In Praise of Blame by George Sher - Essay Example

? In Praise of Blame by George Sher In his book In Praise of Blame George Sher talks about blame, about why we hold someone or something responsible for whatever has gone wrong in our lives. He discusses several reasons about why we may or may not blame a particular thing as to how it has affected important or even petty matters. He has a few theories about it and sets about to debating over them one of them being blame’s relation to character. Sher starts off arguing against the Humean idea about how blaming someone depends on the person’s character. Someone who has a bad character is the one who can be blamed about things and not otherwise. He has different point of views regarding this and debates over them. The Humean claim is that we can only blame people if their bad side emerges because of the negative qualities – or a particular negative quality - they may have. Basically, if someone is generally a very bad person, he may be mean or selfish or rude, etc. then only he may automatically have terrible qualities and we can judge him depending on those. We may actually end up holding them responsible for whatever issue has taken place. On the other hand, if the person is actually very nice and due to certain circumstances he has not been acting well mannered and has been showing the almost nonexistent bad qualities, then we should not blame them for whatever mistakes they may make. Since they are just that – a mistake – which surely would never be made again. It is, of course, human nature to make blunders. Nobody is perfect though there are some people who are striving to be so even if they are not fully reaching the top line. People are well mannered and have good morals but they cannot always keep up with their expectations of themselves. They will slip up some day or the other. It may be because of some problems they are facing. A person may be very sweet tempered but due to some personal inconveniences he is going through, he may not be acting like his usual self. He may lose his patience quickly and start shouting without much reason. It is a general assumption that the person is nice and should not be blamed about his few mistakes. This may happen quite rarely so it is only fair to forgive these people. After all, no harm was done on purpose and a life time of being a good human being should not be ignored just because of a raised voice or something equally unimportant in the long run. So he should not be blamed to whatever may occur due to an impulsive reaction. Someone who is short tempered or just not well mannered may generally have a whole list of undesirable qualities in him. It is his way of life so one may easily charge him with fault if he - yet again - does something disagreeable. One may blame him easily as he is in the habit of doing such things daily; that one knows is not rare mistake. That he knows what he did is not right and yet he continues to do it, that he does not try to redeem himself. Now this point is understandable, of course, but Sher does not seem to be agreeing with the idea. One may basically understand him to believe that blaming people with generally good characters is okay. Just because they make an error in judgement or something, it does not mean that the problem never arose because of them. It was their fault and they should be blamed for it despite the fact that they do not make a habit of it. It was a mistake, no matter how huge or small, and what is done is done. There are side effects of everything – be it good or bad – so it is only practical that the person be blamed for it. Just because they did not do it purposely or were ignorant to its results does not mean that it was not their fault. Similarly, he also says that just because a person has chock full of negative attributes in him, it does not mean that if he makes a mistake, we should put all the blame on him immediately. He believes that even though the person may have his own set of issues which may lead to him having a disagreeable personality, it does not give us permission to fault him for the first bad thing he does. There may be reasons as to why he is acting in that particular manner. The world generally talks about everything in black and white – the shades of grey seem to have been lost somewhere in between. There is just good or bad and no middle ground. If a person is generally good, then he can do no wrong even if he has committed a major mistake. But that is okay since it was just one error, no matter how huge it is, no matter how much it may affect the future. If somebody is generally thought to be a bad person, whatever he does is taken in a bad light. Even if he does something good, it is looked over at with a doubtful view, that maybe he did not set out to accomplish that but the tables turned on him and something positive came out of it. No one looks at the person’s actions from a different view. Things may just be right or wrong. No one realises that there may be certain circumstances which led to the person behaving in the particular manner. That may be he did not have much of a choice and should not be blamed for whatever side he ended up going for, whatever decision he chose to make in the end. Deciding on whether a person is bad or not seems to be assuming much about one’s opinion. We do not know what situations led him to turning out the way he is be it good or bad. How his life has been so far and has formed his personality. We have no right to just presume things and judge people on them, to blame them for whatever way they are acting. Maybe they are acting that way because that is what they have been taught to since childhood, maybe it is their experiences which influence them to be acting in a particular manner. Everybody’s points of view vary and they look at situations in different ways. A person may be blunt and outspoken; he may speak whatever is in his mind outright. Whatever he says, he means, there are no subtle meanings hidden behind his words. If he disapproves of something, he says it quite clearly. On the other hand, if he approves of something, he does the same. There are no thoughts barred, everything is out in the open and not hidden behind sarcasm or wit or any other form of speech. Now this person may be good or bad depending on one’s perspective. If he insults someone, the receiver of the insult will call him a bad person. He has been too blunt and outright shown disrespect to the person, he has said unpleasing things about him and it has hurt the person’s feelings. He also probably feels indignant about it and there goes the judgement that he is a bad person and he is blamed for that. The same way, he may also be quite blunt when complimenting anyone. Now that person will call him a good person since he is not on the receiving end of an insult. It pleases him that a person who is notorious for saying what he thinks is actually saying something good about him. It means that he actually likes what the other person has done. That it is not all just a facade, but a true, well meaning praise. Since the remark has come from a person who only speaks the truth, then the word means even more, like an express approval of sorts. This person would evidently call him a good person and obviously there would be no blame be would be accounted for. Sher also talks about other early, well discussed theories about how blame is related to character, principle, responsibility, and reactive attitudes. But basically, he does not agree with the Humean theory of how the blame assigned to a person depends on his character. The reasons he is arguing against are understandable and yet it could go both ways. The Humean theory is not based without any grounds but what Sher says about not solely deciding to blame someone depending on that theory is right. Deciding to blame a person mostly depends on the situation and the repercussions his fault has caused, one should not make one’s judgement immediately without knowing the back story. Keeping this in mind, what Sher agrees and disagrees with – both go hand in hand and work together. Works Cited Sher, George. In praise of blame. Oxford University Press, 2006. Read More