On the Perception of Moral Standing to Blame.

ABSTRACT: Is everyone equally justified in blaming another's moral transgression? Across five studies (four pre-registered; total N = 1,316 American participants), we investigated the perception of moral standing to blame-the appropriateness and legitimacy for someone to blame a moral wrongdoing. We propose and provide evidence for a moral commitment hypothesis-a blamer is perceived to have low moral standing to blame a moral transgressor if the blamer demonstrates weak commitment to that moral rule. As hypothesized, we found that when blamers did not have the chance or relevant experience to demonstrate good commitment to a moral rule, participants generally believed that they had high moral standing to blame. However, when a blamer demonstrated bad commitment to a moral rule in their

SUBMITTER: Ghezae I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11774539 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature