Communal Values and Character-Oriented Reactive Attitudes

Whereas most accounts of the reactive attitudes and of responsibility focus on norms of action, we must also consider norms of character: norms that govern the kind of person we can or must be. We are bound by norms of character and so responsible to fellow members for who we are in the same way as for norms of action: via the interpersonal rational patterns in our reactive attitudes. Accordingly, this Chapter develops an account of pride, shame, esteem, and contempt as character-oriented reactive attitudes, clarifies the sense in which these are globalist emotions, distinguishes between personal and social forms of pride and shame, and provides a partial defense of the value of shame and contempt. The result both illuminates the distinction between guilt and shame and, more fundamentally, provides a unified account of responsibility without dividing it into aretaic and accountability faces as Gary Watson does.