are wrong to do so, the burden is on me to show that the behavior being praised is potentially harmful to others.  By discouraging people from issuing praise, I am doing something that is harmful to those that would receive praise.  Thus we should be more eager to praise than to condemn.