In Praise of Blame by George Sher Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

In Praise of Blame by George Sher - Essay Example 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 al most 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