This book, written by a rhetorical scholar, analyzes pivotal moments in thirty-five years of education policy, with a focus on the shifting role of blame in education reform and its implications.--
How can we identify the causes of events? What does it mean to assert that someone is responsible for a moral affront? Under what circumstances should we blame others for wrongdoing? The related, but conceptually distinct, issues of causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness that are the subject of this book play a critical role in our everyday social encounters. As very young children we learn to assert that "it wasn't my fault," or that "I didn't mean to do it." Responsibility and blame follow us into adulthood, as personal or organizational failings require explanation. Although judgments of moral accountability are quickly made and adamantly defended, the process leading to those judgments is not as simple as it might seem. Psychological research on causality and responsibility has not taken complete advantage of a long tradition of philosophical analysis of these concepts. Philosophical discussions, for their part, have not been sufficiently I1ware of the psychological realities. An assignment of blame is a social explanation. It is the outcome of a process that begins with an event having negative consequences, involves judgments about causality, personal responsibility, and possible mitigation. The result can be an assertion, or a denial, of individual blameworthiness. The purpose of this book is to develop a comprehensive theory of how people assign blame.
Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.
This book examines the language of public inquiries to reveal how blame is assigned, avoided, negotiated and discussed in this quasi-legal setting. In doing so, the author adds a much-needed linguistic perspective to the study of blame – previously the reserve of moral philosophers, sociologists and psychologists – at a time when public inquiries are being convened with increasing frequency. While the stated purpose of a public inquiry is rarely to apportion blame, this work reveals how blame is nevertheless woven into the fabric of the activity and how it is constructed by the language of the participants. Its chapters systematically analyse the establishment of inquiries, their questioning patterns, how blame can be avoided by witnesses, how blame is assigned or not by an inquiry’s panel and how such blame may result in public apologies. The author concludes with an engaging discussion on the value of public inquiries in civic life and suggestions for changes to the processes of public inquiries. This book will appeal to readers with a general interest in public and political language; in addition to scholars across the disciplines of communication, media studies, politics, sociology, social policy, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, rhetoric, public relations and public affairs.
There is a story going around about the public schools and the people who teach in them—a story about how awful our nation’s teachers are and why we should blame teachers for the poor state of our public schools. But is the story about teachers right or fair? Why do so many people point fingers at teachers and seem to resent them so much? Blame Teachers: The Emotional Reasons for Educational Reform examines why many people blame teachers for what they understand to be the poor state of our schools. Blame comes easily to many people when they read about poor student performance and how “protected” teachers are by teachers’ unions and tenure policies. And with blame comes resentment, and with resentment comes demands for all kinds of educational reform—calls for more standardized testing, merit pay, charter schools, and all the rest. And we expect teachers to like and accept all the reforms being proposed. Conceiving educational reform out of blame and resentment aimed at teachers does no good for teachers, students, or schools. Blame Teachers outlines many of the strange and unacceptable assumptions about teaching and the purposes of education contained in these educational reforms. Intended for teachers, teacher education students, policymakers and the larger public, Blame Teachers suggests much better and more productive conversations we can have with teachers—conversations much more likely to improve teaching and learning in classrooms. The book argues for conversations with teachers that don’t begin or end with blame and resentment. In this lively, personal meditation on what it means to be a teacher, Steven Jones demonstrates how an emotional, unreasoned ‘blame game’ directed at teachers by educational reformers today is undercutting the future of the nation’s children. It is doing so by threatening to deprive them of teachers as contrasted with by?the?numbers technicians. Today’s reformers neglect the philosopher Spinoza’s time honored insight, that a person in the grip of emotion is “in human bondage” and simply cannot see the truth of things. Can educators themselves, in tandem with knowledgeable members of the public, transform the reformers’ dogmatic, harmful narrative about our teachers? Jones’ thoughtful study will surely help in this much?needed effort. ~ David T. Hansen, Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Teachers College
"IT veteran Dave Zweiback describes an incident that threatens the very existence of a large financial institution, and the counterintuitive steps its leadership took to stop the downward spiral. Their novel approach is grounded in proven concepts from complexity science, resilience engineering, human factors, cognitive science, and organizational psychology. It allows us to identify the underlying conditions for failure, and make our systems (and organizations) safer and more resilient."--Page 4 of cover
Annotation Legal Blame sheds new light on how jurors try to do justice in the wake of accidents and reveals much about the overall psychology of jury decision making. Neal Feigenson, a professor of law, offers an illuminating framework for how jurors use their common sense, together with the law and the facts, to produce what the author refers to as "total justice." This book will appeal to lawyers, expert witnesses, practicing students, and academics, as well as anyone who is interested in learning about the psychology of legal persuasion.