Moral responsibility, conversation, and desert:comments on Michael McKenna’s conversationand responsibility

Dana Kay Nelkin

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract In this paper, I engage with several of the intriguing theses Michael

McKenna puts forward in his Conversation and Responsibility. For example, I

examine McKenna’s claim that the fact that an agent is morally responsible for an

action and the fact that an agent is appropriately held responsible explain each other.

I go on to argue that despite the importance of the ability to hold people responsible,

an agent’s being morally responsible for an action is explanatorily fundamental, and

in this sense responsibility is response-independent. I then explore some of the

specific aspects of McKenna’s conversational theory before turning to his sugges-

tion that the conversational nature of our responsibility practices gives us special

kinds of reasons for accepting that agents are deserving of the harms of blame.

Finally, I conclude by raising questions for his argument that the scope of blame-

worthy actions extends beyond that of impermissible actions.

Keywords Desert � Moral responsibility � Reactive attitudes

Conversation and Responsibility is simply a terrific book that repays multiple

readings.1 Michael McKenna (2012) offers a rich and subtle exploration of a whole

host of issues, takes a highly original and interesting approach of his own, and does it

all in a most impressively judicious and open-minded way. McKenna’s argument is

intricate and complex in places, and yet for all of that, the book is wonderfully

accessible and the style inviting. As a reader, one has the sense of being in the mind of a

philosopher working things out, and one who is unusually willing to leave the door

D. K. Nelkin (&)

Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive,

La Jolla, CA 92093-0119, USA

e-mail: dnelkin@ucsd.edu

1 All page references are to this book unless otherwise noted.

123

Philos Stud

DOI 10.1007/s11098-013-0250-3

open even to paths not ultimately taken. This book has already begun and will continue

to push people to take stands on issues that they might otherwise avoid—including the

role of desert in our responsibility practices, the precise relationship between being

responsible and holding responsible, the relationship between responsibility and

wrongdoing, and much more. At the same time, we will be helped by the framework

McKenna has provided, so that even where we might disagree, it will likely be because

the framework has allowed for a clearer articulation of our own positions. I here set out

some of McKenna’s insights on these topics and raise a few questions of my own,

knowing that I will learn more from McKenna’s responses.

1 Responsibility, holding responsible, and the reactive attitudes

McKenna begins by asking about the relationship between moral responsibility and

our practices of holding people responsible. To help us get clearer, he sets out the

following thesis articulated by R. Jay Wallace (1994), and inspired by Peter

Strawson:

(N) S is morally responsible (for action x) if and only if it would be

appropriate to hold S morally responsible (for action x). (p. 58)

McKenna claims that the biconditional is true—roughly at least. In particular, he

points out that we ought to distinguish two different claims, one about being morally

responsible for an action, and one about being a morally responsible agent. So, more

precisely—and helpfully—we have the following:

(N-Action) S is morally responsible for action x in the sense of being

praiseworthy or blameworthy for x if and only if it would be pro tanto

appropriate to hold S morally responsible for action x by praising or blaming S.

(N-Agency) S is a morally responsible agent if and only if all-things-

considered, it would be appropriate to hold S to be a morally responsible

agent, one who is liable to praise and blame. (p. 62)

Next McKenna focuses our attention on the question of which side of the

biconditional we should see as having explanatory priority. Is an agent responsible

for hurting her friend because it would be appropriate to hold her responsible, or

would it be appropriate to hold her responsible because she is responsible for

hurting her friend?

Rather than simply side with those who take it as clear that the appropriateness of

holding responsible must depend on the independent fact of whether an agent is

responsible, or those who take it that responsibility itself must be understood in

thoroughly response-dependent terms, he sees something attractive in both camps.

But it can be a challenge to determine exactly what he thinks in the end. For

example, he says that he wants it to be the case that both explanatory and

metaphysical priority go in the direction of being responsible to holding responsible,

so that ‘‘[h]olding responsible should in the first place answer to the facts about what

it is to be responsible’’. But he goes on: ‘‘Yet… I contend… that being morally

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responsible presupposes considerations employed from the standpoint of holding

responsible’’ (p. 50).

At one point, he suggests that we can solve the problem by denying that there is

an ‘‘exclusive one-way-only order of explanatory or metaphysical priority’’ (p. 53).

But at another point, he suggests that seeing responsibility as explanatorily prior to

holding responsible gets things ‘‘closer to right’’ (p. 48).

One might wonder then why McKenna does not simply side with those who take

the appropriateness of holding responsible to be dependent on the target’s being

responsible. I believe that the answer comes in the central chapter on Conversation

and Responsibility. There McKenna makes clear his belief that to be a morally

responsible agent one must understand the attitudes and emotions by which we hold

others responsible, and one reason for this is that only by having these attitudes

ourselves can we understand an important range of moral reasons for acting. He

writes that there is nothing in (N) that requires that ‘‘an agent who is responsible…must satisfy any conditions required of the agents who hold responsible… But note

that if one were to add such a requirement… and assuming (N) is true, it would help

to establish my claim that neither being nor holding morally responsible can be

regarded as metaphysically more basic than the other…’’ (p. 81).

This might naturally suggest that one needs the explanatory arrow to go both

ways, and, in particular, that we can’t really understand being morally responsible

without understanding what it is to hold responsible.

I believe that we can accept this latter claim, and nevertheless show that it does

not give us reason to think the explanatory arrow goes both ways in (N). The reason

is that it can be true that being responsible for an action is prior—explanatorily and

metaphysically—to the appropriateness of holding responsible, and yet it can also

be true that one condition of being responsible (at least for humans, or most

humans) is a general capacity to understand what it is to hold responsible. I believe

that this comes out especially when we focus on (N-action). Recall that (N-action)

says:

(N-Action) S is morally responsible for action x in the sense of being

praiseworthy or blameworthy for x if and only if it would be pro tanto

appropriate to hold S morally responsible for action x by praising or blaming

S.

Now let us build in that being morally responsible is indeed more basic:

(N-Action*) S is morally responsible for action x in the sense of being

praiseworthy or blameworthy for x if and only if it would be pro tanto

appropriate to hold S morally responsible for action x by praising or blaming

S, and if it would be pro tanto appropriate to hold S morally responsible for

action x, that is because S is morally responsible for action x.

This is consistent with the following claim:

(Moral Responsibility Capacities) S is morally responsible for action x only if

S acts with the capacity to hold herself and others responsible.

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Further, if we cash out ‘‘holding responsible’’ in terms of ‘‘having reactive

attitudes’’, then it is also consistent with

(Moral Sense) S is morally responsible for an action x only if S is able to feel

and understand moral sentiments and reactive attitudes. (p. 81)

It might help to focus on a particular case. Consider McKenna’s case of Daphne

and Leslie, in which Leslie tells a racist joke. To be responsible for telling the joke,

it might be that Leslie has to ‘‘feel and understand moral sentiments.’’ But she might

be responsible for this very action without having any beliefs at all about the

appropriateness of others’ indignation in this case. The appropriateness of Daphne’s

particular blaming behavior on this occasion must answer entirely to the facts of

whether Leslie is responsible. That explanatory arrow goes in only one direction.

But consistent with this fact is that one of the conditions of responsibility is Leslie’s

general understanding of what it is to hold responsible.

So here is a picture:

S’s being responsible for x / mutually entails ? a set of response independent

conditions, including that when S perform x, S has the capacity to hold

responsible.

S’s being responsible for x ? explains the appropriateness of holding S

responsible for x. (Being responsible is indeed explanatorily more basic than

holding responsible.)

S’s being responsible for x requires, at least for human beings, that when S

performs x, S has the capacity to feel and understand reactive attitudes.

I suspect that McKenna will not want to accept this picture. But I hope that

presenting it as an alternative might help us understand why not. One thing that

seems to hang on the question is whether we have a completely response-

independent notion of moral responsibility for a particular action. It seems to me

that we do. Ultimately, it is facts about the agent and her particular action that make

it appropriate, when it is, to hold her responsible for her action. But at least some of

the language that McKenna uses suggests otherwise.

2 The stages of the conversation

As mentioned, McKenna presents and subtly develops a theory of responsibility on

the analogy of a conversation. So we have a series of stages of the moral

conversation:

Moral contribution: Leslie makes a moral contribution by telling a prejudicial

joke.

Moral Address: By engaging in blaming practices, Daphne morally addresses

Leslie.

Moral Account: Suppose Leslie offers Daphne an account of her behavior and

in doing so acknowledges the offense, apologizes, and asks

for forgiveness.

D. K. Nelkin

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Blame here comes at the second stage, and one of the things that sets it apart from

punishment is that punishment comes later if at all—say, if the agent does not offer

a satisfying account or apologize.

The analogy to a conversation is very illuminating and its elaboration subtle. I

will here raise a couple of questions about the details, and then move into a

discussion of how the theory is related to questions about desert.

One question concerns an objection McKenna considers to the role of the

reactive attitudes—or affect more generally—in the account. The blaming practices

in the moral conversation consist (in part) of reactive attitudes. McKenna considers

the objection that one can hold responsible—and so participate in the second

stage—without having emotions. Often, the objection is posed in terms of an

imaginary counterexample—like the character Mr. Spock from Star Trek who is

presented as emotionless. McKenna’s response is to agree that the reactive attitudes

might not be necessary, but they are ‘‘deeply embedded’’ in our way of life. Thus,

the role played by the reactive attitudes may be contingent, but nevertheless

extremely important. Further, it is actually unclear that Spock is really emotionless,

and if we really try to ensure that we are conceiving an emotionless being, it is hard

to see that he really would be able to hold responsible. I believe that is a very nice

response. At the same time, there may be better examples that challenge a related

point—examples McKenna recognizes in other contexts—namely, Martin Luther

King and Gandhi. These people are not emotionless, but at least in the imaginary

versions of these figures, have worked hard to dispel their dispositions to the

reactive attitudes in particular. But this is consistent with their retaining all sorts of

emotions, including moral ones, such as empathy. So they seem to challenge the

thesis that the reactive attitudes are essential to holding responsible, even for

humans.

In fact, McKenna seems to agree that Gandhi and King can rightly be understood

as capable of blame despite not reacting with resentment and indignation. If that is

right, then perhaps it is not the case that blame should be closely identified with the

reactive attitudes after all.

A second question regards the order of the stages. While the example of Daphne

and Leslie seems realistic, I wonder whether it is ideal. In particular, I wonder if

blame ought not come after the stage of moral account, or at least after an agent has

been asked to give an account. Particularly since McKenna goes on to accept the

thesis that some justification of blaming is needed because it is harmful, one might

think that giving the agent an opportunity to make a plea or an excuse or provide a

justification before engaging in any harmful behavior would be called for.

Particularly if combined with a thesis that the harms of blaming can be deserved, it

seems that perhaps this is not the stage for blame. This question takes us to the topic

of desert.

3 Conversation and desert

McKenna’s discussion of desert and its relationship to the conversational theory and

to theories of responsibility in general is rich and enlightening. Again, he uses a

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light touch in following out various options; he doesn’t close off any unless he finds

excellent reason to do so. Thus, he makes a strong case for the conclusion that a

theory of responsibility need not contain a commitment to desert. The conversa-

tional theory as it stands, for example, does not. That theory—so far—consists of an

elaborated version of (N), in which, among other things, ‘‘appropriateness’’ is

understood as ‘‘meaningful’’ and ‘‘intelligible,’’ in the way that blaming responses

are intelligible stages in a kind of moral conversation, together with an account of

being morally responsible in terms of the moral quality of will with which an agent

acts.2 So far, there is no explicit connection between moral responsibility and desert.

McKenna argues that there are plausible views that can provide a justification, or

warrant, for our blaming practices that do not depend on the notion of desert. For

example, a contractualist account can serve here.3

But in the end McKenna concludes that there is good reason to add a desert thesis

to the conversational view. Some have taken desert to imply the axiological thesis

that it is good that one who wrongs another is harmed in return; others have taken

desert to imply the deontological thesis that it is required—or, more weakly—

permissible that one who wrongs another is harmed in return. McKenna suggests as

a starting point the following thesis that combines the axiological and deontological

ideas, making the axiological claim a justification for the deontological:

(AW) Because it is a noninstrumental good that, in return for a harm wrongly

inflicted, a wrongdoer is harmed, it is permissible to harm one who wrongly

harms another. (p. 133)

McKenna does not take this to be the ending point, however, because he thinks that

it is crucial to characterize the harm of blaming correctly. In his view, the only

harms that are relevant are the particular harms of blaming—the adverse effects of

the blaming stage in the moral conversation. These include the adverse effect to

agents’ interests in social intercourse and friendship, in freedom from interference

and in emotional stability. Each of these interests can be undermined by the

expression of disapproval and altered relations that comprise blame. Thus, putting

(AW) together with McKenna’s conception of blame and what makes it harmful, he

arrives at the following:

(AWB) It is a noninstrumental good that, as a response to an agent’s

blameworthy act, the agent experiences the adverse affects of others

communicating in their altered patterns of interpersonal relations, their moral

demands, expectations, and disapproval. Because this is a noninstrumental

good, it is permissible to blame one who is blameworthy. [Note that

‘‘permissible’’ is meant to be read in a ‘‘pro tanto’’ sense.] (p. 141)

McKenna points out that such a thesis does not entail that one who blames intends

harm, nor does it entail that any amount of harm is permitted. Rather, only the

2 McKenna refers to this kind of account as a ‘‘quality of will’’ thesis (p. 58).3 See McKenna’s discussion of Scanlon’s (2008) and Lenman’s (2006) views, for example (pp.

156–164).

D. K. Nelkin

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particular harms of blaming—the adverse effects of the blaming stage in the moral

conversation—are permitted.

Why think that (AWB) is true? McKenna offers three reasons for thinking that

the harm of blame is a noninstrumental good. Let us examine each of these:

(1) ‘‘First, only a person who cares about her moral relations with others could be

exposed to these harms… One who did not care that others were making

conversational demands of her… would not regard her personal life as

interfered with. Nor would she be emotionally unsettled by these demands.

Here the goodness is located in the blameworthy agent’s commitment to

membership within the moral community.’’ (p. 167)

(2) ‘‘A second reason to value blaming locates the goodness in the role of the

blamer… those who blame display their commitment to the moral consider-

ations undermined by the blameworthy person’s wrongdoing.’’ (p. 168)

(3) ‘‘A third reason to value blaming locates the goodness in the relation between

the blameworthy person and those who blame her… The point is… one that

concerns the noninstrumental value of a process that begins at one end with a

wrong done, and then conversationally answers that wrong by way of some

blaming practice, and that invites an extension of the unfolding conversation in

a manner that values sustained bonds of moral community.’’ (p. 169)

Each of these passages offers a reason for thinking blaming is a noninstrumental

good. But McKenna is quite aware of a very natural objection that arises at this

point. Acknowledging a response by Derk Pereboom, McKenna recognizes that one

might ask whether the reasons just given for finding the harm in blame good are

really reasons for thinking the harm is just an instrumental good (p. 170).

McKenna’s answer is to turn to John Coltrane for enlightenment. He offers a

subtle and interesting analogy as part of his reply: the idea is that the jazz piece,

‘‘Blue Train’’, is itself an intrinsic, or noninstrumental good. Now consider the

contribution of the percussion work by Philly Joe Jones. It is not merely

instrumentally valuable, but has a kind of constitutive relation to the noninstru-

mentally valuable piece of music. Similarly, McKenna suggests, ‘‘there is also

noninstrumental value in a blamer’s commitment to morality’s counsel,’’ and her

blaming can be thought of as ‘‘an integral part of what for her constitutes that

commitment itself.’’ (p. 170)

As clever as the analogy is, there is some reason to doubt that it will succeed in

serving its purpose. It is worth noting that when McKenna compares the jazz piece

and the moral conversation, it is the blaming, and particular aspects thereof—and

not the harm itself—that are claimed to be analogous to the percussion work

constitutive of a noninstrumental good. It may be that the aspects of blaming that

McKenna identifies are noninstrumental goods. And let us suppose that they are

non-contingently related to harms. Thus, it might be that the goods in question

require the imposition of harms. But this does not mean that the goods are good

even in part in virtue of their being harmful. In fact, even if the harm is required for

the good and yet not an instrumental good, that does not make it an intrinsic good.

Consider each reason in turn. The first is that the harms to which a blamed person

is exposed can be experienced as harms only if the person cares about the regard

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others have for her. (p. 167) But this suggests that what is fundamentally good is the

care that people have. And this caring is a precondition for experiencing harm. But

it does not follow that the harm itself is a noninstrumental good—or even an

instrumental good. Consider the second reason for the good of blame: the display of

commitment to moral considerations on the part of the blamer. Again, the display

may be non-contingently related to harm, but it is not clear that the harm itself is a

noninstrumental good. To see this, consider that a philosopher like Scanlon (2008)

who at least at one point rejected a desert thesis altogether, could agree that it can be

good to express our commitment to morality and alter our relationships accordingly,

in ways that cause harm, without thinking that the harm itself is valuable at all. (On

this view, the harm is a mere by-product of a good, and not even an instrumental

good.) The third reason for thinking blame is good is that the conversational process

is itself valuable as a sustainer of the bonds of moral community. Here it is tempting

to see this in instrumental terms, but even if we do not, it is not clear that it is in

virtue of being harmful that the blame is good.4

It might be helpful to think about this analogy. Completing a marathon is a

noninstrumental good. Running the first ten miles is partly constitutive of

completing the marathon and can be seen as a noninstrumental good. But running

the first ten miles is impossible without thereby expending a certain number of

calories. Still, is losing that number of calories a noninstrumental good? I am

tempted to say not. The good of completing a marathon is not good in virtue of its

requiring the expending of those calories.

Insofar as (AW) is meant to be a desert thesis, presumably it is because it

captures an important entailment of the idea that harm is deserved. But on this view,

if the harm is deserved, then it must be the harm that is itself the noninstrumental

good. Insofar as (AWB) is an instance of (AW), then it is the harm of blaming that

must be the noninstrumental good. Or, to put it slightly differently, it must be that it

is in virtue of its being harmful that blaming is a noninstrumental good.

Thus, we have a kind of dilemma. If we read (AWB) as claiming that it is in

virtue of suffering harms that blaming wrongdoers is noninstrumentally good, then

(AWB) will not be supported by the three reasons or, insofar as we can read (AWB)

as supported by the three reasons, it would not be the case that (AWB) is a true

desert thesis.

Finally, I find it to be an open question how we should think about the

relationship of desert and noninstrumental goodness of harm. (AWB), which does

not mention desert explicitly, is, at most, a claim that is entailed by the claim that

wrongdoers deserve harm in response to their blameworthy acts. So even if (AWB)

were shown to be true, it would not yet have been shown that wrongdoers deserve

harm for their blameworthy acts. Perhaps McKenna would accept a mutual

entailment here, so that (AW), at least, would entail that wrongdoers deserve harm

4 See Pereboom (2014) for a subtle discussion of McKenna’s arguments, and a sustained case that the

harms in question are more plausibly seen as instrumental goods than intrinsic. Here I simply add that

even if it can be shown that the harms are entailed by intrinsic goods and yet not instrumental goods, it

still would not follow that they are intrinsic goods or goods at all.

D. K. Nelkin

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in response to their blameworthy action. I would be curious to know if he accepts

that, too.

In sum, while a desert thesis is consistent with the conversational theory, I am not

(yet) convinced that the conversational theory provides a special kind of support for

it. But there is much to think about here.

4 The scope of blameworthiness

The conversational account leads McKenna to bring together still another set of

important issues. In chapter 8, McKenna takes on the question of whether

blameworthiness—in the accountability sense—is limited to actions that are morally

wrong and to actions or states that are under our direct voluntary control. He offers

some reason for thinking that the answer is ‘‘no’’ on both counts, and shows how the

conversational theory fits in an elegant way with an expansive view of the scope of

what we can be responsible for.

There is much to discuss here, but I will just focus on the particular question of

whether agents can be blameworthy for actions that do not violate moral

obligations, and take the side of those who hold a more restrictive view of

blameworthiness. McKenna offers at least two sorts of arguments here. One centers

on presenting cases in which agents seem to be blameworthy—in the accountability

sense—and yet do not do something morally wrong. Instead, they may fail to live up

to an ideal, or something of the sort. McKenna appeals to a case of Julia Driver’s in

which a person decides not to donate one of his kidneys to his brother who is in

great need of one.5 Driver takes it to be suberogatory insofar as he does not live up

to the idea of fraternal self-sacrifice, even though it is permissible. She suggests that

this is because one has the right to keep one’s own kidney. McKenna endorses this

approach to the example, and suggests that the brother could be blameworthy for not

donating his kidney, even though it is permissible. But he thinks that there might be

better examples, because some think that we do have obligations to our siblings just

in virtue of their being siblings. If that is right, then we won’t be able to conclude

that failing to give the kidney is permissible after all. So McKenna introduces

another example: Maria is a stranger to Jenny, but Maria is in apparent and

immediate need of medicine, and Jenny is in a position to help at tiny cost to herself.

She does not. Intuitively, Jenny is blameworthy for not doing so, but is not obligated

to help.

Now I have different intuitions about the cases. In the case in which there is low

to no cost for helping someone in dire need, I believe that one is obligated to

provide that help—even if the one in need has no right to one’s aid. So Jenny does

violate an obligation. In the case of the brothers, things may be more complicated,

but this may be because we have less in the way of information about the situation.

At the very least, I want to resist a move that Driver may be making here. It is the

move from the claim that an agent acts ‘‘within her rights’’ to the claim that it is

5 Driver (1992, pp. 287–288).

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permissible for her to so act. Just as we may have duties that do not correspond to

the rights of others, so we may act ‘‘within our rights’’ in a sense, without it being

the case that doing so is permissible. I might have a general right to keep my kidney

in the sense that no one else has a right to take it from me, but, depending on the

details of the situation, it may be that I ought to give it up.

McKenna offers another kind of argument here. It is that when we turn to

praiseworthy actions, we are not concerned only with moral obligations. In fact, we

often focus on superogatory actions, ones that require going beyond our obligations.

If we find symmetry appealing, we should also think that there are ‘‘suberogatory’’

acts, ones that are permissible but bad in some other way. But here I would simply

ask for more reason to think that there should be this kind of symmetry. And I

wonder whether there will actually be a symmetrical story to tell about

praiseworthiness and blameworthiness even on the conversational model.

There is much more to say about this topic, too, and as can already be seen,

different reactions to the cases in question may reflect quite different moral theories.

But this, I think, simply reflects a great virtue of the book—that it takes us in such

interesting directions, and challenges us to defend our commitments in such a wide

range of debates.

In closing, I note that in the preface McKenna describes the evolution of this

book as having its origins in the first chapter of another manuscript that defends a

compatibilist theory of free will. Realizing that he wanted to follow out his thoughts

about moral responsibility before he continued, he set aside the first book to write

this one. Given the rich treatment of so many issues here, we can anticipate with

great interest the way in which the second will build on this first one. But in the

meantime, thanks to this book, we have the opportunity to participate in a wonderful

conversation about the nature of moral responsibility.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to the other participants of the APA session, Michael McKenna,

George Sher, Holly Smith, and Kevin Timpe, and to members of the audience for very insightful

comments and discussion. I am also very grateful to Michael McKenna, Derk Pereboom and Sam

Rickless for their comments on an earlier draft. And for very helpful discussion of an earlier draft of

Conversation and Responsibility, I also thank the members of a graduate seminar on Responsibility and

the Reactive Attitudes I gave in 2009, namely, Sarah Aiken, Per Milam, Chris Suhler, and Michael

Tiboris.

References

Driver, J. (1992). The Suberogatory. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 70, 286–295.

Lenman, J. (2006). Compatibilism and contractualism: The possibility of moral responsibility. Ethics,

117, 7–31.

McKenna, M. (2012). Conversation and responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pereboom, D. (2014). Free will, agency, and meaning in life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Scanlon, T. M. (2008). Moral dimensions: Permissibility, meaning, and blame. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press.

Wallace, R. J. (1994). Responsibility and the moral sentiments. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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