The Attribution of Blame

How can we identify the causes of events? What does it mean to assert that someone is responsible for a moral affront? Under what circumstances should we blame others for wrongdoing? The related, but conceptually distinct, issues of causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness that are the subject of this book play a critical role in our everyday social encounters. As very young children we learn to assert that "it wasn't my fault," or that "I didn't mean to do it." Responsibility and blame follow us into adulthood, as personal or organizational failings require explanation. Although judgments of moral accountability are quickly made and adamantly defended, the process leading to those judgments is not as simple as it might seem. Psychological research on causality and responsibility has not taken complete advantage of a long tradition of philosophical analysis of these concepts. Philosophical discussions, for their part, have not been sufficiently I1ware of the psychological realities. An assignment of blame is a social explanation. It is the outcome of a process that begins with an event having negative consequences, involves judgments about causality, personal responsibility, and possible mitigation. The result can be an assertion, or a denial, of individual blameworthiness. The purpose of this book is to develop a comprehensive theory of how people assign blame.

Inhalt

1. Events and Accountability.- Explaining Negative Events.- Attribution in Social Judgment.- Toward a Theory of Blame.- 2. Causes and Explanations.- The Psychological-Context View of Scienific Explanation.- The Nature of Causality.- Causality and the Theory of Blame.- 3. The Attribution of Causality.- Personal and Impersonal Causality.- The Naive Analysis of Action.- Multiple Events: An Individual Differences View.- Multiple Antecedents of Effects or Actions.- Perception of Multiple Causes.- Attribution of Causality.- 4. Dimensions of Responsibility.- Senses of Responsibility.- Moral Responsibility Versus Legal Responsibility.- Causality: A Precondition for Responsibility?.- Standards for Moral Evaluation.- The Dilemma of Determinism.- Characteristics of Voluntary Action.- Some Warnings About Excuses.- Responses to an Accusation.- Dimensions of Responsibility.- 5. Attributions of Responsibility.- Levels of Responsibility.- The Origins of Intention.- Dimensions of Responsibility and Attribution.- 6. Rationality and Bias: Intentions, Reasons, and Motives.- Definitions of Intention.- Reasons as Causes.- Motivation of Perceivers.- 7. Attributions of Causality and Responsibility: Discovered or Imposed?.- What Sorts of Causes?.- Dimensions of Responsibility.- 8. A Theory of Blame.- Metatheory for the Attribution of Blame.- A Theory of Blame Assignment.- The Assignment of Blame.- Conclusions.- References.- Author Index.