Holding Wrongdoers Responsible

Holding Wrongdoers Responsible contests a number of widely accepted, almost standard, claims about blame and forgiveness in the philosophical literature, and their relationship to each other.

Jeffrey M. Blustein is Professor of Philosophy and Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics, City College, City University of New York. His previously authored books include The Moral Demands of Memory (2008) and Forgiveness and Remembrance: Remembering Wrongdoing in Personal and Public Life (2014).

Introduction: On the Complexities of Blame and Forgiveness 1. The Problem with Blame 2. The Hostility Critique 3. Varieties of Blame 4. To Blame or Not to Blame? 5. An Ethics of Blame 6. Forgoing Blame 7. Holding Responsible Without Blame Part I Conclusion: Taking Stock 8. Blame Before and After Forgiveness 9. Is Blame Renounced by Forgiveness? Some Philosophical Accounts 10. Forgiveness and the Purposes of Blame 11. How Forgiveness Changes Blame Part II Conclusion: Withdrawing Good Will and Expressing Ill Will Appendix I: On the Moral Peril of Forgiveness in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh 12. Praising and Debunking Forgiveness 13. The Electivity of Forgiveness 14. The Gratitude-Based Objection 15. Aristotle, Kant and the Problem with Gratitude 16. Nietzsche, Nussbaum and the Problem with Forgiveness 17. An Alternative Moral Psychology of Gratitude and Forgiveness Part III Conclusion: The Two Faces of Forgiveness Appendix II: On Blame and Optimism