Organon F

Volume 29, August 2022, Issue 3, Pages 348–375

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

Research Article

On the Appropriateness of Holding Morally Accountable

Haozhan Sun – Ivo Dragoun

https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29303

Abstract

Our everyday social interactions involve holding others morally accountable for their wrongdoings. Sometimes such holdings might be inappropriate. For instance, it feels inappropriate if the person holding another morally accountable is in some relevant sense morally compromised. Thus a thief chastising a thief would strike us as somewhat odd. We might, when witnessing such behaviour, want to remind the chastiser that he is not in a position to reprimand others. But what if none of us are ever in such a position? In this paper we will argue that all men are irremediably morally compromised, and conclude that, ultimately, it is never appropriate for us to hold others morally accountable.

Keywords

Blame; holding accountable; moral standing; the Principle of Plenitude.

Author(s) and affiliation(s)

Author

Haozhan Sun

Affiliation

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology

Address

Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, 318 Liuhe Rd, Xihu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

E-mail

hs370@sussex.ac.uk 

Author

Ivo Dragoun

Affiliation

Sussex University

Address

University of Sussex, School of Media, Arts and Humanities Sussex House, Falmer Brighton, BN1 9RH United Kingdom

E-mail

id41@sussex.ac.uk 

About this article

Received

15 October 2021

Revised

19 July 2022

Accepted

19 August 2022

Published online

24 September 2022

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Cite as

APA

Sun, H. and Dragoun, I. (2022). On the Appropriateness of Holding Morally Accountable. Organon F29(3), 348–375. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29303

Chicago

Sun, Haozhan and Dragoun, Ivo. 2022. "On the Appropriateness of Holding Morally Accountable." Organon F 29 (3): 348–375. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29303

Harvard

Sun, H. and Dragoun, I. (2022). On the Appropriateness of Holding Morally Accountable. Organon F, 29(3), pp. 348–375. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2022.29303

Copyright information

© Haozhan Sun and Ivo Dragoun

Response page

https://www.sav.sk/?lang=sk&doc=journal-list&part=article_response_page&journal_article_no=28983

The above URL is linked to the article's response page. The response page is a permanent location that is associated with the article's DOI number.


This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).


Contact

Institute of Philosophy
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Klemensova 19
813 64 Bratislava
Slovak Republic
(+421 2) 5292 1215
FAX (+421 2) 5292 1215

Organon F takes part on the long-term preservation of the digital cultural heritage carried out by the University Library in Bratislava.