Juan R. Loaiza

If an agent’s moral blameworthiness is mitigated by her addiction, fitting blaming responses by affected parties should register this. What might be the proper way of doing so? I refer to this as the problem of fitting blame in addiction. The view I put forward rests on a distinction between desert-presupposing and non-desert-presupposing forms of blame. Retributive blame is the paradigm of the former, presupposing that target agents deserve to suffer harm on account of their behavior. This presupposition, I argue, is typically incorrect when an agent's actions result from a significant impairment of behavioral control, as is often the case in severe addiction. In contrast, non-desert-presupposing forms of blame toward people with addiction can be fitting, regardless of considerations about their instrumental value. The argument for this claim is based on the notion of scaffolding blame (McGeer, 2013, 2019). Scaffolding forms of blame presuppose that target agents have the capacity to recognize their wrongdoing, care about harm done, engage in a productive moral conversation, and have some potential to act differently in the future. These presuppositions, I argue, are typically correct in cases of severe addiction.