Private, Public, and Punitive Blame

This chapter addresses a broad trend in the literature on blame, taken up in John Gardner’s later work, which suggests that if blame is to be endorsed it must be safely divorced from punishment, its brutal brother-in-arms. The chapter examines Gardner’s particular defence of blame and blaming, and its accompanying rejection of reproach and punishment. It suggests that the position Gardner motions towards-in defence of private, attitudinal blame and in opposition to public blame-is an unstable one. It proposes that we can nonetheless make sense of Gardner’s attraction to the suggested view if we recognize the essentially punitive nature of public blame despite efforts in the literature to deny this. The chapter argues, however, that accepting the punitivity of blame does not mean we should come out against public blame, as intimated by Gardner. Rather, attending to the excesses and pathologies of public blame, we can proceed with the necessary caution with respect to blaming practices while defending not only the significance of private blame, but that of public blame as well. The chapter suggests that Gardner would thus have done well to push his reconsidered position even further, in defence not only of private blame, but of public blame as well.