Morality of Praise

Like blame, praise has historically been considered one of the defining aspects of morality. Yet unlike blame, praise has received comparatively little dedicated attention in the philosophical canon. Does this emphasis on the negative tell us something about the nature of morality, or is it an accidental feature of the history of philosophy? This volume is the first collection of its kind to include state of the art discussions of the morality of praise as that topic relates to central issues in moral and political theory. Topics addressed in the volume include how the morality of praise relates to the morality of blame; how the apt praise of agents relates to their praiseworthiness; whether agents can be praiseworthy for their beliefs; how the morality of praise is affected by questions about autonomy, identity and luck, and the relationship between praise and distributive justice. The essays in this collection will be of interest to students and researchers in philosophy as well as to the general reader with an interest in questions of moral responsibility.

Hallvard Lillehammer is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. He is the author of Companions in Guilt (2007), co-editor of a Special Issue of The Monist on Vicarious Responsibility and Circumstantial Luck (2021); and editor of The Trolley Problem in the Classic Philosophical Arguments series (Cambridge, 2023).