In this talk, I consider whether it can sometimes be appropriate to blame children. I distinguish three initial positions. The No-Blame Thesis is that we should not blame children. Two responses to the No-Blame Thesis are the Developmental Argument that blaming children can be important to their socialization / moral education; and the Retributive Argument that sometimes children deserve blame. I reject the Developmental Argument and the Retributive Argument. However, while blame may not be merited by children’s wrongdoing, something akin to blame can be. To develop this argument, I pay more attention to what blame is, and what is going on when we blame. I draw on recent work in which I suggest that blame is an expressive action (Bennett 2024).
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Speaker
Christopher Bennett is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. His research interests include issues to do with punishment (and alternatives), responsibility and the moral emotions. He is the author of What Is This Thing Called Ethics (Routledge, 2nd ed 2015), and The Apology Ritual: A Philosophical Theory of Punishment (Cambridge UP, 2008), as well as articles on topics such as forgiveness, apology and blame. His book Expressive Action: A Philosophical Inquiry will be published by Oxford University Press in summer 2026.