intentional conduct is all that is necessary for a person to be properly credited with and potentially blameworthy for his or her deeds. For the asshole to be the appropriate object of blame he must be the sort of person who
does what he does for what he thinks are good reasons
. As long as he is motivated to act by his own sense of what are or are not good enough reasons for action, as long as he would defend them as good enough for action if he were asked, his deeds are
his
. When he’s done well, then he’s rightly thanked or praised. When his assumed reasons are not in fact good enough, he’s rightly to blame.
To elaborate, our basic theory in chapter 1 says, in effect, that the asshole has a certain view about what reasons he has or doesn’t have. Fully cooperative people take themselves to have sufficient reason to abide by the expectations of conduct that normally apply among moral equals. The fact that such expectations require something is regarded not only as a good reason for action but as a reason that is good enough to outweigh or rule out other competing considerations, such as the inconvenience of acting in the expected way. The asshole shares this view of
other people’s
reasons for action but makes an exception of himself by insisting that the normally applicable expectations do not, in his case, apply. To summarize, here, then, is the asshole’s view of things:
Thinking Like an Asshole
: The man takes it as given (perhaps subconsciously or inchoately) that he is justified in allowing himself special advantages in social relations, in light of his special entitlement to them. That is, his sense of special entitlement tells him that he has
no reason orinsufficient reason
to abide by the expectations of conduct that normally apply among moral equals.
So while the fully cooperative person takes there to be good and normally sufficient reasons to queue up in good order when a line has formed, the asshole sees no reason he should wait, or at least no reason sufficiently good to justify the inconvenience. His line-cutting action is thus
his
action, simply because it reflects his normative views: he’d defend them if we asked him why he thought it should be acceptable. To the extent he is also wrong about what reasons he has or doesn’t have, to the extent he has a mistaken normative perspective, he is the appropriate object of blame. He is the appropriate object of blame
just because he thinks like an asshole
, just because his actions flow from that (mistaken) set of moral views. He is to blame because, in that attitudinal sense, he fails to recognize others as the equals they are, by failing to recognize what treating them as equals calls for.
PSYCHOPATHS AND MORAL BLINDNESS
In our proposal, the asshole is blameworthy because of a failure of seeing. But here one might object that the bare fact of
having certain mistaken moral views
cannot be the whole story. It might seem to matter
why
the asshole fails to see what he fails to see. Suppose, for instance, that he is morally blind, really and truly
incapable
of taking in the appropriate facts about what he has most reason to do or not do. Would he not then be off the moral hook? If so, then when he is
on
the hook, it follows that he
has
certain capacities to figure out what moral reasons he in fact has. The asshole would then be blameworthy only because he
infact has that moral capacity
, where this is something more than
simply
having asshole moral views. No capacity, no responsibility. “Ought,” as they say, implies “can.”
The philosopher Gary Watson presents an argument like this one as regards the psychopath. 11 As Watson reads the psychological evidence, psychopaths are marked by two key features:
(1) they act with malice, deliberately and callously harming others, without coercion or psychosis; and
(2) they are incapable of recognizing the interests of others as claims on their conduct.
The fact that psychopaths act with
does what he does for what he thinks are good reasons
. As long as he is motivated to act by his own sense of what are or are not good enough reasons for action, as long as he would defend them as good enough for action if he were asked, his deeds are
his
. When he’s done well, then he’s rightly thanked or praised. When his assumed reasons are not in fact good enough, he’s rightly to blame.
To elaborate, our basic theory in chapter 1 says, in effect, that the asshole has a certain view about what reasons he has or doesn’t have. Fully cooperative people take themselves to have sufficient reason to abide by the expectations of conduct that normally apply among moral equals. The fact that such expectations require something is regarded not only as a good reason for action but as a reason that is good enough to outweigh or rule out other competing considerations, such as the inconvenience of acting in the expected way. The asshole shares this view of
other people’s
reasons for action but makes an exception of himself by insisting that the normally applicable expectations do not, in his case, apply. To summarize, here, then, is the asshole’s view of things:
Thinking Like an Asshole
: The man takes it as given (perhaps subconsciously or inchoately) that he is justified in allowing himself special advantages in social relations, in light of his special entitlement to them. That is, his sense of special entitlement tells him that he has
no reason orinsufficient reason
to abide by the expectations of conduct that normally apply among moral equals.
So while the fully cooperative person takes there to be good and normally sufficient reasons to queue up in good order when a line has formed, the asshole sees no reason he should wait, or at least no reason sufficiently good to justify the inconvenience. His line-cutting action is thus
his
action, simply because it reflects his normative views: he’d defend them if we asked him why he thought it should be acceptable. To the extent he is also wrong about what reasons he has or doesn’t have, to the extent he has a mistaken normative perspective, he is the appropriate object of blame. He is the appropriate object of blame
just because he thinks like an asshole
, just because his actions flow from that (mistaken) set of moral views. He is to blame because, in that attitudinal sense, he fails to recognize others as the equals they are, by failing to recognize what treating them as equals calls for.
PSYCHOPATHS AND MORAL BLINDNESS
In our proposal, the asshole is blameworthy because of a failure of seeing. But here one might object that the bare fact of
having certain mistaken moral views
cannot be the whole story. It might seem to matter
why
the asshole fails to see what he fails to see. Suppose, for instance, that he is morally blind, really and truly
incapable
of taking in the appropriate facts about what he has most reason to do or not do. Would he not then be off the moral hook? If so, then when he is
on
the hook, it follows that he
has
certain capacities to figure out what moral reasons he in fact has. The asshole would then be blameworthy only because he
infact has that moral capacity
, where this is something more than
simply
having asshole moral views. No capacity, no responsibility. “Ought,” as they say, implies “can.”
The philosopher Gary Watson presents an argument like this one as regards the psychopath. 11 As Watson reads the psychological evidence, psychopaths are marked by two key features:
(1) they act with malice, deliberately and callously harming others, without coercion or psychosis; and
(2) they are incapable of recognizing the interests of others as claims on their conduct.
The fact that psychopaths act with
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