16	IN T RODUCT ION

E. CHOICE OR CHARACTER?

A final query for retributivists is whether the ultimate desert basis is one’s choices or whether it is one’s character as revealed in one’s choices.23 If the basis is character, and only derivatively culpable choice, then chosen acts are only evidentiary, not constitutive of desert, and choice may be sufficient, but it is not necessary, for assessing desert.

In our view, we should not punish because of someone’s character, nor should we exculpate someone because his action is somehow “out” of his character. One is not to blame for one’s character because – even assuming that one could provide a precise definition of character – it is clear that one’s character per se does not cause harm to others and that much of one’s character is beyond rational control; and none of one’s character is within one’s control at the moment one acts. Only actions cause harm to others, and only actions are potentially fully guidable by reason.

Conversely, one should not be excused because his conduct was “out of character.” Such an approach gets things exactly backward – action must be conceptually prior to character. Actions can be judged morally without knowing anything about the agent’s character; character can be judged morally only in light of the agent’s actions. Moreover, whatever action an agent performs is in a real sense “in character” for the agent. After all, the agent did it, and presumably others with apparently similar characters placed in similar circumstances would not do it. Even if the action was statistically unlikely for the agent and was not the type of thing this type of agent seems predisposed to do by her character, or even if the agent was subject to unusually stressful or tempting

actions present themselves as on the one hand correct but on the other hand somehow “up to us.” See also Smilansky, supra note 15; Pereboom, supra note 15; David Hodgson, “Responsibility and Good Reasons,” 2 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 471 (2005).

We should note that William Edmundson has put forward an argument that the existence of moral responsibility is not necessary to either the existence of moral norms or their teachability. He refers to these as the “naming” and “shaming” aspects of moral practice, which he believes are independent of the “blaming” aspect, which does depend on the existence of moral responsibility. See William Edmundson, “Morality without Responsibility” (2007) (manuscript on submission) (on fi le with authors). We are concerned here with the “blaming” aspect and thus do assume moral responsibility. We express no verdict on whether the teachability or “shaming” aspect assumes moral responsibility, contra Edmundson.

23 T his section draws from Morse, supra note 14.