Blameworthy But Not Obligated?

Consider:

• (1) Agent S is morally blameworthy for ø-ing only if S is obligated to refrain from ø-ing.

(1) seems initially plausible. To see its plausibility, consider the following conversation"

A: "B, you're morally blameworthy for failing to donate more money to reputable charities." 

B: "Yikes! I didn't realize I had an obligation to do so."

A: "You don't..and you've never had such an obligation. Still, you are morally blameworthy for failing to do so."

A's final comment seems puzzling. We may reasonably wonder why B is blameworthy if she in fact lacks an obligation. This puzzlement makes sense if (1) is part of our concept of blameworthiness. However, the following counterexample provided by Vranas (2006) is worth considering.

You learn that two trains will collide unless you press a button near the track. Pushing the button is convenient and you won't violate any other obligations in the process. Hence, you have an all-things-considered subjective obligation to push the button. However, due to inexcusable negligence, you forget about it and the trains collide. Clearly, you are morally blameworthy for failing to press the button. However, as a matter of fact, the button was inoperative and wouldn't have prevented the collision anyway. In this case, Vranas maintains, it is intuitive that you did not have an objective obligation to press the button. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which you're morally blameworthy. So (1) is false if the sense of 'obligation' is objective. 

In response, it might be objected that the above counterexample is underwritten by the following principle:

• (2) If S believes that she has an obligation to refrain from ø-ing at t but does not refrain from ø-ing at t, she is morally blameworthy for ø-ing.

But (2) faces putative counterexamples. A Nazi soldier mercifully spares the life of a Jewish child, even though he believes he is obligated to take her life. Intuitively, he is not morally blameworthy for sparing the child's life. But if (2) were true, he would be. In response, Vranas argues that (2) does not underwrite his counterexample. For the purposes of rejecting (1), his counterexample could turn on either of the following:

• (3) If S inexcusably violates a subjective obligation, she is morally blameworthy.

or

• (4) If S inexcusably violates a subjective obligation and does not hold a mistaken moral belief about what she is subjectively required to do, she is morally blameworthy.

Consider (3). I take Vranas to be saying that (3) gets around the above counterexample because the Nazi does not justifiably believe that he ought to kill the child, and acting contrary to a belief that is unjustified is excusable. That is, S inexcusably acts against her judgment that P only if her judgment that P is justified. Of course, it is always open to the objector to rework the counterexample so that it applies to (3): the Nazi justifiably believes that he ought to kill the child. Vranas anticipates this and advances (4) as a response. Clearly, the soldier, though justified, is mistaken in his belief.

So Vranas's counterexample, if successful, shows that this is false:

(5) S is morally blameworthy for ø-ing only if S is objectively obligated to refrain from ø-ing.

since, possibly:

(6) S is morally blameworthy for ø-ing AND S is not objectively obligated to refrain from ø-ing.

Still, it seems counterintuitive that "S is morally blameworthy for ø-ing and has NO obligations whatsoever to refrain from ø-ing." This suggests the following principle:

(7) S is morally blameworthy for ø-ing only if S has either an objective obligation to refrain from ø-ing or a subjective obligation to refrain from ø-ing.