Abstract

This dissertation contributes to feminist critiques of moral responsibility by exposing cases where asymmetries of blame perpetuate oppression by diminishing or disabling the moral agency of individuals from traditionally subordinated social groups. It also engages the recent literature on “affective injustice,” briefly defined as a wrong done to someone at the level of their emotional life. In the first chapter, I connect feminist critiques of moral responsibility with the concept of affective injustice by arguing that the moral wrong that lies at the heart of affective injustice is the disabling of moral agency of oppressed groups through inapt and oppressive blaming practices. In the following chapters, I expand on this claim by exposing cases where blame diminishes the agency of some and bolsters the agency of the oppressor. Chapter two details how cultural domination produces alienation from a community, resulting in the disabling of agency. Chapter three problematizes the assumed function of blame as agency-enhancing by developing examples where blame instead augments emotions like fear and shame, which diminish agency. Chapter four focuses on the case of catcalling in which the victim takes responsibility for the aggression, thus protecting and enabling the perpetrator. To conclude, I discuss the limitations of focusing on blame and gesture to future directions that work on affective injustice could take by shifting the focus to feminist emotions.