Blame, Time and Redemption, Professor Maria Alvarez

On Tuesday, 3 March Professor Maria Alvarez gave a talk to membership. In it, she discussed the topics of blameworthiness and time, relating them to some of the ‘100 Papers That Shaped Our Thinking’ - a collection of the most influential contributions published in our journals, selected by TRIP’s current President, Professor Jo Wolff to celebrate our Centenary.

About the Speaker:
Professor Alvarez is a Co-Editor of Philosophy, the academic journal of The Royal Institute of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, and the author of Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action. She works mainly on philosophy of action, responsibility, and reasons and normativity.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello, welcome everybody, and welcome to Professor Maria Alvarez, who is a professor at King's College London and co-editor of Philosophy, the World Institute of Philosophy's Journal, who and who also works in the Philosophy of Action and Ethics. Tonight we'll be hearing her speak on blame, time, and redemption, and we'll have a QA following. And just to a little housekeeping, if you'd like to ask a question, please use the hand raise feature on Zoom. And if you wouldn't like to be on camera, then you can ask it in the chat and I'll ask it on your behalf. And thank you so much for coming. And thank you, Professor Alvarez, for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Thanks very much, Julia. Thank you for inviting me to do this talk. And thank you for the people who have joined online. It's at least one or two people I know. So hello to you. You know who you are. Okay, so the topic I'm going to talk about today may be familiar, but perhaps not exactly in the form I'm going to present it to you, or maybe the exact problem I'm going to be talking about. So what I will do is start introducing the problem and trying to get the question into focus for you, and then we'll take it from there. So let me start saying a little bit, as you know, the um title of the topic is Blame, Time and Redemption, very sort of big themes. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the connection between the three. Okay. So I'll start saying a little bit about this idea of blame. Philosophers in the past, I don't know, a couple of decades or more have written a lot about blame, about what it is to blame and when it's right and so on. And that's partly because the practices of feeling and expressing blame are central to our relationships. They shape and are shaped by the emotional, practical, and normative ties that bind us to each other. When you start thinking about it, you realize how much of the way in which we interact with each other involves attitudes or expressions of blame, whether interpersonally or socially. Now I'm just going to try to remove this thing because I can't see the screen. No, I've done it. Okay, so I can see my own PowerPoint. So they are important because of that central role that they play. They are important because blame is a very powerful tool for social influence, and of course that's something that one sees a lot in social media nowadays. You can destroy people very quickly or the opposite, by engaging in forms of public blaming. And it is also a powerful tool for control, both interpersonal and social. And because of that, it is particularly important that those practices associated with attitudes of blaming, whether they are internal or external, should be justified and appropriate. Some people think that in fact blame is a very bad thing altogether and we should abandon the attitudes of blame. But it may be that properly done, properly felt, properly handled, blame is actually inevitable and also a very useful tool. So the question we are going to talk about, and I don't know whether when I explain it, uh you will think, oh yes, I've thought about this. It's something that we can call diachronic blame, blame across time. So suppose that someone who is capable of performing moral actions, someone who is has the kind of capacities required to be accountable for their actions, commits an unexcused wrong, something that is wrong and for which they don't have an excuse or a justification. And therefore they are prima facie culpable for that wrong because they have no excuse or justification and they have uh they meet the conditions for accountability. And because they are culpable in the sense of being guilty, they therefore are blameworthy. That is to say, they are deserving of the kind of censure that is implicit in blaming attitudes, whether those are inner or overt. So that's something that um happens all the time. Someone commits a wrong, they are culpable for it, and therefore they deserve these attitudes of blame. Now the past cannot be changed, so the person who committed the wrong will remain culpable forever for that wrong. That's something that cannot be changed or erased. But a different question is: must this person remain equally blameworthy for that wrong forever? i.e., must they remain deserving of other people's attitudes of blame or their own, with that dimension of censure and disapprobation and criticism that accompanies blaming? So that's the question of diachronic blame. Synchronically, there are conditions for being blameworthy. And then diachronically, the question is: can anything happen that changes the fact that someone was blameworthy at the point of committing the wrong to becoming less blameworthy, less deserving of blame than they were originally? Now, to understand this, it is important to distinguish three aspects or three issues that one could ask about the practice of blame. One is what is it to blame someone? What judgments, attitudes, dispositions, behaviors, etc., constitute an instance of internal or overt blame. So we could blame people just by feeling a certain way towards them, we may not express that blame. Or we could blame them by saying it's your fault or denounce them publicly. There are many ways of doing it. So that's one question: what is it to blame someone? A separate question related to it obviously, what justifies blaming someone? What's the normative justification, the reasons that make it right, justified to blame someone for their wrongdoing? And third, what's the point of blaming? When we blame each other, we do it in the ways that one would explain, and we do it for the reasons that two explains in terms of that's what makes it justified, but for the sake of what do we blame people? What goods which may be personal or interpersonal or social can be realized through the practices of internal and overt blame. So you can see that when we think about whether blame is appropriate, we need to think about these three aspects. Um, the justification of blame will give us a minimum condition, but blame may be justified but not appropriate for other reasons. And let me say a little bit about that now. So blame is justified in the sense that uh point two was intended to highlight only if it is deserved, i.e., if the wrongdoing doer is culpable and blameworth if they are deserving of that censure that is involved in blaming. But justified blame, as I just said, may be nonetheless inappropriate, perhaps, because there is no point in blaming. So it's you know, it may be inappropriate in the sense that it's not a very good idea to do it because uh blaming someone may have may be counterproductive, may uh produce the opposite of what you intended to produce, or or it may um have no point. It may be that you're not going to achieve anything. Um and so it could be that it's justified but inappropriate for reasons other than um the point of blame. I'll say more about that. Sorry for slight uh interruption is because my PowerPoint disappeared. So and our question is not whether blaming uh will could remain inappropriate. As I said, there are many reasons that could make blame that was originally appropriate now inappropriate, but whether it can become something that is not right, not appropriate, because it's not justified, i.e., whether a wrongdoer uh could do something, there could be some changes that make them less worthy of the uh blame that originally was justified and deserved. Okay, so let me say a little bit about the nature of blame so that we are all talking about or thinking about the same thing, because of course philosophers disagree about everything, and one of the things they disagree about is what blaming is. So uh blame requires a kind of negative judgment about someone's doing something. So you it requires an assessment uh of culpability or wrongdoing, uh a judgment that what X did wasn't right and they had no excuse and justification. But it requires more than that. You might judge all sorts of things to be that people have done to be wrong without engaging in any way in blaming them internally or externally. And that's because, as Randolph Clark says, blaming seems to involve holding the wrongdoing against someone. If you want, holding them against it means something like being engaged in this feeling that it matters to you that you care about the wrongdoing, whether you care on your behalf or vicariously because of someone else. So it's an element of negative judgment, but with this attitude of holding against, which involves this uh censoring, and which we do maybe on our behalf because we've been wrong, or on behalf of someone else because they've been wrong by a third party. And this is typically emotionally colored, i.e., it brings with it certain emotions, which, for example, uh Peter Stresson, who talked about these the paradigmatic blame emotions, are resentment and moral indignation or disapprobation, whether they are self-ordirected. For Strossen, for example, interpersonal blame, when that blame arises in relationships that are guided and framed by norms, may bring with it resentment without it necessarily being moralized. So I may resent the fact that someone, my partner, has forgotten my birthday without thinking about whether that's morally right or wrong. It's just that our relationship, uh, I have an expectation of being treated in a certain way, and I resent the fact that for the tenth year they've forgotten my birthday or they get the date wrong, or that you know, something uh greater. Or it could be a moral indignation at someone's wrongdoing or disapprobation. Now, some people are a little unhappy with this idea that blame needs to be emotionally colored because they say, you know, you could blame without being angry, but of course, uh the heat of the emotion needn't be alive every time that you blame someone. You might blame someone without at that particular point feeling any emotion in that sort of vivid sense, but you still feel as you know, you could be angry with someone for 30 years without it meaning that you're all the time boiling, your blood is boiling over that period. So I think the idea that it's emotionally colored, that there are sentiments that accompany the attitude of blame seems very plausible. And just want to say briefly, there is also guilt, the idea that we sometimes blame ourselves. Either so you can think of guilt as a self-directed blame or perhaps as a feeling that accompanies self-directed blame. So I judge myself to have committed some wrong and I feel guilty because of that. And so, of course, if if one thinks that if one doesn't conceive of blame in these terms, if you don't think that it's something that requires this kind of emotional engagement, then it's very implausible to believe that blameworthiness could diminish because blame just becomes a judgment of culpability. And that's not going to change, as we said at the beginning. If you are culpable for someone, that if you want goes on the ledger of your life, as some people say, and there'll be your good deeds and your bad deeds, the ones that you were guilty for, and that will never change. So the question is not whether you can cease to deserve a judgment of culpability. That's not the question that everybody agrees cannot happen because unless we discover that you were excused, but we are assuming there were no excuses or justifications. So once you deserve the judgment of culpability, of guilt, that's uh of being guilty in in the, if you want, in the way in which uh you are declared guilty in in a courtroom, that cannot change. The question that we are thinking about is whether the attitude that that arouses in others, which has this uh emotionally colored engagement, could you become you could become less deserving of that attitude despite the fact that the past cannot change. So, what makes for appropriate blame? I said that blame must be deserved, but it must meet other conditions. And we can think, first of all, uh not any amount of blame or any form of blame might be deserved. So, as some people put it, blame for it to be appropriate and deserved has to be of the type of the right size and shape. Uh, the form in which you blame people, the intensity, the duration must be right. And that is something that depends primarily on the nature of the wrong and the significance of the wrong. So if someone stole your pencil when you were in primary school, maybe it was appropriate to be a bit angry with them at the time. But if you still felt intense anger, then your brain is not appropriate because it's disproportionate to the wrong, say. Blame could be inappropriate even though it is deserved, because of the motivations behind blame. Perhaps you like to occupy the moral high ground and you're blaming people who deserve it, but the reason why you do it, what makes it inappropriate, is your own motivation in doing it, what you are seeking or what motivates you to do it. Um, there is this idea also that blame may be inappropriate if you don't have the standing to blame, either because you have just committed the same wrong, so you're not in a very strong position to be blaming others, um, or because it's not your business. Uh, it is true that your neighbor is, I don't know, being unfaithful to their spouse, but it's not for you to get involved and start berating them for them if you have nothing to do with the whole domestic situation. So you have no, you're not the victim or related to the victim in the kind sort of way, in the right sort of way, or there may be other reasons. And also blame may be inappropriate because if it doesn't fulfill those ends of blame that I talked about. For example, uh, blame often is felt and expressed in order to bring about recognition and repentance, to strengthen common values, to affirm the status of the victim as a protest, but sometimes it may be fully justified but not appropriate because if you protest, maybe you'll be tortured, so it's not a very good idea. So you could say there are all sorts of reasons why blame may cease to be appropriate, which are not to do with the question that we are thinking about. But that's why the issue is quite complicated to think about how one could become less deserving of blame, not because of these points that I've just outlined. Okay, so hope you've got the the question into focus, and the question is whether blameworthiness, the deserve desert aspect of blame, is forever, given that culpability is forever. Now, some people say yes, it is. Um and some people maybe, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but or maybe as I'm talking, you might have thought, yes, of course, blameworthiness is forever, it cannot change. Um, and that tends to be because people uh think that if you are guilty, if you're culpable, then you must be blameworthy. And since the first is forever, the second is forever. And I'm just going to run through an argument that someone, Randolph Clark, who's written a lot about this and in ways which I think are very illuminating, although I don't agree with him, but he proposes this argument to defend the idea that blameworthiness is forever. So I'll run through it relatively quickly because otherwise we won't have time. Okay. If one is guilty of a moral offense, he says, one remains so without end, guilty or culpable. Um if you're guilty of a moral offense, then you're culpable for it, and one who's culpable for an offense is to blame for it. To be to blame for something is to be worthy of blame or blameworthy for it. Conclusion, hence, blameworthiness is forever. Once blameworthy for an offense, always blameworthy for that offense. So that's his argument. Guilty, culpable, to blame, worthy of blame, blameworthy. Now, for someone who doesn't who thinks that there is a real question here, you'll think this doesn't work. Why? Well, this is one way of putting the objection. In the argument, S is guilty of X seems to be ambiguous between X culpably committed wrongdoing, and if that's what it means, then everybody agrees that that doesn't change. Um that S culpably committed wrongdoing is just what we said is the unchannel be changed because of the uh unchanging nature of the past. But S could also mean what we are thinking about that S deserves to be blamed, to be censured for what they did. And if you assume the second meaning in the first uh premise, so that it is legitimate to move from guilty to culpable to deserving of blame, then you are begging the question because the question is whether if you are culpable in the first sense, then you will be deserving of blame in the second sense forever in both cases. So you could say that this argument is not convincing because of an ambiguity, because if you use S is guilty of F. Really to mean S is blameworthy, i.e., deserving of blame, then the first premise is the conclusion. And so it's not convincing. If, as is the case, as you will have noticed, English is not your first language, you will, you know, if I do it in Spanish, actually the word for guilty and culpable and so on don't translate into blameworthy. They are quite different. And we don't have uh that we don't use them in the same way. So the argument wouldn't work in, for example, in Spanish. So this, which I think is one of the most explicit and perhaps powerful ways of putting the point that blameworthiness is forever, seems to me unconvincing. So what I want to do next is to look at three accounts, three views that people have, people who think that blameworthiness is not forever, that it can reduce over time. Three accounts that have been given of why blameworthiness uh might reduce. As I said, this is not the question of whether blameworthiness reduces because with the passing of time the offense comes to seem not very significant. It's not that the significance of the offense remains the same, but something about the wrongdoer changes that is supposed to bring about a reduction in their blameworthiness and how much they deserve blame. So let me start with the first one, which is uh sometimes this view is called a debt uh view of blame. So according to this view, to be blameworthy is to deserve the suffering uh of being blamed, or another version is to deserve the guilt that one feels when one blames oneself. So, according to this view, guilty, culpable wrongdoers deserve the suffering of being blamed or of feeling guilty. That's what it is to be blameworthy, to deserve that suffering. And they say when they've when the wrongdoer has suffered as much as they deserved through blame or guilt, they cease to be blameworthy, to deserve blame. You can see that this is um maybe has some plausibility because you could say, well, we certainly think this about punishment. You do commit some wrong, and it may be that it is thought that you deserve some punishment. Once you get the punishment you deserve, you don't deserve any more punishment. It would be quite wrong to say, okay, you deserve five years in jail, and you come out and say, Oh, we said you deserve five years in jail. So another five years that you've done the five years, you don't deserve any more punishment. So this view uh does precisely treats uh blame, if you want the suffering of blame, as a kind of analogous to punishment. And that seems to me what is wrong with it, that uh it treats the suffering that is concomitant to blaming or feeling guilty as analogous to a sanction or punishment. But those are different. I mean, I could say a lot more about each of these views, and of course I'm only highlighting what I think is wrong with them. I will highlight briefly what I think is right with them. But I think you could say that as well as this assimilation of blame with a kind of punishment, this seems to me to get the order of explanation wrong. Uh, because you ought to feel guilty because you are blameworthy. It's not that you are blameworthy because you ought to feel guilty. And so I think it gets the order of explanation wrong. But it does get one thing right, I think, namely that feeling guilty is necessary for becoming less blameworthy for it. So it's in the right territory, but it doesn't quite get it right. So let me move to the next one, which is what is called the reparations view. Um, according to Tierney, for example, in responding to Carlson, the view that we just saw, uh, she says, look, wrongdoing is not enough to feel guilty because wrongdoing creates an obligation for reparations. It's all very well to feel very guilty, but actually you have to make amends. And if you don't do that, you remain blameworthy. Uh, and I think this is right. This uh it is right. It explains, for example, why someone who discharges the obligations for making amends or rep or reparations is less blameworthy than someone who doesn't, because that is an obligation that you incur when you commit wrongdoing. But this view, the objection to this view, is that the importance of reparation or of making amends is not sufficient to explain why blameworthiness for the original wrong could decrease. It points to an important obligation and why it points to why you would be more blameworthy if you don't make amends than if you do, but it doesn't quite give us the explanation of why blameworthiness for the original wrong would decrease. But it does get something right, namely that making amends is necessary for becoming less blameworthy. So that is true, it is necessary, but it's not the explanation of why you become less blameworthy if you make amends. So let me move to the next, which is in a way is the closest to what I think is right, but doesn't get it quite right. So this is a view presented by two authors, Quary and Matheson, who've written this joint paper and also separate papers. Um, and they say that I call this the psychological disconnectedness account, because they think that uh you become less blameworthy for an original wrong that you committed if there is sufficient psychological disconnectedness between you today and you at the moment of committing the wrongdoing. So uh although you remain the same person, if there is sufficient psychological disconnectedness, you no longer, they say, deserve to be blamed for the original wrongdoing. Another way of putting their point is that, as they put it, is that if the psychological feature of features, on account of which blame was deserved when you committed the wrong, if those are no longer present, then blame is no longer deserved. And again, this I think is getting closer to the right view, but I think it's not the right view because it's extensionally unsatisfactory, i.e., it lets too many people off the hook. For example, as Carlson, who criticizes this view, says forgetting one's wrongdoing is not sufficient to becoming less blameworthy for it. Um and yet, if you forget, then the psychological feature on account of which uh you were wrongdoing, you committed the wrongdoing may have gone. You maybe feel no longer hatred of the person that uh that uh and that's what direct what caused you to commit the wrongdoing. They themselves give an example of uh someone called Leon who they say commits a massacre at the age of 30. So this is the example that Corey and Matheson give to uh support their psychological disconnectedness view. So they say, imagine that there is this uh person called Leon who at the age of 30 arrives in an island where there is the elixir of eternal life, or at least very long life, and he commits a massacre in order to get hold of this elixir, and he drinks it and lives with in the meantime he has become a very uh holy person, he's very good, he does a lot of good, uh, but he's conveniently forgotten all about the massacre he committed 500 years ago. And they say, since there is such discontinuity between Leo 530 and Leo at 30, Leo is no longer blameworthy for the massacre. And you might think, well, no, that doesn't work. I mean, he's merely forgotten it. It doesn't mean that he's not to blame for it, even though he's now a very admirable person. And the same would be true if you lose your cognitive capacities or if you die. But in fact, we think that people who have died remain blameworthy for the wrongs they committed while they were alive, or at least that seems plausible. So again, there is something right but not quite right. And what is right in this psychological disconnectedness view is that personal change is necessary for becoming uh is necessary for becoming less blameworthy for wrongdoing. They are right about that, but it doesn't the view doesn't identify quite what the right change is because it's not merely the absence of the wrong psychological feature, like what that would come about with forgetfulness or death, but the presence of the right moral feature. And that's what I'm going to argue next. So it's not sufficient that you no longer have the flaw, but you need to have something good uh instead, and that's why the next topic we are going to think about is this idea of redemption and how it's connected to blameworthiness. Um to redeem something is to restore it through some kind of typically a payment or debt or ransom to its proper previous state. That's when you think about redemption, you may think either of uh a religious notion where you can be redeemed, for example, in Christianity through the sacrifice of Christ, or you could think of to redeem something as a legal notion, as a sort of buying back. In fact, they are both connected. But the idea is that to redeem something is to restore it to its previous state. And in the case, although there is the religious notion of redemption, I think we also have a secular notion of redemption, uh, which involves a moral transformation that may achieve partial or total redemption for an original offense. So we do say you need to seek redemption, you need to redeem yourself for what you've done. And of course, philosophers have written in detail about what this involves. And I want to summarize quickly the minimum requirement, and you will see why this connects with some of the aspects of the three views that I mentioned that I said we're getting something right. So, what are the right changes that bring about the moral transformation that redemption requires? Well, explicit disavowal of the inadequate attitude embodied in the original offense. Let me spell this out. First of all, it requires recognition of the offense and repentance for it. So recognition is what Leo lacked, for example, because he'd forgotten about it, uh, and repentance. Um and also expiation, including readiness to apologize, to atone, and to make reparations. So someone who, in the right way, uh, and it would take us time to spell out what the right way is, goes through these phases of recognition, repentance, expiation, including readiness to apologize, determination to change, atonement, and reparation. Someone who does all of that achieves what we might call a moral redemption. But it is important to emphasize that moral redemption, uh, when it happens, uh it must be of the right kind. So moral redemption is not just becoming a better person, but it's something that is connected specifically to the original wrongdoing. Now, you may think, you may agree that moral redemption, when it happens in the ways that I just mentioned, um makes continued blaming problematic. So if uh someone committed a wrong against you, they wronged you, and they've repented, felt bad, apologized, made amends in as much as that's possible, uh make reparations, uh feel that compunction and so on, you might say there is something problematic if you continue blaming them. And the question is yes, going back to the inappropriate justified issue, is that because blaming them is now pointless? I.e., it's merely inappropriate, perhaps because the main aim has already been achieved, since we often blame with the aim of getting people to repent and to change? Or is it, as those who say that blameworthiness can diminish, because the blame is no longer deserved, at least not to the same extent, given the wrongdoer's moral transformation? So if you think that redemption makes continued blaming problematic for the same reason, then you will agree that redemption shows why or the way in which a wrongdoer can become less deserving of that uh censure involved in blaming. So, what are the reasons to think the second to think that it may be because that blaming is problematic? Um it's an unhappy thing to continue doing, not quite right, uh not just because of its instrumental aims, but because it's no longer deserved, or not to the same extent. Well, I want to go back to this idea of blaming that I mentioned Peter Strossen highlighted, which is that blame and feelings of uh guilt are reactive attitudes, reactive emotions that we have to the perceived inadequate attitude in others on in ourselves, what he calls the quality of will towards ourselves or others, i.e., when we perceive or detect that other people have an inadequate attitude towards us or others, perhaps an attitude of uh malice or hatred, or perhaps indifference. They don't rate us, they don't even notice us. Uh, when their attitude towards us or others is inadequate, given the kind of relationships that we stand to each other on, when their quality of will is inadequate, then we react with these feelings of uh resentment, uh moral indignation, anger, and so on. That's how Stroson conceives of blame. Now, blame is deserved, i.e., that reactive attitude is deserved, only as we said earlier, if it correctly tracks the offender's blameworthiness by tracking their attitude, their quality of will. You could say you are correctly blaming someone if you are properly representing the attitude that is manifest in their behavior, their quality of will. And diachronic blame then should track the offender's quality of will concerning the original offense across time. So it is deserved, it is right to blame someone when they manifest that inadequate quality of will in committing a wrong, but as they go through the process of redemption, their quality of will, their attitude changes, their attitude concerning the original offense changes, and therefore your reaction to them, the suggestion is should also change because it's tracking the attitude that they have concerning the original offense. And that's why the moral transformation that is involved in redemption could give us the required change in quality of will to make blame inappropriate because not deserved, not just because instrumentally pointless. Okay, so that's the view that I think as you can see, it brings together some of the things that I said the other three views get right, but focuses uh our attention on the idea that it's not just feeling bad about it or having become a better person or having suffered because what when one thinks about what one did, but it requires this radical moral transformation. So I want to finish with uh voicing a couple of difficulties or questions that uh perhaps you already are thinking about or may help you to make prompt other questions and objections. I'm only going to mention a couple, but there are of course many more. The first one is one that uh Randolph Clark, the philosopher who says that blameworthiness cannot reduce, cannot diminish across time, uh, he poses this objection. He says if you think that blameworthiness uh diminishes, uh can diminish uh with time, that blameworthiness is not forever, then there seems to be an asymmetry, he says, between moral blame and creditworthiness. Why? Because he says the following one's enjoyment of moral credit cannot diminish one's brainworthiness. So if uh people praise you for what you do and you enjoy that praise, that doesn't make you any less deserving of the praise, and that seems right. So this is the analogue of the deserve suffering uh view. So he says: since enjoyment of moral credit cannot diminish praiseworthiness, why should suffering for moral uh blame diminish your blameworthiness? Why should we have this asymmetry? And if we don't have an asymmetry, then like praiseworthiness is forever, blameworthiness should also be forever. So I think that this is a very interesting question because we think often a lot more about blame than about praise, although people have now been writing more about praise and praiseworthiness, and even about how praise can be not such a good thing. But let's focus on this particular is there an asymmetry between blame and uh blameworthiness and creditworthiness? Well, I think that Clark is right that there is no asymmetry. I think he's right that no matter how much you enjoy being praised, uh that in itself doesn't diminish your praiseworthiness. But I also agreed with him that the suffering of being blamed is not what makes you less uh deserving of blame. So I think there is no asymmetry there. Neither enjoyment nor suffering diminish uh moral credit or moral decredit, blameworthiness. However, it doesn't follow that either are forever, because he says praiseworthiness for a given good deed is forever, but in fact it's not clear that that's right, because and certainly it doesn't follow from the first, because if you think about it, praise for good for good deeds in the past can also become less deserved or at least more problematic. Um, and this can be for a number of reasons. For example, if you have the wrong attitude to your own good deeds, if you look back into your past good deeds and you adopt the wrong attitude, one might say that in doing that you are becoming less praiseworthy for those deeds. So, for example, although it may be okay to take a degree of pride in doing good, that seems perfectly fine. Uh, it is also possible that you become uh excessively proud or vainglorious or that it goes. Your head, and you think you are such a wonderful person, and so on. And that actually does might make us less inclined to praise people. You might say, Oh, that's because we don't want them to get big-headed, but it may be more than that, because um people may be big-headed about I don't know, their intellectual achievements or their sporting achievements. It doesn't make them less creditworthy. But with moral issues, that seems different. And especially consider if what happens is not just that you become vainglorious for your good deeds, but you actually regret them and repudiate the good deeds. Perhaps you become, you begin to regret having done these good deeds because you hate the person that uh benefited the good deeds and you actually in some ways repudiate the good deeds. Then it seems to me much more plausible to say that you become less praiseworthy for that particular good deed. And that's precisely because your attitude to the deed has changed and indeed to the person. So I think the asymmetry, there is no asymmetry, and it's not because both are forever, because but because neither is necessarily forever. Okay, another difficulty. Um one might say, well, look, it is true that repentance can only it it achieves something, but what it achieves is only a positive balance of blame and creditworthiness. It cannot reduce the original blameworthiness. So what everything I've said about redemption is true, repentance, etc. But what happens is that on the balance of your good deeds and your bad deeds, the good now becomes greater. So it's not that you are less blameworthy for the original offense, it's that you you know there is a balance in your favor. Now, I think there is a lot to say about that, and uh I could say more, but I think um when you think about the difference between someone who, for example, uh, well, the case of Leo that I Leon that I mentioned earlier, who commits a great wrong but never repents for it, and then the balance of his good deeds is totally in favor of um moral creditworthiness, I still he thinks that he is blameworthy for the original offense. And that's different from someone who actually goes through a process of redemption. So I think this, although plausible, is not totally convincing. And finally, is it possible that there are wrongs of such magnitude for which it is not possible to properly expiate? So there is no redemption for them. So blameworthiness may diminish but never wholly disappear. Perhaps that is true. It is a bleak prospect, but there may be that there are wrongs of such magnitude that one cannot expiate for them. Certainly it's very difficult to see how one could make amends for certain wrongs or reparations. Nothing would expiate, it seems. Um, still you might think blameworthiness may diminish even if it doesn't disappear. And to that extent, I think the quality of will account can accommodate that. Okay, as I said, there are more questions and I hope you'll have some. Uh, but this is the end. Thank you very much. I feel very happy by the way to answer any questions either that have the form of an objection or if you want instead to me to clarify something or to explain something again. Um maybe let me just maybe I could stop sharing my screen. So um have I stopped sharing the screen?

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Yes, thank you so much. And just to reiterate, if you like ask a question, you can either do it by voice and use the hand raise feature or put it in the chat and I'll ask on your behalf.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

As I said, feel free to ask questions of clarification. If you don't ask any question, then I will conclude that I've uh either convinced you that I'm what I'm saying is right, hello Dawn, or that I haven't convinced you because you didn't have uh a view about it, and maybe you are either still very confused, in which case you should ask, or you think, yeah, this is right. How is this problem different in Spanish? Uh, this is something that Hugh Robertson Richie is asking. So I didn't mean to say that the problem is different in Spanish, I only meant to say that if you translate the argument that Clark gives about moving from guilty to culpable to to blame, to blameworthy, to his conclusion that if you're guilty forever, then you're blameworthy forever, that that doesn't seem to me to work because uh in Spanish um culpable and guilty do not have the connotation, I think maybe there are other Spanish speakers, maybe you are one, um, of deserving censure. It's just a judgment of guilty or not guilty, culpable or not culpable. Whereas in English, uh blameworthy or to blame, guilty, culp culpable, all of those seem to me, I mean, you might say he's culpable, he's guilty, or she's guilty, she's culpable, she's to blame, and maybe those mean the same. They don't. They obviously do not mean the same in Spanish. That was do you think uh sorry, let me just see the chat.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Uh I can just read it out so then it's more of a conversation. Um, but I also noticed Dawn, you had your hand up first if you want to go ahead and then I'll read out.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

It's okay, actually, because I think some people in the chat have got time limits, so go for that. Mike, mine can come back.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Right. Yes. Should we go to Stephanie who has to leave?

SPEAKER_02 50:51

Sure. Um so Stephanie wrote, I was thinking of wrongful convictions, clear cases when blame must be redirected in light of new information slash evidence. I did not see how your framework can accommodate that. In other words, blameworthiness can shift in light of new information at any time. Anyhow, very clear talk.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Thank you, Stephanie. So I was um, I mean, wrongful convictions are cases where we discover that the person wasn't culpable in the first place. And remember that the example I'm uh thinking about is somewhere an example where we establish that someone is culpable. They have no, the, you know, the evidence is not uh there is no wrongful conviction. They are culpable because so they are culpable morally speaking. We are not talking about um what happens in in a court of law, but there is no mistake. Uh they are culpable and they will remain culpable forever. And the question was whether we ought to continue blaming them forever. And you might say yes, because they're culpable forever, so we should continue blaming them forever. But what I've been trying to suggest, as some people have suggested, is that uh people can change, they can do things that may make a difference to not to whether they are culpable for what they did, but to whether our blaming attitude for that thing remains the right thing to do, whether they continue to deserve it. Um so it's not new information about the original offense, it's new information about the offender since they committed the original offense. So that's I don't know if that does that explain the point, Stephanie? Or maybe she's had to leave already. Yes, okay, thanks. If not, you feel free to email me if someone thinks I haven't responded fully. So is it dawn next?

SPEAKER_03 52:55

Uh you can do the other one in the chat as well if you want, Maria, and then I'll I'll keep that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Um Julia, do you want to read it for everybody's benefit?

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Sure. It says, do you think blame for those not doing something has the same principles of blameworthiness for someone guilty of doing something or self-assigned blame for not reacting, etc.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Okay, so uh is there a difference between the conditions for blaming for actions and for omissions? Good question. Uh I mean I think the conditions are complicated, but I didn't really um spell out what I take to be the conditions for someone to be culpable of wrongdoing. Uh all I said is that they are someone is culpable for wrongdoing if they have uh the required capacities, let's say uh the understanding uh of the moral significance of their actions and perhaps a degree of control over their actions, control of control of conduct, in whichever way we want to articulate that. So they do something with those um meeting those conditions, and moreover, they have no excuse or justification. I mean justification um could be when you I don't know, violate uh a promise you've made to someone because you have a greater duty, for example, to take your child to hospital. So I promise Dawn that I'll pick her up from the airport and I let her down, but that's because on my way to the airport I realize I need to take my child to the hospital. So there is something wrong in letting someone down that you've promised that when that you will uh pick them up from the airport, you've abandoned them to their fate. It's not a good thing to do, but you have a justification. So I'm thinking when nothing of nothing like that happens and you are to blame. Um, and that seems to me could be for something you do or for something you fail to do, equally so. I mean, I just actually gave the example of some something I failed to do, which is picking um if if instead of having a good reason, so I promise someone, you know, who's arriving after a long journey that I'll go and meet them at the airport. And suppose I don't have a justification. Rather, I'm sitting at home watching a movie, and I think it's all very movie is very interesting and it's very cold outside. I don't really feel like doing it. And I just text them and say, sorry, I can't make it. Uh, I'm not going to meet you at the airport, take a taxi. I know it's going to cost you 100 pounds, but never mind. I can't. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Total lie. It's not true. I could have made it. So I think that's an example of something I haven't done. So it's an omission. I didn't fulfill my promise to pick them up. Um, I'm culpable for it, and I am to blame for it. And if I'm to become less blameworthy, I'll need to do a lot of redeeming acts for it because this was unequivocally so. So I think we can be culpable and therefore blameworthy for acts and omissions equally. Uh and self-assigned blame for not reacting, etc. Um I mean, you know, of course we can blame ourselves when we shouldn't, or when we are not culpable, because we feel bad about what's happened. And um Bernard Williams talks about that, what he calls we feel agent regret because we feel a regret that we were involved in something that was bad, someone's death, someone's poisoning, even though we did nothing uh untoward, uh, we are not culpable for it, because we feel bad because we were agentially involved in doing it, and that's understandable, but we are not to blame. So the two can be, you know, we can be others and ourselves can be wrong in blaming us when we are not culpable, even in some cases because, as in the first question, because it was a wrongful conviction that it wasn't true that you were uh guilty of it, or in some cases because it's not wrongful, you're not guilty, but there are reasons why it is um understandable, and if you want ethically right that you should feel bad but not guilty because you're not uh culpable for it. Okay, I hope Amy that speaks to what you were saying. Thank you. So is it Dawn next? Thanks, Maria.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Part of what I had in mind, you you've because you've elaborated a bit more actually since I formulated the question, it's already helped a little bit. But my question is to do with what you think the full scope of this framework is that you're offering, because it's noticeable that in the different um contributors that you've discussed, the kinds of examples that they provide gives a lot of colour to quite what they've got in mind, you know, whether it's moral cases or legal cases or sort of social cases, it really shapes how the framework develops. And I just wondered if you could say a bit more about your own ambitions for the project, about exactly you know, could you you give us a sketch of exactly what the range of cases are that you most want to deal with? You've mentioned some that we might think of as being fairly trivial, and then we've got others, you know, where we're dealing with someone dealing with a massacre or something. It's very extreme. Our intuitions, I think, are going to be quite shaped by the kind of examples that we make central to the project. So I just wondered if you could sketch the framework in that way.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Okay, let me see if I can say something about this, Don. So, I mean, first of all, I want to emphasize that I think the question I've been discussing, even though I responded to wrongful convictions, um I the the question is about moral blame. I don't think it is about legal uh legal um verdicts of culpability because I think what we do in um in the law, if you want, is not what we are what I'm talking about, is not attitudes of blaming that have that uh reactive uh character that Strosson um so of course that's not to say that people don't blame uh people who are convicted, they do, and in fact, it is now part of what um happens in um in some in in the UK, for example, in in court cases that the families of people of the victims are often invited to denounce and blame uh the person. I think it's done partly in order to um highlight the nature of the wrong of the crime, and that aspect is good, but I think it's also adds a dimension which is problematic, which is the personal um engagement uh of blaming and denouncing, which I don't think is what the uh with uh the courtroom is about. But so I'm very much concerned with uh moral blame, not with legal uh culpability. And your question is of course, one problem with this may be uh that if you know one gives very trivial examples, then you might think of course blameworthiness can reduce because you know you can't continue blaming people for something that is relatively trivial forever. Uh, that would be totally wrong. And so it's not about their blameworthiness reducing, it's just that some wrongs are not don't last that long. But I think that has some force, and that's what I was trying to um highlight when I talked about the right size and shape of blame. So the blame that is justified um by culpability has to be proportionate to the wrong. But I don't believe that the issue of whether blameworthiness reduces is straightforward in those cases because it could be that someone, I don't know, say, for example, said something slightly humiliating at a meeting. Let's suppose we are in a philosophy department and we are at a meeting, and someone says something for the sake of a joke that is humiliating to you, and they know it, but they think the joke is too funny. So they say it. And you're quite upset. And of course, it's true that you may not feel so upset five years later when your career has prospered and theirs maybe hasn't prospered, and you're you don't feel so bad. Um, so you don't feel the same degree of blame. But do they deserve a degree of blame? And I think what we need to ask is well, suppose you meet that quest, that person, and and this comes up and you say, Yeah, yeah, that you know, that comment you thought it was funny, but I didn't think it was funny. And this person says, Oh, come on, get over it. Uh, you're such a snowflake or whatever. And you might think, sorry, you you're totally, that's totally the wrong attitude to have. Admittedly, this is not, you know, a massacre, but your attitude, I think, if they have that attitude, your own reaction will be perhaps of renewed anger because you feel they haven't even acknowledged the wrong. But if instead they said, Yes, I know, I realize afterwards how stupid I'd been, and in fact, I I wrote you a reference. Whatever, I don't know, whatever. Um, I think that's so I think even, you know, so for small um wrongs, one may think that this issue doesn't arise because the wrongs, as it were, fade away. And I think the significance of the wrong may fade away in the sense that you are busy with other things and you're not thinking about it, but the blameworthiness, the blame that the person deserves seems to me to remain tied to their own attitude, which I tried to exemplify by uh describing what the totally wrong attitude that they could show maybe even 20 years later or 15 years later would make you think, yeah, you're still the same idiot that you were, and and you still deserve the same censure, and you know, you haven't learned anything. Massacres. I mean, I I think the problem of the you know, in a way, what I find perplexing about the what I call the psychological disconnectedness view is their suggestion that if a long time has passed and you've forgotten the massacre, but you've become this wonderful person, then um you're not to blame for that. You're not, you know, you don't deserve censured for that massacre. And I think, well, you know, maybe the very fact that you've forgotten it shows why you deserve blame. So maybe you're not such a good person, you could say. So, I mean, they are in in the original paper, their argument was very much focused on the idea that they assume that people think that um blameworthiness uh remains the same because personal identity um when there is personal identity, no matter how different you are. And I think they were approaching the right idea, but they were focusing on the wrong problem. I don't think that you need um belief that if you remain the same person you are equally blameworthy. You could not uh make the assumption that personal identity implies uh the same degree of blameworthiness, even though it implies culpability. But I think they it's not because you are just psychologically disconnected, I think these are moral issues. And you have to get them into the right shape. So, could one become less blameworthy for a massacre? I don't know. I think uh, yes, I want to say yes, one could become less blameworthy, less deserving of blame for a massacre. But of course, um one needs to describe the example quite carefully. How culpable were you? We are assuming that you are at least culpable in being uh maybe you didn't, you know, you participated in the massacre for instrumental reasons, you were careless in your in your ethical thinking, and you are to blame for it. I think if you understand, if you come to understand the wrongness of what you did, and then you know the what's very difficult is to say, okay, what would count as proper expiation? And I think we can be pulled in two directions. One is how do we know that the person truly, truly repents, that they've repented with the in the right degree rather than feeling very bad about it, um, because reparations are very difficult to, you know, what would count as reparation. Uh, but if we put aside, how can we be sure that the person has really repented, that their apology is sincere, that they are willing to make reparations? Whether they are willing to make reparations is partly um exemplified or demonstrated by they're making reparations, whatever those are appropriate. Uh, I mean, whatever those are whatever possible reparations uh are available to them. Um does that is that the kind of question you were asking, or have I not?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

No, thank you. That that did help. I I I think what one of the things I had in mind is uh how much uh we get shaped by some of these examples. I'm thinking about an example like Ian McEwen's Atonement, which is a nice book for bringing out something of the contingency of the very possibility of something like expiation, you know, that you you get one picture of what expiation might be, and then when you if that's not not actually available to the person, no matter how much they might be pursuing that, um you know, with without giving you any spoilers for anyone who hasn't already read the book. Um, but I was just thinking that that it make making examples of that kind particularly vivid seems to help. So I but you've answered that because you're saying that yes, you don't want to rule it out, even in even for the most extreme case, you know, the biggest magnitude we might say, you want to always leave it possible, but there are going to be these contingencies here.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

Um I had an an exchange with Clark about the these issues, and he he said, Oh, you know, and uh we agreed on a lot, and I agree on the criticisms of the other views, but in the end, I think I said I I feel the idea that um I mean he he seems to think that something like what I'm calling redemption um make us sympathetic to the person who committed the wrong. And so, as it were, out of kindness, we don't blame them. And I think I said I think that's a bit too bleak. I think the idea of redemption goes further than that. I think I don't know whether this is wishful thinking or whether what I'm saying is I think we do have this concept uh of the possibility of someone um truly undergoing moral transformation, as say in crime and punishment. I think that's part of what we see. And of course, he cannot, you know, there is no making amends in the sense that you cannot bring some when it's a case of killing someone, and someone who he didn't rate at all, he didn't have anything against her, she just thought she was of no consequence. Um but when he comes to understand the wrongness of it and and the value of the other person and you know the whole dimension, it's not just that he becomes so it's not just that uh a movement to become a better person, but it's that it goes through that recognition. I think that's what really matters. That um I don't like the idea of kind of moving on and becoming a good person. I you know, I don't think that that's you know, what is a good person. I think this is piecemeal uh work. You know, you do this thing for complicated reasons, not very often for malicious reasons, maybe malice, you know, and then the realization of how stupid, I mean morally stupid you were, or how wrong you were, how um wrong you were in valuing someone less than you or than other people and so on. And that makes you that it's that process that matters. Um I mean, I'm I imagine many of these authors would agree. It's just how you articulate that. And I and I think uh it is possible for every wrong, but it but there are constraints because human life is limited, and so if someone dies without redemption, this is something sometimes people say, oh, but it's unfair to those people who die, and you think, well, life is very unfair, but you know, you always have um the possibility of redemption. Uh it may be of in the sense of repentance immediately after doing something, and if you don't, well, you know, there are many reasons why. So yeah, I think it is quite wide-ranging, I would say. But and I agree there's lots of literature that deals precisely with the possibilities and limitations of of this idea. But what I think it is is worth thinking about is after that happens, probably most of us would agree that even a continued inner blaming and resentment may be inappropriate. And the question is, why? Why shouldn't I mean I'm not saying forgiveness is always required, but a recognition of the redemption of the moral transformation uh matters. Uh I should we move to Hugh's question?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:34

Um I'll read it out. Actually, I'm glad you asked this because I had this question myself as well. Oh, good. Um He wrote in response to Clark 2022, is there not an inherent and very appropriate asymmetry between credit and blame which justifies the asymmetry between creditworthiness and blameworthiness?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

Uh Hugh, can you elaborate a little more on that since you well they they just don't seem to be uh mirror images of each other. Credit is what we should be uh achieving all the time, and blame we should be achieving none of the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

But I think the asymmetry was meant to be only in relation to whether one is forever whereas the other isn't. And he thought um, I mean, I think that what I agree with him on this, that how much um you know people, I mean, of course, you may rejoice in being praised, as it were, for the right reasons. I mean, if you rejoice because you think aren't I great, that begins to but if you rejoice because you think yes, you we should rejoice in in perhaps a recognition of goodness, we should, you know, you rejoice because you are happy that um these good deeds are praised because you think it is good that they are praised. I agree, that doesn't make you less credit worthy. But I also think that if you merely suffer at the thought of having committed wrong, that doesn't that alone doesn't make you less blameworthy. I mean you can think of all sorts of ways in which I mean Carlsson, who is the person who uh defends the well other people do, but he he has articulated the view more carefully. He moves from the idea that what you deserve is the suffering of blame to the idea that you deserve the suffering of guilt because he thinks, well, suppose that you commit a wrong and I blame you, but you are impervious to my blame, so you don't suffer at all. You know, I say you are such a disgraceful person, and so you don't suffer anything. So he thinks, hmm, that doesn't work. So I need to ensure that there is suffering. So he thinks, ah, I know, you deserve to feel guilty because feeling guilty is inherently painful. And and he's right about that. I mean, there is something uncomfortable about feeling guilty, it's it is a painful uh reaction, but you could feel guilty for the wrong reasons as well. You could just feel guilty without proper repentance, you could feel guilty in the sense of thinking, and you could feel guilty through a kind of moral pride. Think, how can I have done this terrible thing and so on? And that doesn't seem to me to get us closer to deserving less blame. So it has to be guilty f in the right way for the right thing towards, you know, and and so the the in in that respect I think Clark is right that there is no inherent um reduction of either praise or blame, uh worthiness through enjoyment or suffering. But I think he is wrong that uh there is an asymmetry because I think uh sorry, I think he's wrong in thinking that that means they're both forever. I think. But I should say, you know, I started this paper responding to a paper by uh Carlson, and initially I thought, ah no no, blameworthiness cannot reduce. Then I thought, hmm, maybe it can. So I've ended up where I am now because I think thinking about but I initially thought all of the views didn't convince me, so I thought, no, it doesn't reduce, but neither did Clark's argument convince me. So now I'm I'm where I am. So uh thinking, yes, there is a kind of reduction, not in culpability, but in deserving that those attitudes of censure that blame involves, even when it's self-blame.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:01

Don, you have another yes, I don't think there's anybody else in the question at the moment. Um so actually, this is a bit of a clarification when you're framing the question about what it means for it to be diachronic, what it means for blame to be forever, because you can imagine uh making the question work two ways. One is whether you've you're to blame at you know time t1, and then as time passes, whether it's possible ever to, in a sense, as you said, you can't go back in time and undo culpability. But the idea of one framing of the diachronic would be whether you could, as it were, undo the blameworthiness at time t1 at a later retrospectively change the status. Um, but the other, what I take it that you are actually saying and have been saying all along is rather it's a sense that um it's the continuation of blameworthiness actually that we're talking about when we're talking about the foreverness of it, you know, will it continue in the because you can't ever go back and undo anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:06

Yeah, exactly. I mean, the the uh um Quari and Matheson actually make this very explicit. They say there is a trivial sense in which blameworthiness is forever, because it will always be true, it is true forever, that at the moment of committing the wrong for which you are culpable, you deserve to be blamed. And that's true forever. At that moment you were. The question is whether now you also deserve to be blamed for that wrong. Uh and Clark says, yes, now you still deserve to be blamed for that wrong, no matter what's happened in between. Uh, because you were, because you deserve to be blamed for that wrong at T, you deserve to be blown, sorry, blamed for that wrong at T plus whatever, um, since your culpability hasn't changed. Uh, whereas I think no, your culpability hasn't changed, but we are asking a different question. Otherwise, it's not an interesting philosophical question. And I think the interest is, you know, one doesn't want to make this terminological, that's why I use culpability and blameworthiness. But I think they the sense that this is a real question is it's increases when you think about the difference between someone undergoing a process of moral transformation that amounts to redemption and not doing that. Whether uh, I mean, I know it sounds very grand to say moral transformation when you talk about small things. And I think, yeah, but but actually it is a kind of moral transformation to realize that that small act of um vindictiveness and so on. You have to come to terms with those things. And sometimes the small things are the most embarrassing. I mean, I think of some things I did to my siblings that make me very embarrassed and very ashamed, even though they were very small. But recognition of them and recognition allowed is quite hard sometimes because because they are small wrongs, but they are perhaps because that they sometimes reflect meanness or you know, all of those things. So I think there is moral transformation even when the wrong is small.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:22

Yes. Um but that but that way of thinking about it as well makes it seem that there's more a story to be told about a kind of tapering or a diminishing or a difference in degree, and it does make you wonder again whether the forever question initially lends itself to the idea that you're either blameworthy or not, that it's a kind of an all or nothing. But what you're describing sounds like it's the kind of thing where you could remain kind of just that little bit blameworthy to you know, getting lesser and lesser, but ultimately still, you know, blameworthy.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:55

Yeah, I mean, I think what that that residue is just the judgment of culpability. But I do think that uh the best novels of moral transformation like uh crime and punishment do make you think, not just what's the point of blaming this person, but what is what are you even doing if you um feel angry with if you feel the disapprovation towards them uh for what they did. Of course, you feel disapprobation of the act, disapproval or you know, indignation of the act, and that that's the act remains a blameworthy act, but the person doesn't seem to me uh so it's not just like there is no point because they're dead or they've already uh repented, but it is there is something infelicitous about there is something wrong-headed, and I think the wrong-headed is they are not the right target for that attitude any longer. And and I think, yes, it's it is, I mean, blameworthiness, culpability is all or nothing, and it's forever. Blameworthiness is all or nothing, but to some degree, and the question is you could perhaps become less blameworthy and perhaps eventually not at all blameworthy, but those I think those judgments are more difficult as the initial judgment of how blameworthy you are is difficult because you know how where were you? Um what so I think you may have no excuse or justification, but still, you know, it's very difficult to say how how much blame one deserves. Um, I mean, I think one thing that is interesting is that if you undergo moral the moral transformation I'm talking about, you're unlikely, or it maybe is a sign that you haven't quite undergone the right transformation. If you either expect or demand not to be blamed, I think you you must remain willing to accept blame and punishment, even if uh even if you've redeemed, because it's not for you. That's quite an interesting fact, I think, that is part of the attitude that you might have to have a preparedness to be blamed by someone, even if if you've done everything you've you can. It's not for you to absolve yourself, it's for you to to atone but not to forgive yourself. And I haven't said anything about forgiveness, which is adds a huge complex dimension to this, because some people think forgiveness is only right when there is atonement and redemption. But of course, sometimes forgiveness can bring about atonement and redemption, so that's a complicated aspect of forgiveness. So we've almost run out of time, I think, right? Does anybody have any more questions or comments before we leave? Don't be shy.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:21

I think we'll have to conclude there. Okay. But thank you so much for coming. This is very interesting, and thank you everyone who attended. And please feel free to continue the conversation on our members' Discord channel. You should find a link in your membership confirmation email if you'd like to join. But thank you for coming, and thank you, Professor Albers. That's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:41

Thank you very much. Thank you for coming, everybody. And see you around, maybe.