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Huck vs. Jojo: Moral Ignorance and the (A)symmetry of Praise and Blame

Faraci, David; Shoemaker, David

Huck vs. Jojo: Moral Ignorance and the (A)symmetry of Praise and Blame Thumbnail


Authors

David Shoemaker



Contributors

J. Knobe
Editor

T. Lombrozo
Editor

S. Nichols
Editor

Abstract

When Huckleberry Finn fails to turn in Jim, he believes he is going to hell for doing what he has been raised to believe is wrong. When Susan Wolf’s JoJo—raised by his dictator father to embrace his father’s evil values—grows up, he tortures peasants on a whim. Are they morally responsible? Many philosophers have simply assumed what our pretheoretic intuitions are in these cases, and their assumptions have prompted two thoughts: (a) childhood deprivations of moral knowledge excuse from responsibility, and (b) blameworthiness and praiseworthiness are symmetrical, so that whatever agential features excuse from one will excuse from the other. This chapter discusses tests that were designed and implemented to reveal what people’s pretheoretic intuitions actually are in such cases. Both theses are really more nuanced than they have been taken to be, and the unified explanation for the results reveals an under-explored feature of responsibility.

Citation

Faraci, D., & Shoemaker, D. (2015). Huck vs. Jojo: Moral Ignorance and the (A)symmetry of Praise and Blame. In J. Knobe, T. Lombrozo, & S. Nichols (Eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy (7-27). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198718765.003.0002

Online Publication Date Jan 31, 2015
Publication Date Jan 31, 2015
Deposit Date Sep 3, 2018
Publicly Available Date Sep 5, 2018
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 7-27
Series Number 1
Book Title Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198718765.003.0002
Related Public URLs https://davidfaraci.com/pubs/hvj.pdf

Files

Accepted Book Chapter (286 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
Faraci, David & Shoemaker, David (2014). Huck vs. Jojo: Moral Ignorance and the (A)symmetry of Praise and Blame. In Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy. Knobe, J., Lombrozo, T. & Nichols, S. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1: 7-27, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198718765.003.0002




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