Simply Responsible: Basic Blame,

Scant Praise, and Minimal Agency Matt

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Simply Responsible
Simply Responsible
Basic Blame, Scant Praise, and
Minimal Agency

MATT KING
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 Contents

Preface vii
Introduction: A General Theory of Responsibility 1
1. The Basic Responsibility Relation 20
2. Basic Agency 36
3. Basic Blame and Basic Praise 69
4. Basic Desert 98
5. Beyond Basic Responsibility 125
Conclusion: Odds and Ends 154

References 175
Index 183
 Preface

I’m the sort of reader who likes a good preface to an academic book. I’m
mostly intrigued by the autobiographical history behind the work or
behind-the-scenes details regarding how it took shape. I also confess to
having scanned quite a few to see if my name was mentioned. That said,
if prefaces aren’t for you, I won’t take offense if you skip this part. I’ll start
with some background on how I came to write this book, and then I’ll
thank some folks. (In the lists below, I go alphabetically, to help others
find their names.)
The main idea of this book first took shape way back in graduate school.
Like many who think and write about responsibility, I was immediately
animated reading Peter Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment.” I had
started out as a political philosopher, thinking largely about issues of
political legitimacy. But I soon found myself thinking about our ordinary
practices of holding each other responsible, especially Strawson’s method-
ology of looking to when it would be inappropriate to hold others respon-
sible as a means to uncovering the conditions on being responsible.
I couldn’t help noticing that our ordinary practices extend well beyond
moral cases exhibiting good and ill will toward others, and I was struck by
the many parallels I saw across domains. I came to believe that non-moral
cases of responsibility were as theoretically significant as the moral ones.
This led me toward a project much in Strawson’s spirit, I suppose, but with
a very different structure in the end. A dissertation followed, defending a
compatibilist account of responsibility, using many of those same observa-
tions of symmetry. But, as with many dissertations, the discussion was a bit
programmatic, and it certainly was a bit too full of itself.
In subsequent years, I was fortunate to successfully publish work on a
number of topics regarding responsibility. However, the broader project
I had begun in the dissertation didn’t really figure directly into any of it.
It was still there in my thinking, of course, it was just operating in the
background in ways that didn’t affect those arguments (I hope). So,
viii 

I have been thinking about responsibility for almost twenty years, and it
has taken that long for me to develop that basic view into something
presentable. If you are one of the six people who read my dissertation,
you’ll no doubt recognize many familiar ideas and themes. But I hope
you will also appreciate the ways in which the ideas are more refined and
the theory more mature. For the rest of you, you’ll be no worse off for
having missed my earlier offering, though some of you may wish I had
taken even longer.
There are many people to thank. I’ll begin by thanking two graduate
school officemates, Josh Kassner and Bénédicte Veillet, who were sub-
jected to my very early thoughts on the significance of non-moral cases.
Since then, Bénédicte has been further subjected to my developing
thoughts on these matters, and I’m grateful for her many insights and
friendship over the years. Special thanks as well to Peter Carruthers,
whose guidance in graduate school—and beyond—has been invaluable.
In particular, he’s been very influential in how I think about minds.
Around 2007, I somehow convinced Manuel Vargas into serving as the
external member on my dissertation committee, despite having never
really met him before. With his patience and friendly criticisms, from a
three-day marathon to go over the entire dissertation (over the phone,
and a landline, no less) to many subsequent exchanges over the years, he
has been a most generous mentor. A final “old school” thanks goes to
Mark Schroeder, who supervised my dissertation. Much of my current
thinking on responsibility has been shaped by both the space he gave me
to develop my own ideas and his uncanny ability to understand the virtues
of those ideas better than I did. Throughout my career, I’ve often turned to
Mark for advice, and he has rarely steered me wrong. I’m particularly
pleased that he has finally turned some of his own attention toward
thinking about responsibility, so now he can learn from me for a change.
Over the years, several senior philosophers have taken the time to
engage with me and my work. Whether they knew it or not, their
attention or kind words often came at the precise moment when
I needed it most. My thanks to Sarah Buss, John Martin Fischer,
Pamela Hieronymi, Michael McKenna, Herbert Morris, George Sher,
Seana Shiffrin, David Shoemaker, Angela Smith, Holly Smith, Mark van
Roojen, Gary Watson, and Gideon Yaffe.
  ix

As for the book you now hold in your hands (or on your screens), it
benefited from the contributions of many individuals. Several people
read and commented on full drafts of the manuscript: John Martin
Fischer, Josh May, Mark Schroeder, and David Shoemaker. Each unques-
tionably improved the final product. I invite them to read the book again
carefully to see the fruits of their labors.
I’d like to thank the “Simpletons” Reading Group: Eric Brown, Daniel
Miller, and Nick Sars. We hung out on Zoom in three separate
sessions to discuss the entire manuscript during summer 2021, when
I had the basic ideas (mostly) worked out but many of the details under-
developed. (Nick Sars deserves an additional shoutout for giving me
pages of further comments after each session.) Their sharp criticisms
and constructive suggestions are evident in all chapters, even if some of
the details remain under-developed. They are, however, only now find-
ing out what I named our little group (owing to the book’s title, not our
collective intellect!).
The bulk of the writing was completed while I was on sabbatical from
UAB. My thanks to the Provost’s Office, Dean’s Office, and my chair,
David Chan, for granting me the year off from regular duties to complete
the manuscript.
During that same time, I was fortunate to hold a Murphy Fellowship at
the wonderful Murphy Institute at Tulane. My thanks to Steven Sheffrin
and David Shoemaker, who were at the time Executive Director of the
Institute and Director of the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs,
respectively, for the opportunity to work and learn with so many great
colleagues. The constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to
make the most of the fellowship remotely, so added thanks to the
Institute and all involved for providing such an excellent and accommo-
dating environment in which to work. As part of my year “at” Tulane,
I was able to present a snapshot of the book’s project early in its develop-
ment. My thanks to all who attended and asked great questions: Nathan
Biebel, Bruce Bower, Eric Brown, Alison Denham, Robert Hartman,
Cynthia Ma, David O’Brien, Abelard Podgorski, Jonathan Riley, Nick Sars,
David Shoemaker, Chad Van Schoelandt, Geoff Weiss. Abelard
Podgorski and Robert Hartman warrant special thanks—as my fellow
Murphy Fellows they were a regular source of support and insight as I wrote.
x 

In the later stages of writing, I was lucky to present material from the
latter half of the book—mainly some ideas about blame—to several
audiences. I’d like to thank all the participants for their penetrating
and helpful questions: Peter Carruthers, Shen Pan, Paolo Santorio, and
Allen Stairs (University of Maryland Work-in-Progress Series); Abdul
Ansari, Sarah Buss, Jason Byas, Mica Rapstine, Peter Railton, Joseph
Shin, Chandra Sripada, and Lianghua (Glenn) Zhou (University of
Michigan’s Ethics Discussion Group); Trevor Adams, Aaron Bronfman,
Bjorn Flanagan, Guillermo Gonzalez, Janelle Gormley, Jason Lemmon,
Jennifer McKitrick, Adam Thomson, and Mark van Roojen (University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Seminar); David Brink, Rosalind Chaplin, Kathleen
Connelly, Ying Liu, Dana Nelkin, Sam Ridge, Manuel Vargas, and
Shawn Tinghao Wang (University of California-San Diego Agency and
Responsibility Group). I had a fantastic time with each group, and, while
I tried to take accurate notes of who was there, my sincere apologies to
anyone I may have missed.
Additional thanks to Peter Momtchiloff at OUP and two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful guidance on the manuscript and for consid-
ering the project on its own terms. Thanks as well to the entire OUP
production team for the excellent work bridging the gap between my files
and an actual book.
The community of philosophers working on action and responsibility
has been the most welcoming, generous, and, dare I say, fun group I’ve
met. I’m grateful to you all for making that community so special. Given
my fallibility, I’m sure I’m forgotten to thank someone, for which I’m
sorry. I’m somewhat consoled, however, by the fact that, since we’re the
kindest and coolest philosophers around, no one will hold it against me.
My final, and deepest, gratitude goes to my spouse, Jennifer. At this
stage, it is simply impossible to disentangle all the various threads of
support, insight, and partnership that she has provided over the years.
She deserves special recognition for having to listen to more of my ideas
on responsibility than anybody, and she has done so with virtuous
good humor, wisdom, and clarity of thought. Simply put: thank you
for everything.
 Introduction
A General Theory of Responsibility

This book is about responsibility.

Moral responsibility is serious business. Holding others responsible
for their actions is central to our ordinary practices. We blame, we praise,
we decry, we applaud, we punish, we pin stars. When someone wrongs
us, or shows us great kindness, we respond with our anger or gratitude
accordingly, blaming or praising them for their deeds.
However, our ordinary practices are not limited to moral actions. We
also hold people responsible for a wide range of non-moral activities.
We cheer the catch and we boo the ref. We give one-star reviews and we
commend the chef.
The radical proposal for this book is that the blameworthy artist is
responsible in just the same way that the blameworthy thief is. We can be
responsible for all kinds of different activities, from lip-synching to long
division, from murders to meringues. But the relation involved, what I’ll
call the basic responsibility relation, is the same in every case. We are
responsible for the things we do first, then blameworthy or praiseworthy
for having done them in light of whether they’re good or bad, according
to a variety of standards.
Why is this a radical proposal? Firstly, because so much of the
contemporary literature on moral responsibility has moralized its nature.
According to the vast majority of accounts, moral responsibility is either
a special species of responsibility or else depends on moralized capacities.
In contrast, I think that we get a more complete and unifying picture of
responsible agency from a more general theory of responsibility.
Secondly, the proposal is radical due to its drastic simplicity. I forego
many of the complications that feature in other accounts of responsibil-
ity, arguing that we can make do with less demanding theoretical

Simply Responsible: Basic Blame, Scant Praise, and Minimal Agency. Matt King, Oxford University Press.
© Matt King 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192883599.003.0001
2  

elements. The resulting account is exceedingly minimal, and yet,

I remain attracted to its numerous virtues and explanatory strengths.

An Initial Case Study

Some years ago, I attended a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth

Symphony, put on by my local orchestra. It’s a favorite of mine, and a
familiar one (especially that opening phrase), deservedly recognized as a
masterpiece. That night, it was superbly performed by the orchestra. At
its conclusion, there was a standing ovation that persisted for some time.
(There was also, if memory serves, a good bit of whistling, hooting, and a
smidge of hurrahing.) It struck me at the time that I was doing (at least)
two separate things. One, I was applauding the orchestra, who had so
admirably executed a wonderful piece of music. Two, I was standing in
admiration of the piece of music itself, directing acclaim at Beethoven,
the composer.
This seems to me to make perfect sense. The composition is amazing
in its own right,¹ and would remain so, even if a particular performance
missed the mark. But the orchestra’s performance is separable from the
composition in the other direction as well. The symphony is inert until
brought to life by the performance, and, as aficionados will tell you, there
is much room for interpretation in an orchestral score. That the perfor-
mance was so lovely was a credit to the orchestra and its members, quite
apart from Beethoven’s contribution.
At this stage, I want to make but two brief points about this, dare I say,
ordinary example. First, there are many different sorts of things for which
we can be celebrated. Composing a great caprice, for instance, is one sort
of thing. Performing that caprice is another. If one thinks about it, there
isn’t a whole lot that composition has in common with performance,
and, of course, one can be a great performer without being a great
composer (and vice versa).

¹ Selecting any work on which to base this little bit of commentary is a bit risky, since a
reader may not share my estimation of the work. But my observations should generalize to any
piece of music one prefers instead.
  3

But our praise is not limited to great works of art. We are celebrated
for our contributions at work, the cake we bake, and the shots we make.
There is a great diversity to and broad range of things for which we are
praised.
These observations extend to the negative side of things as well. We
are criticized for our cooking, our trip planning, and our mismanage-
ment of money or time. There is no less diversity here.
The second point I want to make is that there is also a wide and diverse
range of ways in which we celebrate others. We applaud (but also hoot
and holler), we fête, we write moving tributes, we smile, we cheer, we
stand in awe, and we hand out trophies. Again, there isn’t much that
cheering has in common with handing over a bronze statuette. Yet, both
are ways by which we give praise.
Similar claims apply, again, to the negative side of things. We boo, we
give negative reviews, we jeer and call out others, we mark down, we feel
our ire rise, and we impose penalties. Again, there is extraordinary
diversity, and yet all are ways of disparaging others.
I make these observations at the outset to indicate the set of phenomena
with which I’m interested. We blame and praise each other throughout a
remarkable range of human endeavors—an incredibly diverse set of activ-
ities taking place within a staggering array of domains. Across academic,
artistic, and athletic domains (just to stick with “A”), we commend and
condemn, acclaim and accuse, give props and throw shade.
It strikes me that we clearly hold each other responsible for what we do
in all these areas. My starting point, then, is the whole range of human
activity (though I will often privilege artistic and athletic cases, to keep
the discussion focused). Importantly, a guiding idea of this book is
that the entire set of human activity, while broad and diffuse, is none-
theless fundamentally unified. There is no special moral realm of enter-
prise; rather, we do things in the world that can be assessed in a variety of
ways. We are not morally responsible for some things we do. We are
simply responsible for them, and some of them turn out to be morally
evaluable.²

² Arguably, virtually all we are responsible for is at least open to moral assessment. One virtue
of the account is that it can deliver this result straightforwardly and simply.
4  

What’s in a Name?

Philosophical work on moral responsibility has exploded in the last

twenty-five years or so. In that time, numerous families of theories, styles
of approaches, and an increasing diversity of distinctions have prolifer-
ated. It has become commonplace to situate one’s own account within a
panoply of trademarked camps or pick one’s team in a series of debated
distinctions.³ While I will, of course, place my view in contemporary
context, I’m driven more by a distinctive methodology and the theoret-
ical virtues of generality and simplicity than by the signposts and guard-
rails placed by extant discussions. The central conceit of the book is that
our best theory of responsibility should be developed out of a fuller range
of cases across a broader set of domains.⁴ I don’t pretend to theorize in a
vacuum, but I do explicitly seek a greater level of generality than most
mainstream work.⁵

³ A partial set includes: attributability vs. answerability vs. accountability; voluntarism vs.
non-voluntarism; real-self vs. control-based accounts.
⁴ Russell 2008 starts from a similar premise, parallelism between art and morality, but the
focus is on free will and its compatibility with determinism, and the chief exploration is through
concerns regarding the problem of luck. We thus develop the starting point in different
directions with different details. Haji 1998 also discusses blameworthiness across normative
domains, but leaves the concept unanalyzed, and doesn’t detail a supporting account of
responsibility to cover all the instances. Other projects that look at the broad set of agential
activities, but without a focus on responsibility, include Bradford 2015 and Shepherd 2021.
⁵ Admittedly, this is shifting. Some very recent work has started to look at similarities across
domains. See e.g. Brink 2021 (on legal and moral); Matheson & Milam 2022 (on non-moral
blame); Nelkin 2020 (on moral, aesthetic, and epistemic responsibility); Shoemaker 2022 (on
athletic anger). Still, my approach here is distinctive in just how general it aims to be (and, of
course, in the details of the account). The most similar approach might be in Wolf 2015:
Philosophers of action and of ethics tend to think that moral responsibility is a
central if not the central feature of human beings that distinguish us, at least in a
good way, from lower animals and machines. But if moral responsibility is not a part
of some larger or more general feature of human agency, it will be irrelevant to our
capacity for humor or creativity or to our susceptibility to nature or to beauty. It will
be irrelevant to much of what makes us alternatively lovable or obnoxious to each
other. This suggests that either moral responsibility has more limited significance
than these philosophers think, or—as I would prefer—that the most important and
deep kind of responsibility that distinguishes us as human is not limited to the
moral. (141)
As we’ll see, there are important points of divergence between this picture and the one I’ll
defend in this book, but the basic sentiment—that the most important and deep kind of
responsibility is not limited to the moral—is the same.
  5

Indeed, despite all the diversification in the literature, the vast majority
of theories are designed as theories of moral responsibility.⁶ They are
organized around cases of moral significance and moral evaluation,
actions that are either morally bad or wrong. (Indeed, even moral
praise has been given short shrift.)⁷ For example, Michael McKenna
considers that “[p]erhaps there is a distinct notion of personal respon-
sibility (between intimates), or professional responsibility; another that
concerns aesthetic commitments, or athletic commitments, or matters of
etiquette” (2012: 7), before setting such considerations aside. R. Jay
Wallace admits that we praise an artist’s “striking and successful work
of art” such that “our praise and admiration reflect a kind of credit on its
creator” and that we can “condemn the pianist’s latest performance . . . in
a way that reflects discredit on the pianist,” but dismisses such cases
because “this kind of direct appraisal does not seem especially moral in
its quality” (1994: 53–4). More often, a theory’s default concern is with
the moral cases, and so the parallel instances aren’t explicitly addressed.⁸
This focus is, in one sense, perfectly understandable, since what
motivates our consideration of questions of responsibility is so often its
moral dimensions. It is cases of wrongdoing and punishment, of vicious-
ness and harm, that so animate our initial interest. It is thus unsurprising
that many would begin with the moral. Nevertheless, neglecting the non-
moral cases risks myopia. If we limit our gaze to morally significant
actions, it can appear obvious that non-moral cases aren’t relevant to
developing a theory of moral responsibility. Indeed, it is common for
theorists to simply stipulate that their theoretical focus is on moral
responsibility. One advantage of such a move is that it clarifies one’s
project at the outset. Responsibility is a particularly nebulous and
shifty topic. The ways in which we talk about responsibility are “richly

⁶ While this orthodoxy is slowly shifting, and though there have certainly been exceptions
(e.g. Fischer & Ravizza 1998 takes the moral responsibility relation to apply to non-moral
actions and outcomes), it remains true that most theories of responsibility are developed in
exclusively moral terms. Even those that indicate the relevance of non-moral instances tend to
focus exclusively on moral cases in developing their views.
⁷ Shoemaker 2015 and Vargas 2013 are notable recent exceptions.
⁸ Still others give accounts of something much closer to free will, if understood as the control
condition on responsibility. See McKenna 2012 for discussion. Prime examples would be
Fischer & Ravizza 1998 and Mele 1995. Even so, their focus still tends to be restricted to
moral phenomena (explicitly so in the case of Mele).
6  

ambiguous,”⁹ suggesting subtle but potentially important differences. An

attractive approach to such a nebulous topic is to start with some
stipulations in an effort make the questions more tractable and narrow
the field of inquiry.
A significant drawback of such an approach, however, is that stipula-
tions restrict the theoretical possibilities.¹⁰ For instance, an approach that
concerns itself with blameworthiness alone denies itself potential
resources that may be revealed by examining praiseworthiness.¹¹ If a
view constricts its focus to moral cases alone, it excludes the possibility
that non-moral cases may shed additional light on the conditions on
moral responsibility. Indeed, even stipulating the sense of responsibility
one is investigating presumes there are different sorts of responsibility to
give an account of, and that they are indeed separable. Regardless, while
there may well be multiple kinds of responsibility, I don’t want to bias
that question by fiat in characterizing the project. A major objective in
the discussion to come is to clarify the notion of responsibility underly-
ing agential assessment across evaluative domains.¹²
Of course, theorists have discretion over the starting points of their
theories or in addressing the phenomena in which they’re interested. But
they do so at their own peril; for theories are not constrained solely by
what they set out to explain. For example, I am writing this in my home
in Alabama, which has coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, we

⁹ Zimmerman 1988: 1. He in turn cites Baier 1970: 103–7; Glover 1970: 19; and Hart 1968:
211–12, as making similar observations. No doubt this is a pervasive feature of the background
on theorizing about “responsibility.”
¹⁰ See Rosen 2015 for an analysis of moral responsibility that begins, explicitly, with several
rounds of stipulations. It is a model of clarity, and it makes the resulting discussion extremely
composed and tractable. It also, by necessity, restricts theoretical options, and involves ruling
out certain possibilities: “When you admire someone for . . . her fine performance on the bongos,
you do not thereby deem her morally responsible in any sense” (68 n. 7, italics in original).
I don’t want to stipulatively foreclose the possibility that excellent bongo-playing is relevant to
moral responsibility.
¹¹ See Wallace 1994 for such a view.
¹² If it helps, one can imagine for a moment that it is 1995. Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little
Pill” is dominating the airwaves, “Matlock” just broadcast its final episode, and NASA’s Galileo
probe has reached Jupiter. Of more immediate bearing, Gary Watson hasn’t yet published “Two
Faces of Responsibility” (though its ideas may certainly have started circulating, I can’t speak to
that). Consequently, the literature isn’t framed by a division between kinds of responsibility, like
attributability and accountability. (Of course, one will have to return to the present to continue
reading, else many of my references will make no sense.) I return to the idea of pluralism about
responsibility in Chapter 5.
  7

often pay attention to hurricane activity. Though I am unlikely to face a

hurricane directly where I live, these powerful storms yield indirect
effects. They pose significant threats to nearby areas and affect local
weather patterns, including increasing the risk of flooding or tornadoes.
So, while I don’t worry about hurricanes per se, they are relevant to my
concerns. (Indeed, since moving here in 2014, there have been two
hurricane remnants that have passed through town as tropical depres-
sions after making landfall, and many more have come nearby.)
In contrast, I don’t worry about typhoons at all.¹³ Typhoons are pacific
tropical storms (between 100 and 180 degrees longitude). They occur
very far away from my home in Alabama, and tend to move from east to
west—i.e. further away from me. While such storms might produce
incidental effects on my weather or well-being, these are very unlikely
to be significant enough for me to pay attention to.¹⁴
For the record, typhoons are limited to the northern hemisphere.
Storms in the southern Indian or southwestern Pacific oceans are simply
called by the generic, “cyclone.” So, if you live in Alabama, you worry
about hurricanes. In Japan, it’s typhoons. And Tongans should be on the
lookout for cyclones.
If we want to give an account of tropical cyclones, however, it won’t do
to limit our gaze to hurricanes. Even if we begin with only an interest in
Caribbean storms, even if we generate a perfectly adequate account
of Caribbean storms, our explanations will plausibly not be limited to
Caribbean phenomena. Given the similarities between hurricanes,
typhoons, and cyclones, we should want to explain those similarities.
Thus, an account of cyclones ought to explain not just hurricanes, but
typhoons as well.
Though focused on meteorological phenomena, there is an instructive
methodological lesson here. Theories seek to unify a range of phenomena
under general explanations. More general theories, naturally, seek to
unify a broader range of phenomena under more general explanations.
My proposal here is to seek a more general explanation of both moral

¹³ On these distinctions between kinds of storms, I follow National Public Radio’s reporting
(https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/08/243980516/which-is-it-hurricane-
typhoon-or-tropical-cyclone).
¹⁴ The suffering they cause where they are located is another matter entirely.
8  

and non-moral conduct. I’ll argue that the parallels between moral and
non-moral evaluation reveal an underlying commonality, what I’ll call
the basic responsibility relation. I may be mistaken, of course. Perhaps
moral blameworthiness and praiseworthiness really are distinctive,
and moral responsibility is its own special relation.¹⁵ But there is a
difference between objecting to a general account and dismissing it.
One cannot dismiss planetary motion whilst defending Galileo over
Newton, insisting that one is only concerned with the motion of falling
bodies, or ignore Maxwell’s account of electromagnetism by stipulating
an interest in electricity alone. Likewise, one cannot dismiss my
approach because one thinks the non-moral cases are irrelevant to
moral responsibility, for even if they are, they are clearly relevant to a
more general theory.

Being Responsible

The goal of the present project, in any case, is to present a positive

general theory of responsibility, and I will thus say relatively little upfront
to sharpen the concept. Nevertheless, there are some general remarks to
help to set expectations. By way of orienting the discussion, it’s impor-
tant to signal that my primary interest concerns what it takes to be
responsible, in the sense that Beethoven is responsible for his 5th
Symphony and the orchestra was responsible for that performance.¹⁶
I consider this to be the principal question for a theory of responsibility,
one explanatorily prior to questions about the appropriateness of hold-
ing someone responsible.¹⁷

¹⁵ Obviously, I don’t deny that there are some differences between moral and non-moral
responsibility. I only deny that moral responsibility is a distinctive relation. Still, it’s plausible
that moral responsibility has a distinctive significance, a point to which I return at various stages.
¹⁶ Or, alternatively, each of its members for their contribution. The question of collective
responsibility is interesting in its own right, but I won’t consider it here. For some relevant
discussion, see Björnsson & Hess 2017; French 1984; Isaacs 2011.
¹⁷ Cf. Smith 2007: “to say that a person is morally responsible for some thing is to say that it
can be attributed to her in the way that is required in order for it to be a basis for moral
appraisal” (467). See also Berofsky 1987; Oakley 1992; Scanlon 1998 (all referenced in Smith
2007: 468 n. 6).
  9

Responsibility of this sort concerns (among other things) the problem

of free will,¹⁸ our ability to exert meaningful control over what we do, to
author our own stories, and to be genuinely worthy of the evaluations
others make of us. These features, however, while undeniably crucial to
our moral practices, are far more general than this. They speak to our
natures as agents, beings who act in the world to create art, advance
science, achieve great feats of athletic prowess, and yes, do moral evil as
well as good.
While I will consult our practices of holding each other responsible in
what follows, I take those practices to be of secondary explanatory
importance. This is not because they are less important. On the contrary,
they figure into some of the most significant ways we relate to one
another. (Though, crucially, they do not exhaust those ways.) But my
aim is not to justify our practices. Instead, I enlist them in service of
getting clearer about being responsible.¹⁹ Thus, for me, the justification
of our practices, and all the contours of their particular elements, is
importantly a separate question (or set of questions).
Admittedly, even designating this set of practices as the category of
“holding responsible” is imperfect, given, as it does, its stronger affinity
for the negative side of things. It is somewhat odd, for instance, to say
that when we give out an Emmy we are thereby holding the performer
responsible for her performance. But, for all that, I think it clear that we
take such performers to be responsible for their performances, and, if
they were not, we would have clear grounds for denying them the award.

¹⁸ There is no consensus on just what the problem of free will is. But I take at least a major
recognizable strand of that problem to concern our ability to be meaningfully connected to the
things we do in the world given the way that the world is structured.
¹⁹ Cf. Shoemaker 2015, which cites a division between theories that take being responsible to
be the primary relation (what he calls the b-tradition) and those that take the appropriateness of
holding responsible to be primary (what he calls the h-tradition) (19–20). See also Brink &
Nelkin 2013. In my view, the heteronomy of our practices of holding others responsible, the
wide variety in our appropriate responses, makes the h-tradition unstable. The more varied our
responses, the less likely we are to derive a notion of being responsible out of them, rather than
many. The h-tradition, then, is more likely to result in pluralism about responsibility as a
methodological consequence. I take there to be some sociological support for this claim given
that most h-tradition theorists are either pluralists about responsibility or else artificially restrict
the scope of their views. For a nuanced discussion of the relative priority of these two questions,
by which I’ve been influenced, see McKenna 2012: 39–55.
10  

It is therefore perhaps most accurate to say that I begin with a

distinction between what it takes to be responsible and how we ought
to respond to the responsible. These responses, how we treat the blame-
worthy and praiseworthy, the ways in which we take their responsibility
to be significant, can all count as responsibility-related elements of our
practices. Yet, despite being related to responsibility, it doesn’t follow
that this diverse and disparate set of practices should be the principal
province of theories of responsibility. We view and relate to each other in
various ways. As subjects-of-a-life, as moral patients, as embedded in
relationships (friends; family; teammates), as inhabiting roles (citizen;
shopkeeper; artist), as sources of interdependence, as minded creatures
with complex attitudes and emotions, etc. I cannot hope to address
all these features that bear on our interpersonal interactions, nor do
I think they must all be central to a theory of responsibility, especially
if that theory is aiming at a suitable level of generality. What I propose is
starting with a way that we relate to the world around us, saving these
interpersonal dynamics for later-stage theorizing.
My framing of the issues then, is essentially metaphysical. Strawson
(1962) may have been right that there is much about relating to other
persons that is insulated from “panicky metaphysics,” but there is also
something centrally relevant to how we interact with the world. In my
view, when we are responsible for things, it is our connection to those
things that matters. And that relation is primarily metaphysical.²⁰
One way to approach this idea clearly is to think about the notions of
apology and forgiveness. One could insist that both are central elements
of a theory of responsibility. I think they are better conceived as constitu-
ents of a broader domain regarding the dynamics of our responses to those
responsible for things, one which far outstrips the boundaries of, for lack
of a better term, the responsibility domain. As some initial evidence for
this priority, notice that we remain responsible and blameworthy for the

²⁰ I take no stand, however, on the precise nature of the metaphysics involved, whether the
relation is to be understood as, say, part of the “furniture of the universe” or in some other
respectable way. The idea here is simply that responsibility is best understood as relating
persons to things they can be evaluated for in a way that is inescapably metaphysical, in contrast
to certain contemporary approaches that frame questions of responsibility in normative terms
(see e.g. Darwall 2006; Scanlon 2008; Wallace 1994).
  11

things we’ve done even when we’re forgiven for them and it often makes
perfect sense to apologize for things for which we aren’t responsible
(damage produced by our child; an innocent but consequential mistake).
Naturally, our more general theories will have to accommodate facts about
apology and forgiveness. But that is to be expected. Indeed, to the extent
that non-moral apology abounds (a player might apologize to a teammate
for dropping a pass—and be subsequently forgiven), the general frame-
work I’m providing may prove fruitful beyond what I set out to explore
here.²¹ Nevertheless, I will leave a detailed consideration of the compli-
cated dynamics involved in the fuller range of our responses to the
responsible for later work, though I will at times revisit this theme in the
chapters to come. In particular, I’ll consider the relevance of justifying
punishment in Chapter 4. For similar reasons to those regarding apology
and forgiveness, I’ll argue that the appropriateness of punishment is
largely orthogonal to a theory of responsibility. For now, I’ll note that
questions of punishment are inapt across a wide swath of human activity
in which we are seemingly nonetheless responsible.
There are, of course, different ways we might seek more generality
from a theory of responsibility. Thus, I acknowledge at the outset that my
approach isn’t necessarily the only sort of worthwhile generalization.
Different strategies may yield different virtues worth considering.
Nevertheless, my initial interest is in consulting the broader set of
activities in which we’re responsible. If there are commonalities between
being responsible for the moral things we do and, say, the artistic ones,
those commonalities are worth exploring. And investigating these com-
monalities directs us toward a more general theory of responsibility.

An Argument in Two Keys

In what follows, I develop that general theory. I argue that despite its
simplicity, the basic responsibility relation figures in an attractive and

²¹ Though, again, see Matheson & Milam 2022 for an argument that all such cases of
responsibility are in fact cases of “moral” responsibility. I discuss their approach in Chapter 3
when considering non-moral blame.
12  

explanatorily powerful account of responsibility, one that warrants

consideration amidst competing accounts of moral responsibility. Thus,
the main way to take the project of the book is as a defense of a
thoroughly minimalist theory of responsibility, necessary to explaining
the wide set of data/cases/explananda. In this major key, one objective
of the book is to reorient how we should theorize about (moral)
responsibility.
However, I recognize that some readers may balk at my attempt to
appeal to non-moral cases, or otherwise reject that (at least some of) the
things I claim need explaining really need explaining by a theory of
(moral) responsibility. Others may complain that the distinctiveness of
moral responsibility is the thing to be explained, and that giving it up is a
cost to be avoided. In an effort to nonetheless bring something of value to
such readers, I offer a second interpretation. One can instead treat the
book’s project as taking a conjecture and exploring how much work it
can do. In this minor key, the aim is to demonstrate how many resources
a rather simple sort of picture about responsibility has, even if that
picture doesn’t ultimately capture all you might want your theory of
moral responsibility to explain. Though I will argue that where the view
doesn’t deliver on some element of our practices we have independent
reasons to be suspicious of those elements (or else that they should be
captured independent of a theory of responsibility), those unpersuaded
are free to treat the basic responsibility relation as being foundational to
their own preferred responsibility framework.²²
Both interpretations are equally conditional on the basic responsibility
relation, but the minor key gives one more room to disagree with the
initial framework. Regardless of which key one favors, I hope that even
where I’m wrong in what follows, I am wrong in interesting and pro-
ductive ways. And for those that choose the minor key, I hope to
demonstrate the merits of transposing into the major along the way.
No matter the key, my aim is to defend the argument with a minimum
of technical jargon or theoretical formulations. This can be potentially

²² So, for instance, those that take responsibility (in whatever flavor) to be importantly about
grounding desert of sanction or punishment can interpret the basic responsibility relation as
being fundamental to that other notion of responsibility. I’ll revisit some of the available
takeaways in the Conclusion.
  13

off-putting. It risks implying that I’m ignoring swaths of a literature

which has carefully regimented our understanding of action, intention-
ality, responsibility, and blame. I hope to manage without such an
intricate infrastructure. To assuage some worries, however, I will gesture
toward ways in which the framework I develop can be fit into some of the
more familiar philosophical apparatus.²³ In most cases, the elements of
the theory I propose are compatible with various ways of developing the
details.
Indeed, one main strength of the theory to come rests on its relative
simplicity and the generality of its scope. These are virtues worth
preserving, even if we encounter some counterintuitive results.²⁴ The
standard problem for such a view is that it leaves something out. The
more minimal a theory is the more likely it is to lack various resources,
resources we may need in order to explain important phenomena.
(It would have been simpler to stop physical ontology at protons,
neutrons, and electrons, but these particles appear unable to handle
certain complex phenomena.) Consequently, I will often focus in
what follows on elements of our blaming and praising practices
that seem unaddressed by my account. I argue that once we appro-
priately clarify the nature of these elements, three solutions typically
suffice. First, the element is easily accounted for by the theory, so
presents no special explanatory difficulty. Second, the element ought
to be rejected on independent grounds—that is, independent of my
account. Finally, for those elements that should not be rejected and
are not already captured by my account, I argue that they are best
located within our broader moral practices rather than specific to a
theory of responsibility. Such elements will typically concern specif-
ically moral matters (or manifest in distinctive ways when applied to
moral matters), and thus, per hypothesis, will be separable from a
general theory of responsibility. I’ll aim to justify that exclusion
when such elements arise.

²³ Such connections will often be relegated to footnotes, however, in the interest of main-
taining flow. My apologies to those whose sensibilities are offended by this possibly profligate
deployment.
²⁴ Cf. Weatherson 2003.
14  

Local Focus

In addition to concentrating on being responsible, as evidenced across

many different domains, another distinctive component of my approach
concerns the kind of object it treats as fundamental. Many accounts of
moral responsibility frame their approach by targeting a kind of individ-
ual. For example, David Shoemaker writes, “I will not (primarily) be
investigating those conditions that make a generally responsible agent
responsible or not for some specific action or attitude. Rather, the focus
of my investigation is prior: What makes someone have the status of
being a responsible agent in the first place?” (2015: 5).
I approach matters from the opposite direction. I am interested in
precisely those conditions that make one responsible for a particular
thing—what we might call local responsibility. I will, for the most part,
ignore responsible agency altogether, taking it as given that we are
responsible agents so long as we can be responsible for some things.
The idea here is that what makes for a “generally responsible agent” is
entirely dependent on satisfying the criteria for local responsibility, and,
in any case, is of secondary importance.
Thus, I privilege theorizing from the actual elements that play a role in
local exercises of agency, rather than in global capacities, conditions,
dispositions, or powers. The main reason for my approach is theoretical
simplicity. An account of local responsibility can provide an account of
responsible agency, but not vice versa. Put differently, the capacities
involved in responsible agency can never be explanatorily sufficient for
being responsible for a particular thing. In this way, I am explicitly
rejecting the idea that “being a responsible agent” precedes “being
responsible for something.”
Consider the capacity to ride a bike. If I’m able to ride a bike, it means
that given appropriate circumstances and means, and the appropriate
mental states and decisions, I ride a bike. But being able to ride a bike
can’t explain any particular instance of successfully riding. To do that,
we’d have to appeal to different things, like pedaling, steering, and
balancing. Now, one might note that the capacity to ride a bike surely
requires, among other things, the capacities to pedal, steer, and balance.
But this just reiterates the problem, for the capacity to do these things is
  15

not sufficient for actually doing them. Successfully riding a bike requires
actually pedaling, steering, and balancing.²⁵
Thus, I focus on what people do do, rather than what they can do.
Their capacities are of secondary importance, for having the capacity to
be responsible cannot adequately explain being responsible for some-
thing.²⁶ And it’s being responsible that I’m most interested in.
Moreover, focusing on who is a responsible agent and who isn’t is
liable to get things importantly wrong. For instance, it is common to
examine exemptions as considerations that establish a lack of responsible
agency. The exempt cannot be responsible for anything.²⁷ But this
often treats matters too crudely. Those in the latter stages of progressive
dementia typically suffer from numerous cognitive and regulatory
impairments. Let us assume these impairments render them non-
responsible for their actions, such as angry outbursts or a remark that
would otherwise appear careless but for their confusion. Still, even those
with progressed dementia are subject to occasional bouts of clarity,
where symptoms largely abate, allowing them to think more clearly.
Such a person would seemingly be responsible for their outbursts or
insensitive comments under such conditions, regardless of their more
general capacities.²⁸ And this observation generalizes, I think. It follows
from my approach that so long as one satisfies the conditions on being
responsible for a particular thing, one is thereby responsible for it, no
matter their general capacities, and no matter the likelihood that they are
(or will be or were) responsible for anything else.²⁹

²⁵ We could call these instances of exercising a capacity, of course. Still, that doesn’t really
help matters. It is unclear what exercising a capacity involves that isn’t exhausted by doing the
particular elements themselves.
²⁶ Contrast Wallace 1994: “what matters is not our ability to exercise our general powers of
reflective self-control, but simply the possession of such powers” (183).
²⁷ This might be a general exemption across the board or, for pluralists, exemption from a
particular type of responsibility. See Shoemaker 2015 for a project organized around particular-
ized exemptions.
²⁸ For a discussion of the dangers of exemption, both methodologically and morally, see King
& May 2018 and Shoemaker 2022. There are also many complications here I’m ignoring, such as
implications that certain conditions, like dementia, might have for, say, personal identity
(see e.g. Dresser 1995).
²⁹ One way of interpreting this position is as an extreme version of an “actual-sequence”
approach to responsibility. See e.g. Fischer 2011.
16  

All that said, my objective here is not to criticize such approaches,

but to disclose my reasoning in favor of an alternative method. If this
approach rankles, fear not, for very little hangs on it. Indeed, I reference
what I call basic agency in Chapter 2, exploring what is required for being
locally responsible for things. There, I look at the things that agents—
doers of deeds—like ourselves can do. But, if I’ve been suitably careful,
one will note that I always begin by working from what we in fact do do.
I believe there are advantages to approaching matters in this way, but
nothing about the nature of the basic responsibility relation, or its
attendant elements to be developed, fundamentally depends on this
approach.
All the preceding constraints on framing the project involve substan-
tive claims that are subject to dispute. I won’t argue directly for any of
them. Nonetheless, they can be glossed in either the major or minor key.
In the major mood, the theory of responsibility to follow will provide
indirect support for the background picture here. The strength of the
account lies in the way the pieces fit together, so to the extent that I can
successfully defend its parts, it will lend some credence to these prelim-
inary claims.
In the minor mood, these assumptions fall under the heading of “truth
in advertising.” I’m laying some cards on the table so that readers have a
better sense of where I’m coming from, even those that may have
diametrically opposed preferences. Still, even though these parameters
are all contestable, I take them to be perfectly plausible predilections, and
together they form a suitably sensible starting point.

Roadmap

When I was growing up there was a popular board game called

MouseTrap. Some readers may be familiar. The object was to roll dice
and move one’s piece, a plastic mouse, around the board. As the pieces
went around you could build up the contraption, basically a Rube
Goldberg machine, which culminated in dropping a cage down around
an opponent’s piece on a particular square. I was never much for playing
the whole game, but I loved building that machine and setting it
  17

into motion—watching the boot kick the cup over, which released
the ball bearing down the zigzag path, eventually flipping the man off
the see-saw . . . .
Rube Goldberg machines can be immensely fun to construct and
watch. This was certainly my experience with MouseTrap. But as a
means of accomplishing their goal, they’re definitionally overly complex.
Far easier than using the board game’s contraption to trap the oppo-
nent’s piece would be to simply drop the cage directly.³⁰
Similarly, elaborate theories and explanations of phenomena can
ensnare our interest and attention. And while an intricate account can
explain just as well as a simpler one, the simpler one is generally to be
preferred. In my view, contemporary theories of responsibility are a bit
like Rube Goldberg machines. They are more complicated than they
need to be. Part of the ambition of this book is to correct for these
extraneous complications. Indeed, I think responsibility comes rather
easily—“on the cheap,” as it were—and this book constitutes an initial
defense of that claim.
In its ambition, the project risks arrogance. After all, many very
talented theorists have turned their careful attention to the nature of
moral responsibility, and whether concentrated on the traditional prob-
lem of free will or more contemporary concerns, the subject matter has
been carefully, and thoroughly, scrutinized. But my aim here isn’t to
quarrel directly with such attempts. Instead, I’m offering an alternative
approach for consideration; a possibility story. The aim is to draft a
competing view, to get the picture up and running, demonstrating its
attractions, rather than to establish it as superior to all rivals. The book is
thus oriented toward getting the basic pieces in place.
To that end, it will be helpful to have a sense of the full picture before
beginning. Obviously, I can only sketch the overall structure of the
theory at this stage. Still, I hope that having at least that sketch will
help readers in discerning and digesting the discussion to come.

³⁰ Somewhat ironically, this is often what had to be done during gameplay anyway, as the
penultimate step in the contraption, responsible for triggering the cage dropping, was notori-
ously unreliable.
18  

Chapter 1 lays out the initial case for the basic responsibility relation.
I observe a number of parallels across a wide range of moral and non-
moral cases, which support a shared relation that connects doers to their
doings so that the former can be evaluated by the latter’s lights. This is
the basic responsibility relation. The goal is to establish a framework
from which we might build a theory of general responsibility.
Chapter 2 develops the elements of the basic responsibility relation
and explains why those elements contribute to the relation doing the
work that it does. I argue that the basic responsibility relation is
grounded on the core features of our agency that we use to navigate
the world as we do. These elements constitute our basic agency and
provide the basis for a kind of control over our activities. This control is
sensitive to some very basic conditions, which I argue are the conditions
on the basic responsibility relation.
The structure of the basic responsibility relation connects agents to the
things they do such that they can be evaluated by the properties of their
actions. The evaluations of the agents come in two basic flavors: positive
and negative. Chapter 3 articulates these evaluations in terms of basic
blame and basic praise. I begin with the tight conceptual connection
between blameworthiness and blame: blame is just what the blamewor-
thy are worthy of. (The story for praiseworthiness and praise is perfectly
parallel.) Through the first two chapters, we’ll have seen a wide variety of
things for which we can be blameworthy and praiseworthy. There is also
a diverse array of ways to be blamed and praised. Consequently, I argue
we have reason to look for a very minimal notion of basic blame (and
basic praise) that all cases of blame (and praise) share. I argue that basic
blame is the response merited by all who are responsible for something
bad and basic praise is the response merited by those responsible for
something good. The rest of the chapter develops the view by high-
lighting what it gets right about blame and blaming, while defending it
against worries that it is too modest a notion.
In constructing my account of basic blame and basic praise, the
worthiness relation is left unanalyzed. If the blameworthy are worthy
of blame, then an account of blameworthiness owes us an account of the
way in which they are worthy of that blame. Chapter 4 outlines this
worthiness relation in terms of a familiar notion: basic desert. I argue
  19

that desert is a natural candidate for the worthiness relation, and, though
not entirely uncontroversial, one that has consensus support already.
I suggest that we understand the desert in question in terms of a
kind of fittingness, and that this relation is non-trivial. When the
basic responsibility relation holds, we merit the evaluative responses we
do (basic blame and basic praise) in light of our evaluative properties
(basic blameworthiness and praiseworthiness), which we have in virtue
of the basic responsibility relation (and whether the thing we’re respon-
sible for is good or bad).
Chapter 5 examines the prospects for the theory of basic responsibility
to speak to some familiar themes from the existing literature on moral
responsibility. In particular, I develop some ideas sketched in Chapter 2
regarding the connection between the control afforded us via basic
agency and our evaluative stances. There is a long tradition that
seeks to isolate the responsibility-grounding elements of a person—the
so-called “real self.” Drawing upon some insights from that tradition,
I argue that the picture I’ve developed in the book gives us satisfying, if
unusual, explanations of deep evaluations of ourselves, our characters,
and attitudes.
A brief conclusion, well, concludes. I gesture toward some larger
lessons from the preceding discussion, as well as consider some more
speculative implications of my overall view.
 1
The Basic Responsibility Relation

In this chapter, drawing on widespread symmetry between moral and

non-moral cases of responsibility, I set out the organizing idea of the
book: that there is a single responsibility relation shared across the cases,
one which grounds positive and negative evaluations of agents in light of
the positive and negative features of the thing done. My aim here is
merely to get the ball rolling, so to speak; to show that we have good
reason to think such a relation exists. Chapter 2 will develop the idea and
the relation’s conditions.

Symmetry in Praising and Blaming

A moment’s reflection reveals the vast array of ways in which we hold

each other morally responsible, as well as the diversity of things for
which we hold them responsible. We blame our friends for letting us
down, make angry calls to our representatives for their policy decisions,
and criticize the bad behavior of celebrities. We praise our spouses for
their support, laud those that stand up for positive change, and express
gratitude for a simple kindness.
Indeed, our everyday lives as we understand them are shot through
with attributions of responsibility. Horns blare toward a seemingly
selfish driver, holding up traffic; a brief wave to the commuter who let
someone merge. Our coworkers annoy and frustrate with missed dead-
lines or dropped assignments, but they also pitch in to cover for us or
support us in a new project. A passing “thanks” directed to those that
hold open doors or an exasperated sigh when someone cuts in line. These
all highlight the varying ways in which we hold others responsible for
their moral conduct.

Simply Responsible: Basic Blame, Scant Praise, and Minimal Agency. Matt King, Oxford University Press.
© Matt King 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192883599.003.0002
     21

This is but a subset of such instances, however. We hold people

responsible for many non-moral things, too.
In the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, a routine
ground ball passed through Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s
legs, allowing the winning run to score. Whether fair or not, many fans
held Buckner personally responsible for the loss. Indeed, according to the
rules of baseball, his error means, amongst other things, that the run
scored as a result is not charged to the pitcher. It’s Buckner’s fault; he’s to
blame. The severity of this assessment throughout New England was
manifested in the death threats and personal attacks Buckner and his
family suffered as a result, eventually culminating in the Red Sox releas-
ing him the following season. In fact, despite returning to finish his
career and retire as a member of the Red Sox, forgiven by at least some
fans,¹ Buckner decided to move away from Boston in the early ’90s, in
large part due to repeated encounters with hostile fans who were unwill-
ing to move on from his error.²
While an undoubtedly extreme example, such reactions to athletic
performance are not rare. Attend most any sporting event and one will
hear both cheers and jeers directed at players and officials alike.
Sometimes, of course, all this hullabaloo is merely registering like or
dislike for various individuals or occurrences, but more often than not it
reflects the assessment of a particular play or performance.
Indeed, each year across a variety of sports, All-Stars are selected,
ostensibly as a result of their stellar play. Within both professional
leagues and amateur ranks, awards are doled out in recognition of
seasonal achievements and spectacular plays. Fans and pundits alike
argue about undeserved inclusions or who was “snubbed”—i.e. who
should have won but went unrecognized.³
Bestowing awards are somewhat formal examples, where there are
established policies and procedures and, usually, some voting mechanism

¹ Buckner reportedly received a standing ovation when his name was announced in the first
home game of his second stint with the club, indicating a good many fans had forgiven him.
² Some coverage can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Buckner.
³ The relationship between responsibility and desert is contentious. I’ll take up the relation-
ship directly in Chapter 4. For now, desert talk can be treated loosely, as synonymous with
whatever worthiness is involved in being blameworthy and praiseworthy.
22  

by members. But less formal examples abound. In barrooms and base-

ments rage endless arguments over who was the “Greatest of All Time” in
a particular sport or position, fans lay blame on particular players for a lost
game or missed catch, and sing the praises of she who scored the winning
goal, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. (Indeed, innumerable
sports talk programs arguably exist solely to provide a forum for such
discussions.) Professional athletes regularly exhibit similar displays,
whether it’s a pat on the bum for a scoring catch or an incredulous stare
for the pass that didn’t come, though weekend players are not exempt. High
fives are no less frequent on the intramural pitch as they are on ESPN.
Similar observations can be made in artistic fields. Regardless of
whether they succeed in their task, the Academy Awards are meant to
honor the best performances in film, both in front of and behind the
camera. While certainly less notable, the Golden Raspberry Awards
(or Razzies) somewhat affectionately “honor” the worst performances
in film.⁴ In this domain, as well, arguments can be made and rebutted
about who deserved which award or which selection was unwarranted.
Here, too, we find less formal practices. Coverage of those very same
awards ceremonies often features commentary on the style of the atten-
dees, in popular “Who wore it best?” discussions. While we may disagree
over precisely to whom the credit or embarrassment should go (the
wearer or their stylist), the implication is that there is such a person.
Message boards and internet comment threads fill with criticism of direc-
torial choices, a depiction of a favorite character, or, more rarely, props for
a particularly amazing or delightful performance. As the close of each year
approaches, countless websites and publications issue their annual “best”
lists, touting their picks for the finest in television, film, music, etc.
In a 1949 article, LIFE magazine framed its treatment of Jackson
Pollock by asking whether he was the greatest living painter in the
United States.⁵ A legend in his own time, Pollock had garnered fame
for his abstract expressionistic style, lauded by art critics for his creativity
and revolutionary approach. In contrast, in what has now become a cult
classic, Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 movie, The Room, is widely regarded as

⁴ See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Raspberry_Awards.
⁵ LIFE Magazine, August 1949.
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one of the worst films ever made. As writer, director, and principal actor,
the ignominy for its many flaws seems to rest squarely on Wiseau’s
shoulders.⁶ (Its making has since been immortalized—and somewhat
celebrated—in the 2017 film, The Disaster Artist.)
The list could go on. Sometimes, after reading a particularly incisive
philosophy paper or coming across an inventive argument, I write to its
author to commend them. (Even more frequently, I am sure to tell
students when they’ve been creative or otherwise excellent in generating
a question, argument, or objection.) Or consider the importance of
academic practices of citation and the related misconduct of plagiarism.
To fail to give credit to the work of others is to try to claim it for oneself.
At a minimum, one risks misleading a reader about where credit is due.
Our default is to see the written piece as a product of its author. Here, as
elsewhere, we are assessed for the products of our work (as anyone who
has filled out an annual report for administrators can attest).
It’s also worth considering some more mundane examples, to give a
sense of the proper scope and diversity of these practices. When one
comes home to find one’s spouse has tidied the house or made dinner,
one is appreciative of them because they are the one who is responsible. If
a neighbor had brought over dinner or the kids had done the tidying,
one’s gratitude would have to be redirected. The plumber gets our thanks
for the cleared clog, and the mechanic our ire if he overcharges or makes
the problem worse.
One might think that such a disparate set resists systematization, but
several features are common to all these examples. First, individuals are
being evaluated for their activities. While we can appreciate the beauty of
a painting in the way we might appreciate, say, the beauty of a sunset,
without attributing it to any author, this is not how we normally respond
to artwork.⁷ Our stance toward the object treats it as someone’s doing. It
is not just an agreeable arrangement of properties, but the result of
someone’s activity. In museums, we search out that card or plaque
with identifying information. Just who is responsible for this remarkable

⁶ For discussion, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room.

⁷ Of course, many who appreciate natural beauty do attribute it to a divine creator, but this is
not necessary.
24  

sculpture? Whose mistaken vision is behind this crass and clumsy still
life? Why is there a urinal on display?⁸ It usually isn’t enough to read that
our team won the game. We also want to know how the players played:
who scored the runs, who made the stops, who fumbled. (Indeed, it’s
somewhat telling that we often metaphorically employ phrases origi-
nating from holding players responsible in sport contexts elsewhere:
“I really dropped the ball at the grocery store”; “That presentation was a
hole-in-one!”)
Moreover, whatever we think about the activity is connected in some
way to its author. It was Buckner’s fault the ball made it past him. Even if
others can be implicated in the run scoring, missing the ball at first was a
bad play, and it was Buckner’s.⁹ While many Red Sox fans no doubt
overreacted with their vitriol and their manner of holding him respon-
sible, they were not mistaken in finding him at fault. His performance on
the play certainly gave them reason to be unhappy with him.
When the museum-goer derides a Pollock or Rothko by claiming,
“I could’ve painted that,” they are diminishing the role of the artist and
her skill, suggesting that there is no talent on display. Regardless of
whether their assessment is correct, they clearly take the artist to be
responsible for the painting, and so its qualities are reflective of the artist.
The point is no less obvious for moral activities. The allure of who-
dunnits is not limited to solving the puzzle, but to fix our anger and
reproach. Moral disasters are tragic, but we do not rest with merely
registering the loss. It matters who the author of the atrocity is, for that
is who warrants our outrage. Even in less serious moral matters, we seek
out the relevant culprit. Anonymous donations leave us wondering who’s
responsible, who warrants our admiration.¹⁰ It is not a happy accident,
but rather the work of someone.

⁸ A reference to the readymade artwork, “Fountain,” by Marcel Duchamp.

⁹ Some assert that others in addition to Buckner are at fault, such as the right fielder who
didn’t properly back Buckner up on the play, and even the Red Sox manager, who chose not to
replace Buckner with a superior defensive player to protect the lead. However, it seems no one
denies that Buckner messed up, so at most these claims seek to hold additional people respon-
sible, not excuse Buckner.
¹⁰ Björnsson & Persson 2012 make a similar observation with respect to, specifically, moral
responsibility: “[P]eoples’ concern with moral responsibility is mainly driven by a concern with
whom to hold responsible for what” (328).
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Second, all these activities are governed by standards. For now, we

needn’t settle their precise content to observe the basic point. Since my
present aim is to uncover the basic architecture of the relations, the
content of these evaluative standards, as well as the domain boundaries,
can be left open at this stage, so long as they admit of positive and
negative verdicts. Art, athletic play, and morality, are all evaluative
domains. Each has standards by which their activities are measured.¹¹
Indeed, even within such general categories there can be further divisions
(painting vs. sculpture; baseball vs. hockey).
Part of what makes Buckner’s play an error is due to its measurement
against the relevant standards. As a simple starting point, infielders
should not miss ground balls. Buckner should have fielded the ball
cleanly and recorded the out at first. After all, it was a routine ground
ball. Such sporting examples may be the easiest because games are in part
constituted by their rules, thus at least some of the standards come built-
in, as it were. But we can also recognize exceptional play even when it is
not related to the rules of the game. A quickly and efficiently turned
double play or a beautifully curled free kick in soccer are rightly praised
as exemplifying stellar play. Likewise, there are aesthetic standards for
artistic endeavors, for what makes for a striking sculpture or a loathsome
landscape, for what makes a track a “banger” or dismissed as “muzak.”¹²
Third, applying these standards yields positive and negative evalua-
tions. There are good plays and bad plays, good paintings and bad
paintings, good academic papers and bad ones. Naturally, disagreement
is possible, but such disputes concern the extension of the categories,
what belongs to each, rather than the categories themselves. My colleagues
and I can argue about what makes for a good paper, but none of us is
skeptical that there are good papers, or that the good ones are such for the
positive properties they possess. Indeed, such disagreements tend to occur
against the backdrop of significant consensus.

¹¹ I am not drawing any meaningful distinction between “normative” and “evaluative.”

Those with more demanding terminology are welcome to restrict use to “evaluative” through-
out. It should make no difference to the arguments. (Though see Chapter 5 for discussion of
particular objections that could be framed in terms of the presumed distinctiveness of the
normative.)
¹² Cf. Aziz Ansari’s character, Tom Haverford, on how he selects all his music in the Parks
and Recreation episode “Prom” (Season 6, Episode 18).
26  

The same is true of aesthetic matters. That we may disagree about

what films are good and bad, or even why each is good or bad, does not
impugn the claim here. Whatever the relevant standards are, they’ll sort
the performances, or objects, or actions, into good and bad per those
standards. Some things are morally good, others are artistically good, and
still others are athletically good (or, at least, good plays in baseball, for
example). Others are morally bad, artistically bad, and athletically bad.
Despite there being different evaluative domains, we see symmetry
across them.¹³
Pulling these initial observations together, we see that, across a wide
variety of domains, we take the conduct of others to reflect back on the
doers in both positive and negative ways. A natural claim to make is that
when we do so we are praising and blaming them. We don’t wonder at
the miraculousness of an exquisite sculpture; we instead marvel at the
sculptor who brought it about. We don’t just stand awestruck by a
particular artistic effect; we admire that the artist managed that effect.
There is a difference between bemoaning that the puck rang off the post,
on the one hand, and that the player missed the shot, on the other. And,
just as importantly, in doing so, we give credit for those positive qualities
to the artist in question and we criticize the player for the bungled shot.
Of course, the ways in which we give credit and criticize are quite
broad and diffuse, but there is a basic underlying symmetry. We regard
the performer positively in light of a good performance and we regard
them negatively for a bad performance. This isn’t an all things consid-
ered evaluation, and it may be complicated by numerous other factors,
including how we feel generally about the person or our moral assess-
ment of them.¹⁴ We have a tendency to express these assessments—
again, in a variety of forms—both to the performers and those around us.
Moreover, we can even separate our evaluations of the same conduct.
A piece of art can be aesthetically sublime whilst morally troubling. Thus,
despite the variation in formats and the differences in context, we

¹³ I am here denying a kind of value skepticism in which there simply are no relevant values
to make any activities good or bad. Such a robust skepticism seems to me extraordinarily
pessimistic and undermotivated.
¹⁴ I consider these complications in later chapters; for now, I’m concerned with outlining
some general features of the cases.
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evaluate agents in light of the positive and negative qualities of their

doings across a wide range of human activities, and the positive evalua-
tions reflect positively, while the negative evaluations reflect negatively.
Natural labels for these evaluations of agents are “praise” and “blame.”
Whether an artist’s brushstrokes, or a footballer’s passing, a coach’s
decisions, or your spouse’s cleaning habits, we praise and blame each
other for the things we do, holding them responsible for their doings and
evaluating them against certain standards.¹⁵

The Basic Responsibility Relation

Though we hold individuals responsible for their conduct across a

diverse range of activities, there is a more striking symmetry. The very
same considerations make blame and praise inappropriate across the
cases. At this stage, I will ignore some possible complications in the
examples. I do this for two reasons. First, doing so keeps the present
discussion as uncluttered as possible, to bring out the parallels as sharply
as possible. Second, and more importantly, since moral cases are subject
to the very same potential complications, they only support the symme-
try I’m defending here between the moral and non-moral. I’ll return to
some of the elided complications in the next chapter.
Pollock is famous for his abstract expressionism that involved dripped
paint, splatters, and splotches. But no one takes him to have accidentally
marred his canvasses. On the contrary, his works were the product of
careful thought and execution. Had someone mistaken the drop cloth
from his studio as a work of his and praised him accordingly, they would
be making an error. He isn’t praiseworthy for the drop cloth because it
isn’t reflective of his artistry. Similarly, whatever artful properties a work
or performance might have, they do no service to their authors if done
accidentally.

¹⁵ This is a somewhat simplified way of putting the point. We sometimes hold ourselves
responsible and we also hold people responsible for things besides their actions. But my
untechnical “doings” is meant to be understood broadly and so capture more than might be
connoted by the term “action.” I take up holding oneself responsible in Chapter 3, and
responsibility for non-actions in Chapter 5.
28  

Relatedly, Buckner misplayed the ball. But had he done so because

he suffered some sort of spasm or seizure, then blame would surely
be inappropriate—as inappropriate as if he had missed the ball due to
some crazed fan tackling him or hitting him with a beer bottle. As in
moral cases, where we recognize a range of mitigating factors, our blame
and praise are similarly affected by the same considerations in non-
moral cases as well. Accidents and spasms render both blame and praise
equally inappropriate. Indeed, it’s natural to say that these sorts of
considerations undermine an agent’s blameworthiness or praiseworthi-
ness. That is, they disrupt or negate Buckner’s responsibility, as opposed
to mitigations that plausibly preserve responsibility.¹⁶ Buckner’s respon-
sibility appears to be disrupted if the missed ball was due to a spasm. It is
no longer to Pollock’s credit if the painting was accidental.
We could go on. If the opening chords of a guitarist’s performance are
abysmal because she mistakenly thought the guitar was in tune (when it
wasn’t), then she isn’t blameworthy for the resulting cacophony. Or
suppose that McGraw eagles the 14th hole at the Master’s. Ordinarily,
he’d be praiseworthy for doing so, but not if he thought he was using a
4-iron, but mistakenly had pulled a 7-iron from his bag (having mis-
judged the wind, say). Under those circumstances, he may be lucky, but
he isn’t praiseworthy for sinking the shot. We rightly praise Huckleberry’s
painting of a majestic landscape only if it isn’t done while sleepwalking.
Should his somnambulistic movements somehow create a remarkable
artwork, it nonetheless is not to his credit. Importantly, whatever its
artistic qualities, the painting simply isn’t a reflection of Huckleberry’s
talents.
These observations are no less true for moral cases. Intuitively, Barbie
is blameworthy for slapping Ken. But if she hits him because of a seizure
or spasm she suffers, which causes her to flail wildly, she has a clear
excuse. Hitting Ken no longer reflects on her negatively as a moral agent;

¹⁶ Some considerations, it seems, plausibly count in favor of tempering our responses, but
this could be so without affecting the underlying blameworthiness or responsibility. For
example, a spouse might apologize for snapping at their partner by noting that they’ve “had a
really rough day.” My view is to treat such reasons as being relevant to how we ought to hold
others responsible rather than the responsibility relation itself. I’ll return to such considerations
in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.
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she is not blameworthy. Parallelly, Larry might be praiseworthy for

disarming a violent assailant threatening others. But not if he did so
entirely inadvertently, as a result of tripping.¹⁷
Suppose Fred hits Barney in the eye. Shame on Fred. But not if he had
been opening a bottle of champagne whose cork flew out and ricocheted
several times before hitting Barney, who’d just arrived in the kitchen. An
accident like this excuses Fred from blameworthiness. Similarly, stop-
ping a would be assassin would be praiseworthy. But not if done by
accident. If, in opening the door, Bruce knocks over a hitman about to
take a fatal shot, he doesn’t rate any credit for having done so.
Finally, suppose Jan takes Marsha’s jacket without her permission.
Ordinarily, she’d be blameworthy. But suppose they both unknowingly
wore the same kind of jacket to the party, so Jan thought she was taking
her own jacket home. In this case, it seems Jan takes Marsha’s jacket by
mistake, and thus has an excuse. Similarly, Diana saving someone’s life is
only praiseworthy if not done by mistake. Perhaps she thought she was
merely adding sugar to a customer’s coffee, when in fact she added
medication without which the customer would have shortly died.
Though she saved the customer’s life, she isn’t praiseworthy for having
done so.
So, we have a striking set of parallels. The same considerations under-
mine blameworthiness and praiseworthiness across cases, both moral
and non-moral. Spasms and sleepwalking render one’s behavior impor-
tantly involuntary. Other times, one produces results unintentionally
(i.e. by accident). And in other cases, one is relevantly mistaken about
what one is doing. (These labels are merely provisional markers, meant
to indicate some of the parallel threads in the examples above, and they
aren’t meant to be exhaustive. As a reminder, at this stage, I’m only
identifying some basic symmetry.)
The striking parallels between the cases call for explanation.
A plausible explanation for why the same considerations undercut
blameworthiness and praiseworthiness across these evaluative domains
is that these considerations affect something shared by each case. Since
spasms, accidents, and mistakes (among other things), plausibly reduce

¹⁷ Inspired by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s “The Hero” (Season 8, Episode 6).

30  

responsibility, a simple view emerges. Doers can be evaluated for various

kinds of doings and those doings can be evaluated in various ways. But in
all cases, it is a single relation—the basic responsibility relation—that
links the doers to their doings such that they are evaluable for them.¹⁸
The considerations work in parallel, across the domains, because in each
instance they disrupt that responsibility relation. Since the relation is
disrupted in those cases, whatever the standards say about the thing
done, whether positive or negative, no longer reflects on the doer.
In this way, the basic responsibility relation helps explain the symme-
try across cases. Buckner is responsible for the missed ball in the very
same way that Pollock is responsible for his painting. The same relation
ties each to their activity, just as it ties each of us to our moral activity.
When related in this way, the evaluation of the activity reflects back on
us, positively or negatively (or neutrally).¹⁹ Thus, what distinguishes
moral responsibility from, for example, artistic responsibility is not a
special kind of relation, but rather the kinds of standards applied to the
things for which one is responsible. This makes possible many different
types of evaluations of agents, all underwritten by the same basic respon-
sibility relation.
In Buckner’s case, he’s responsible for missing the ball, which is bad
(relative to baseball standards). In Pollock’s case, he’s responsible for the
painting, which is good (relative to artistic—or painting—standards).
Buckner is blameworthy for missing the ball because he’s responsible for
the bad thing; Pollock praiseworthy because he’s responsible for the
good thing. (“Good” and “bad” here should be treated as helpful labels,
rather than as substantive claims. They merely stand as shorthand for
“positively evaluated by the relevant standards” and “negatively evalu-
ated by the relevant standards.”) What determines the evaluation of each
object of responsibility will be a function of the relevant standards, but what

¹⁸ Compare Smith 2007: “To say that a person is morally responsible for something, then, is
merely to say that she is connected to it in such a way that it can . . . serve as a basis for moral
appraisal of that person” (468). I broadly agree, so long as we do not limit ourselves to moral
appraisal.
¹⁹ While there is very plausibly morally neutral activity, it’s less clear that there is evaluatively
neutral activity. Most of what we do can be assessed according to some standard or another. At a
minimum, most things we do can be done well or poorly. But, so I contend, they only reflect well
or poorly on us when we’re responsible for them.
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explains why it applies to the agent in question is the basic responsibility

relation. Thus, it makes no difference to the argument whether Pollock’s
paintings are in fact good. If they are, then he’s praiseworthy for them.
But if they aren’t good, he’s still responsible for them; only the valence of
what he’s worthy of will change.
Thus, I think we have good evidence for considering that individuals
are responsible across evaluative domains, related by a single responsi-
bility relation. At this stage, it remains an open question how much
mileage we can get out of this picture. That’s precisely the aim of the rest
of the book. I hope to develop my suggestion, explaining why the basic
responsibility relation obtains when it does, why it holds across domains,
and how much of our practices of holding others responsible it can
illuminate. Despite its simplicity, the theory has the resources to do all
that, though that remains a promissory note the remaining chapters
must fulfill.

The Case for Asymmetry

Before proceeding, however, it’s worth acknowledging that while I’ve

pointed to a swath of symmetrical data, my proposal would be somewhat
infelicitous if I were ignoring wide swaths of asymmetry. And many folks
think that there are important differences between blame(-worthiness)
and praise(-worthiness). Perhaps expectedly, this asymmetry is almost
always characterized in terms of moral praise and blame.²⁰ But if there
were deep and important asymmetries between moral blame(-worthi-
ness) and praise(-worthiness), this might make double trouble for me, as
we might have two important divides on our hands: between blame and

²⁰ Though not always. To some, “praise” connotes overt activity in a way that “blame” does
not, independent of the standards one is using to evaluate. My intuitions differ, but even if
blame and praise came apart in this way conceptually, it would not doom the account to come.
I could always supplant the view with a different set of parallel evaluative notions, since I’m
more confident that we evaluate the activities of agents across domains than I am that blame and
praise are the only evaluative notions we have to use when theorizing about responsibility.
Regardless, I do think that these positive and negative evaluations are justifiably conceptualized
as praise and blame, as I argue in Chapter 3.
32  

praise, on the one hand, and between the moral and non-moral on
the other.
Still, even if there were important asymmetries, the symmetrical data
is significant. If I’m right, then to the extent that blameworthiness and
praiseworthiness are undermined in parallel, this still suggests that there
is something the cases share. Thus, asymmetries only threaten the basic
responsibility relation if they are threatening to the worthiness of blame/
praise. To take a trivial example: blame is “negative” and praise is
“positive,” but that difference isn’t relevant to the argument for a basic
responsibility relation. (This is why I talk of symmetry rather than
sameness.)
Naturally, the trivial example is not what proponents of asymmetry
have in mind, but it is nonetheless suggestive. I don’t deny, for instance,
that we often do very different things when we’re blaming than when
we’re praising. There’s often a confrontational element to blaming
another that isn’t present when we praise, and we may be more prone
to raising our voices. (It is telling, however, praising often includes a
similar element of seeking out the responsible party, though the purpose
is not to confront.) The oft-cited emotional elements of blaming (e.g.
resentment or anger) look harsher and more aggressive than those
mentioned for praise (e.g. gratitude or admiration).²¹ We also may
have more reason to be concerned about the ways in which blame is
deployed than for praise. Worries that attend the potential harms of
blame may not resonate at all (or only less so or differently) when
considering praise.
Such differences, however, to the extent that they mirror the trivial
example—that is, to the extent that the things we do when blaming are,
roughly, “negative,” whereas those when praising are “positive”—they
fail to undercut the significance of the symmetrical data. Perhaps we
might care more about blaming than praising. My contention is that
blameworthiness and praiseworthiness share a symmetry of structure,
not necessarily significance.
Some defenses of asymmetry, in contrast, are explicitly cast in struc-
tural terms. Perhaps mostly famously, Susan Wolf (1990) argues that

²¹ See Chapter 3 for more on the significance of this variation in our responses.
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blameworthiness has a necessary condition that praiseworthiness lacks.²²

While the conditions on blameworthiness require that the agent could
have done otherwise, the conditions on praiseworthiness do not. Her
evidence for this is that an agent who was compelled to do evil, and thus
couldn’t do otherwise, would be excused. In contrast, the fact that an
agent was compelled to do good, and thus couldn’t do otherwise, isn’t a
mitigation of praiseworthiness, but a testimony to it (156).
I certainly haven’t here demonstrated that blameworthiness and
praiseworthiness are symmetrical with each other. Rather, I am pursuing
a line of thought, that there are parallel observations to be made of the
blameworthy and praiseworthy, which are supported by a simple and
compelling explanation involving the basic responsibility relation. By
itself, this line of thought cannot show that Wolf ’s view is mistaken.
Nevertheless, we have good reasons to reject Wolf ’s asymmetry
thesis.²³ Consider a kleptomaniac, and let us suppose for the sake of
argument that he cannot help but steal.²⁴ Let us also grant, along with
Wolf, that citing this inability counts as an excuse to blameworthiness.²⁵
Given these assumptions, the claim, “But he couldn’t help it!” serves to
indicate that he lacked control over his choice or action, and, therefore,
that he is to be excused. I agree that something is different with praise-
worthy cases. One of the reasons for this is that we ordinarily don’t cite
excuses to charges of praise. So in the context of an act of kindness or
beneficence, the claim, “He couldn’t help himself,” is meant to call our
attention to the agent’s virtue, rather than signal a consideration which
undermines praiseworthiness. But all this shows is that we put the same
words to quite different purposes. The same phrase (“He couldn’t
help it”) functions differently in the two cases, highlighting different
considerations. In one case, the consideration is lack of control, which

²² See also Nelkin 2011. ²³ For separate criticism, see Fischer & Ravizza 1998.
²⁴ This is not an innocent assumption. The empirical data suggest things are far more
complicated than depicted in this naïve picture of the kleptomaniac (as typically portrayed in
Hollywood, e.g.). But it’s a useful fiction for current purposes. For further discussion, see King &
May 2018, 2022 and Schroeder 2005 (which discusses Tourette Syndrome).
²⁵ This is also not an innocent assumption. Requiring that the agent “could have done
otherwise” is an infamously contentious condition on responsibility. The relevant literature is
enormous. Two good starting places are Frankfurt 1969 and Nelkin 2011.
34  

undermines blameworthiness. In other cases, however, the relevant

consideration is degree of virtue, which reinforces praiseworthiness.
This is not enough, I think, to show that there is asymmetry in the
conditions on blameworthiness and praiseworthiness (and, thus, on
responsibility for bad and good, respectively). Importantly, the cases
above are not really parallel. Consider a case rather like the fictional
kleptomaniac, but wherein the individual cannot help but buy presents
they think their friends will enjoy (in keeping with Wolf ’s example). But
now suppose that, like that kleptomaniac, they cannot resist buying
presents even if it would result in terrible misfortunes, like defaulting
on their mortgage or being fired from their job. While benefitting their
friends still looks like a good deed and reflects their consideration of their
friends, they seem far less responsible for these choices. At least, if the
kleptomaniac suffers from control-undermining compulsion, then this
present-giver seems to suffer in just the same way. Indeed, it seems odd
to say of them, “Look at how virtuous they are! They keep giving others
presents even though it causes them to suffer so.” Thus, to the extent that
the kleptomaniac is excused, the present-giver seems similarly excused.
We can also run things the other way. When a hero says of jumping
into dangerous waters to save a drowning child, “I had to jump in—
I couldn’t imagine letting the child drown,” we take this to be emblematic
of her virtue. She is so good that opting not to jump in was not a
psychologically available option for her. In contrast, we tend to view
the desire to steal (in kleptomania) as an imposition on the person. But if
we likewise imagine someone who couldn’t help but steal because he is so
bad so as to be incapable of not stealing, then we should (and I think
would) take this to be emblematic of his vice. He is so bad that not
stealing is not a psychologically available option for him. But neither
indomitable virtue nor intractable vice count as excusing conditions;
each indicates preserved responsibility. At the very least, they look the
same, and so should be treated the same. Thus, when we attend to
parallel properties, focusing on lack of control in one case and thorough-
going virtue or vice in the other, we actually get symmetrical results.
Again, I won’t claim to have refuted Wolf ’s grounds for asymmetry in
so short a space. In any case, I’m not interested in proving her wrong
(or, for that matter, refuting any comparable argument for asymmetry).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Ainoa säälinilmaus, minkä tämä surullinen näytelmä aiheutti, tuli
erään kreikkalaisen taholta, joka vuoteella loikoen huudahti:

»Ah, ukkelini! Sinunko on poika? Käypää tavaraa tällaisessa

paikassa!
Oikea makupala! Sinä vain olet kuorinut kerman!»

Valkeana kuin vaha, Barba Yani painoi minua rintaansa vasten ja

sanoi väräjävällä ja tukahtuneella äänellä:

»Rohkeutta! Rohkeutta!… Huomenna pääset täältä ja saat

karkoituskäskyn!»

»Karkoituskäskyn!» huudahdin minä. »Minun on siis erottava

sinusta?»

»Se on lievin rangaistus, minkä olen voinut sinulle saada.

Rikoksesi on raskas: tahdoit yölliseen aikaan tunkeutua haaremiin.
Mutta lohduttaudu, minä tulen kanssasi. Maailma on suuri, olemme
vapaita, ja jos vain tottelet minua vast'edes, elät onnellisena Turkin
kamaralla… Siis näkemiin. Ole valmiina huomenna
aamunkoitteessa».

En voinut nukkua koko yönä. Päivän sarastaessa minut noudettiin

vankilasta. Portilla odottivat rattaat ja kaksi pyssyillä ja turkkilaisilla
miekoilla varustettua ratsusantarmia. Silloin näin, että meitä oli
kolme karkoitettavaksi tuomittua. Barba Yani oli siinä myöskin
tavaroinemme. Kaikki sälytettiin rattaille ja seurue lähti Diarbekiria
kohti.

*****
 Ihmisen elämä ei ole kerrottavissa eikä kirjoitettavissa. Sitäkin
vähemmän soveltuu kerrottavaksi sellaisen ihmisen elämä, joka on
rakastanut maata ja samoillut sen ristiin rastiin. Mutta on melkein
mahdotonta antaa elävää kuvaa hänen elämästään, jos hän on ollut
tulisielu, joka on taipaleellaan tuntenut onnen ja kurjuuden kaikki
asteet. Mahdotonta ensiksikin hänelle itselleen, ja mahdotonta niille,
jotka häntä kuuntelevat.

Se mikä on viehättävää, maalauksellisen kaunista ja

mielenkiintoista sielultaan voimakkaan, myrskyävän ja samalla
seikkailunhaluisen miehen elämässä, ei aina ilmene tämän elämän
huomattavissa tapauksissa. Kauneus piilee usein pikkuseikoissa.
Mutta kukapa kuuntelisi pikkuseikkoja? Kukapa nauttisi niistä? Ja
ennenkaikkea, kuka niitä ymmärtäisi?…

Siksipä olenkin aina suhtautunut ynseästi huudahdukseen:

Kertokaa meille jotakin elämästänne!…

Ja sitten vielä eräs vaikeus: ken rakastaa, hän ei ole yksin. Hän ei
ole yksin silloinkaan, kun hän ei enää halaja rakkautta, kuten on
minun laitani nyt. Tämä pitää paikkansa niihinkin ihmisiin nähden,
jotka elävät muistoista, sillä nykyhetkellä on osansa näihin
muistoihin. Ei hyödytä toivoa kuolemaa. Minä olen usein elämässäni
vilpittömästi toivonut sitä. Mutta silloin ovat menneisyyden kauniit
kuvat nousseet ilmielävinä eteeni, ne ovat hellyttäneet sydämeni,
vaihtaneet katkeruuden iloksi ja pakoittaneet minut yhä uudelleen ja
uudelleen etsimään ikuista lohtua ihmisten kasvoista. Yksi näistä
kauniista kuvista oli Barba Yani.

En voi kertoa hänestä mitään, tuskinpa mitään: kahdeksan vuotta

elämästäni kasvoi kiinni hänen elämäänsä… Diarbekir, Alep,
Angora, Sivas, Erzerum ja sadat muut pikku kaupungit ja kylät
näkivät vaeltavat haamumme. Emme myyneet vain yksinomaan
salepia. Kättemme kautta kulki mattoja, liinoja, ihovoiteita, hajuvesiä,
hevosia, koiria ja kissoja, mutta oiva salep auttoi meidät aina
hädästä. Milloin epäonnistunut yritys heitti meidät oljille, etsittiin
kiireesti esille ibrikit, nuo ruostuneet ibrik-pahaset. Ja taas huudeltiin:
»Salepia! Salepia! Kas tässä ovat salepinmyyjät!» Katsoimme
toisiimme ja nauroimme…

Niin, nauroimme, sillä Barba Yani oli verraton ystävä.

Onnettomuuden aiheuttaja olin aina minä, minä parantumaton
hutilus. Muistan eräänkin tapahtuman, joka oli kaikkein tuhoisimpia.

Olimme juuri panneet kaikki rahamme likoon ja ostaneet kaksi

kaunista hevosta suurilta markkinoilta noin viidentoista kilometrin
päässä Angorasta. Olimme tyytyväisiä, sillä kauppa oli ollut hyvä.
Tyytyväisyyskö vai väsymys lienee minussa kotimatkalla herättänyt
halun poiketa hetkiseksi yksinäiseen kapakkaan. Oli pimeä. Barba
Yani vastusti tuumaani.

»Annahan olla, Stavraki! Jatkakaamme kotiin saakka. Siellä

suomme itsellemme lasin».

»Ei, Barba Yani, vaan juuri nyt!… Vain hetkinen. Hyvän kaupan
kunniaksi».

Mies-poloinen suostui. Sidoimme hevoset pylvääseen kapakan

ulkopuolelle. Ja ikkunaan päin kääntyneinä me joimme
kunniaksemme lasin. Sitten toisen. Nälkä nipisteli vatsaa. Söimme
seisovilla jaloin. Sitten tuli taas juoman vuoro, sillä Barba Yanikaan ei
halveksinut elämän antimia. Sydämet alkoivat liikehtiä. Me
lauloimme:
 De nouveau tu t'es saoûlé!…
De nouveau tu casses les verres!…
O, vilaine bête que tu fais!…

[Taasen olet hankkinut itsellesi humalan;

taasen rikot lasisi.
Voi sinua narria!]

Mutta Barba Yanilta katkesi laulu kesken. Katsellen pimeisiin

ruutuihin hän sanoi rauhallisesti:

»Niin, Stavraki, olen totisesti sitä mieltä, että olet 'kurja narri', sillä
kauniit eläimet, jotka jäivät tuonne ulos, ovat nyt poissa, tai on
näköni huono!»

Yhdellä hyppäyksellä olin ulkona, mutta en erottanut muuta kuin

kavioiden kiivaan kapseen pimeässä yössä.

Hapuillessamme tuntia myöhemmin eteenpäin pimeässä ja

kompastellessamme joka kuoppaan, Barba Yani huusi minulle kuin
varoitukseksi ikään:

»Sinä tahdoit 'kunnioittaa hyvää onneamme'! No niin, kulje nyt

jalkaisin, sinä siunattu aasi! Ja laula lohdutukseksesi: 'Taasen olet
hankkinut itsellesi humalan!'»

Mikä onni onkaan tuntea sydämensä sykkivän hyvässä

inhimillisessä maaperässä, tässä mainiossa mullassa, joka välittää
meihin elävöittävää nestettään!

Onneton se, joka ei tästä mitään tiedä!

 Niinä vuosina, jolloin minun ja Barba Yanin elämä oli yhtä, oli itse
luontokin hellivä, veljellinen, runollinen. Kaikki oli mielestäni kaunista
ja elämisen arvoista. Rumuus kadotti vastenmielisyytensä, typeryys
kilpistyi pilantekoomme, kavaluus paljastui, suurten väkivaltakin
tuntui minusta siedettävältä. Kun kosketus karheaan ulkomaailmaan
oli tukehduttaa meidät, pakenimme äänettömään maailmaamme,
tuohon maailmaan, missä luonto yksin haastaa silmille ja sydämelle.

Barba Yani saattoi kulkea päiväkauden sanaa sanomatta.

Katseellaan hän vain osoitti minulle, mikä oli huomion arvoista. Tätä
hän sanoi »terveyskylvyn ottamiseksi». Sitä se todella olikin.
Äänetön luonto puhdistaa ja antaa mielenrauhan elämän
alhaisuuden nöyryyttämälle ihmiselle, sillä voimakkainkaan ei voi
liikkua roskaväen keskellä tuntematta itseään saastutetuksi.

Mutta tämä nuoruusvuosieni suuri seuralainen oli lisäksi

muinaisajan ja sen viisaustieteen tuntija. Keskustelujaan elämästä —
mikä oli hänen joutohetkiensä lempihuvia — hän valaisi
viisaustieteestä ottamillaan esimerkeillä. Itse hän ei aina osannut
elää viisaasti, mutta hän rakasti sydämen hiljaista rauhaa.

»Ennemmin tai myöhemmin älykäs mies ymmärtää, kuinka turhaa

on tunteitten myllerrys, joka turmelee rauhan ja polttaa poroksi
elämän», hän sanoi minulle. »Onnellinen se, ken ymmärtää tämän
varhain, sillä sitä enemmän hän nauttii olemassaolosta».

Eräänä kylmänä syyspäivänä olimme manööverikentällä lähellä

Alepia. Sotilaat vakasivat lämpimän juoman väkirynnäköllä (kuten
sotilaallinen sanontatapa kuuluu). Upseeritkin tulivat maistelemaan
sitä, ja kun meillä oli hehkuvia kivihiiliä ibrikiemme alla, jäivät he
lämmittelemään käsiään ja juttelemaan. Eräs korkea-arvoinen
upseeri kertoi alaiselleen kaskua, jonka mukaan muuan kenraali,
Aleksanteri Suuren ystävä, kehoitti tätä suostumaan Dariuksen
tarjoamaan rauhaan, sanoen:

»Jos olisin Aleksanteri, suostuisin minä rauhaan». Mihin suuri

valloittaja oli vastannut:

»Niin tekisin minäkin, jos olisin… jos olisin…»

Turkkilainen upseeri hämmentyi ja huudahti:

»Ah, mikä olikaan tuon Aleksanterin ystävän nimi?»

»Parmenion!» vastasi Barba Yani, joka kuunteli heidän

keskusteluaan.

»Hyvä, ukkoseni!» huudahti upseeri. »Kuinka sen tiedät?

Salepinmyyjä tuskin tapaa Aleksanteri Suurta!»

»Tapaapa niinkin!» vastasi ystäväni. Kaikkihan tarvitsevat

lämmintä, kuten näette!»

Vastauksen kaksimielisyys huvitti upseeria. Hän alentui

puhelemaan kanssamme, ja nyt sattuivat katseemme yhteen.

»Olen nähnyt sinut jossakin, kasvosi ovat minulle tutut», hän

sanoi.

»Niin», vastasin minä punastuen. »Ajoimme viisi vuotta sitten

Konstantinopolissa samoissa vaunuissa Mustafa-beyn kanssa».

»Kautta Allahin, se on totta? Sinä olet siis tuo poika, joka etsi
silmäpuolta äitiään. Sait varmaankin kokea monta kovaa tuon
satyyrin luona!»
 »Niin… En tuntenut häntä!»

»Kuinka saatoit luottaa ensimäiseen vastaantulijaan, joka silitteli

hyväillen lapsekkaita kasvojasi?» Upseeri puheli kauan kanssamme,
kertoillen Mustafa beyn suurista konnantöistä. Sitten hän alkoi
keskustella innokkaasti Barba Yanin kanssa, jonka tiedot
hämmästyttivät häntä. Ja lähtiessään hän puristi sydämellisesti
käsiämme, ja antoi meille kummallekin turkkilaisen kultarahan.

»Se ei ole juomarahaa», sanoi hän. »Tahdon vain osoittaa pitäväni

arvossa vanhuksen viisautta ja nuorukaisen kärsimystä».

Kotimatkalla Barba Yani päätteli:

»Näetkös, Stavro? Erhettä on paljon, mutta älykkäisyys poistaa

raja-aidat, vaikkapa asianomainen olisi puettu
sotilasunivormuunkin!»

Tällävälin Barba Yani vanheni. Sydäntauti teki hänet vuosi

vuodelta yhä kykenemättömämmäksi ansaitsemaan leipäänsä.
Väsymys valtasi hänet usein. Hän vaipui tuon tuostakin
raskasmielisyyteen. Minä olin kaksikolmattavuotias, vahva, rohkea ja
neuvokas. Meillä oli hiukan säästöjä ja päätin kehoittaa häntä
lepäämään. Jotta tämä lepo olisi ollut hänelle mieluisa, valitsin
oleskelupaikaksemme meille vielä oudon maan: Libanonin vuoriston.

Oi sinä kaunis ja suruisa Libanon! Jo ajatellessanikin siellä

vietettyä vuotta päihtyy sydämeni riemusta ja vuotaa samalla
verta!… Ghazir!… Ghazir!… Ghazir!… Ja sinä Dlepta!… Ja sinä
Hermon!… Ja sinä Malmetein!… Ja te setrit pitkine ystävällisine
oksinenne, jotka näyttävät tahtovan syleillä koko maata!… Ja te
granaattiomenapuut, joille riittää pari kahmaloa multaa
kallionhalkeamassa, tarjotaksenne kulkijalle mehukkaita
hedelmiänne!… Ja sinä Välimeri, joka antaudut hekumallisena
jumalasi polttaville hyväilyille ja levität tahrattoman ja
mittaamattoman ulappasi Libanonin majojen vähäisten ikkunain
eteen, jotka rinteiltä katselevat kasvoihin äärettömyyttä!… Kaikille ja
kaikelle sanon jäähyväiset!… En enää koskaan näe teitä, mutta
ainutlaatuinen ja lempeä hohteenne säilyy iäti silmissäni!… Tuo
hohde on himmennyt muistissani… Elämä ei ole sallinut, että iloni
olisi jakamaton… Mutta, Jumalani, milloin suo elämä meille
täydellistä iloa?…

Asetuimme asumaan Ghazirin kylään, joka on maalauksellisen

kaunis, kuten melkein koko Libanon, ja sijaitsee suojaisella
kukkulalla. Olimme vanhan nivelsärkyä potevan, Set Amra-nimisen
vaimon ainoat vuokralaiset. Hän eli yksinäisyydessä ja oli kristitty
arabialainen niinkuin kaikki libanonilaiset. Kristittynä hän otti meidät
ystävällisesti vastaan, vaikka olimmekin oikeauskoisia ja hän itse
katolilainen. Ja nyt saatte jälleen kuulla tarinan, sillä elämäni taival
on rikas tarinoista.

Sillävälin kun minä kuljin ansioilla ja Barba Yani retkeili keppineen

granaattiomenoita etsiskellen ja käärmeitä tappaen, saimme kuulla,
että Set Amralla, jonka kanssa pakinoimme vesipiippua
poltellessamme, saimme kuulla, sanon minä, että hänelläkin oli
surunsa. Hän oli liian yksin, ja tämä yksinäisyys jäyti hänen
sydäntään. Hänen ainoa lapsensa, kaksikymmenvuotias tyttö, oli
Venezuelassa, mihin oli matkustanut isänsä kanssa rahaa
ansaitsemaan, kuten Libanonin asukkaitten on tapana. Mutta isä oli
kuollut vuosi sitten, ja senjälkeen olivat kirjeet Amerikasta
harvenneet. Selina-tyttönen ei ollut köyhä. Hän johti sievoista
korukauppaa. Mutta äidille hänen sydämensä ei paljoakaan säteillyt
hellyyttä. Hän unohti hänet, ja Set Amran täytyi usein elää pelkällä
leivällä päivät pääksytysten.

Meidän kävi häntä sääli. Täst'edes aterioimme yhdessä. Set Amra

oli meille sisar ja äiti. Hän sai parhaat palat lampaanpaistista ja
hänen vesipiippunsa täytettiin tumbakilla. Enempää ei tarvittu. Hän
kiitti Jumalaa siitä, että hän oli lähettänyt meidät, ja kirjoitti
tyttärelleen liikuttavan kiitollisia kirjeitä. Selina kiitti vastauksessaan
molempia tuntemattomia, joilla oli niin veljellinen sydän.

Ja aika kului autuudessa.

Mutta kun ansiot olivat vähäiset, hupenivat säästömme

silminnähden. Tuli syksy, ja Barba Yani vilustui. Noudin lääkärin
Beirutista ja sitten lääkkeitä. Rakkaan ystävän tila parani hyvässä
hoidossa, mutta rahat luistivat käsistä. Tuo talvi oli ankara
Libanonissa. Sain vaivoin ansaituksi sen verran, ettemme aivan
nääntyneet nälkään. Luovuimme lihan syönnistä ja elimme kolmena
viikon päivänä kuivalla leivällä. Olimme niin säästäväisiä, että
poltimme vain yhtä vesipiippua kerrallaan, antaen tshibukin kulkea
kädestä käteen, suusta suuhun. Tämä oli kovaa, mutta näin päästiin
kuitenkin maaliskuuhun, jolloin saimme iloisen uutisen: Selina ilmoitti
lähtevänsä Venezuelasta ja saapuvansa kotiin kolmen tai neljän
viikon kuluttua.

Mitä huudahduksia!… Mitä ylitsevuotavaa riemua!…

»Tiedättekös?» sanoi Set Amra eräänä päivänä salaperäisesti.

»Stavro on kaunis poika. Aivan varmaan Selina rakastuu häneen, ja
silloin tulee anteliaisuutenne minua kohtaan runsaasti palkituksi. Mitä
siitä sanot, Stavro?»
 Mitäkö Stavro sanoi? No niin, hänen päänsä meni pyörälle, kuten
tavallista. Se meni pyörälle siinä määrin, että hän alkoi pyörittää
ympäri Barba Yaniakin, ja lopulta me kaikki, leinin vaivaama vanha
nainen mukaanluettuna, aloimme tanssia piirissä minun ja Selinan
pikaisen avioliiton julkaisemiseksi, josta viimemainitulla ei ollut
pienintäkään aavistusta.

Kuljin suoraan eteenpäin kuin kuuro hevonen. Aloin katsella taloa

kuin ainakin tulevaa omaisuuttani, ja nyt huomasin sadeveden
tunkeutuvan huoneisiin kattoa peittävän soran läpi. Noudattaen
libanonilaisten esimerkkiä minä kiipesin katolle jyrä mukanani ja
aloin asukkaitten ylitsevuotavaksi riemuksi juoksennella pitkin ja
poikin katolla vetäen perässäni raskasta jyrää, joka kävi
kantapäihin!, niin että kaaduin suulleni.

Ah, sydän poloinen, kuinka paljon murhetta oletkaan minulle

tuottanut!

Menin vieläkin pitemmälle. Eräänä päivänä osoitin Barba Yanille

Set Amran vielä punaisia ja täyteläisiä huulia, hänen siinä kiihkeästi
imiessään tshibukia, ja sanoin:

»Barba Yani, katsohan noita huulia! Kenties ne osaavat vielä

suudella muutakin kuin vesipiipun ambraa! Ja ehkäpä saamme
kahdet häät yht'aikaa».

»Niin, kahdet häät, tiedättekös! Sillä minun ja Selinan avioliitto oli

yhtä varma ja tosi kuin köyhyytemme…

»Voi sinua, Stavraki!» huudahti ystävä-parkani. »Saat ottaa vielä

monta askelta, ennenkuin opit tuntemaan elämää!»
 Hän oli hyvä ennustaja. Selina saapui. Hän oli tumma, komea,
tuuheatukkainen kaunotar, jonka silmänurkassa piili paholainen. Hän
oli vilkas kuin elohopea, mutta sielultaan kauppasaksa ja älyltään
vain naikkonen. Ensi päivästä alkaen hän herätti meissä pelkoa.
Hänen kiitoksensa kuivuivat lyhyeen. Meidän elämämme oli hänen
mielestään inhoittavaa, ja hän melkein moitti meitä äitinsä
kurjuudesta. Ylenkatseensa hän toi ilmi vuokraamalla asunnon
itselleen, vieraili päivittäin neljännestunnin luonamme ja antoi Set
Amralle naurettavan pienen rahasumman, joka oli tarkoitettu meille
»korvaukseksi». Puettuna vierasmaalaisiin pukuihin ja jalokiviin hän
levittäytyi kuin kauppatavara kateellisten kyläläisten katseltavaksi.

Eräänä päivänä eräs naapurivaimo riensi kertomaan meille, että

komea herra oli tullut vaunuilla Beirutista Selinaa tervehtimään.
Selinaa, minun luvattuani, minun morsiantani!…

»Ah, Barba Yani, kuinka elämä onkaan täynnä pettymyksiä!»

vaikeroin minä painaen pääni ainoan vilpittömän ystäväni olkaa
vasten.

»Etkö tietänyt sitä, Stavraki?… No niin, opi se uudelleen. Ja ota

sillävälin ibrikisi, hae esille minun kojeeni ja lähtekäämme!
Lähtekäämme: onhan maa vielä kaunis!»

Me lähdimme, jättäen Set Amra-paran kyyneliin. Ja kolme

kuukautta pääksytysten me kiertelimme Libanonin mainioita seutuja,
juoden sen kirkkaista lähteistä ja juottaen libanonilaisille ikuista
salepiamme.

»Salepia! Salepia! Kas tässä ovat salepinmyyjät!» »Stavraki, eikö

maa ole kaunis?»
 »Voi, Barba Yani! Olet oikeassa!…»

*****

Maako kaunis?… Ei, se on valhetta!… Kaikki kauneus tulee

sydämestämme, mikäli ilo siellä asustaa. Sinä päivänä, jolloin ilo
katoaa, on maa vain kalmisto. Ja Libanonin kauniista maasta tuli
kalmisto minun sydämelleni ja Barba Yanin ruumiille. Eräänä
päivänä lähellä Dleptaa kaatoi äkkinäinen ja odottamaton
sydänkohtaus hänet kasvoilleen maahan. Hän löi päänsä kallioon ja
haavoittui.

»Barba Yani! Ystäväni! Mikä sinun on? Oletko sairas?»

Ei, Barba Yani ei enää ollut sairas. Nyt oli minun vuoroni
sairastaa…

Siitä lähtien on mato jäytänyt elämääni. Kadotetun ystävän kaipuu

ja halu etsiä kaikesta huolimatta rakkautta, sai minut muutamia
vuosia myöhemmin palaamaan kotimaahani, lähestymään
inhimillistä olentoa, rakastamaan häntä, niinkuin olin rakastanut
Kiraa ja äitiäni — niin kuin olin rakastanut Barba Yania.

Tällainen on Markkina-Stavron tarina…

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