AEF Hannah Tierney

APPLIED ETHICS FORUM  ·  DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

‘More than one way to meddle’
Hannah Tierney (University of California Davis)
Thursday 26 Feb 2026  •  4:00pm–6:00pm  • LIBR–201

Abstract: In some cases, the fact that someone does wrong is none of our business. In other cases, the fact that someone does wrong is not only our business. While it is often argued that we lack standing to blame in the former cases, I argue that we can lack standing to blame in the latter cases as well. I’ll refer to blame that attempts to make wrongs any of our business as ‘intrusive blame’ and blame that attempts to make wrongs only our business as ‘unilateral blame’. Both forms of blame are objectionable in virtue of being meddlesome. Intruding into the affairs of others is one way to meddle; but we can also meddle by overstepping our authority, even when it comes to our own affairs. However, most discussions of meddlesome blame in the literature focus only on cases of intrusive blame, and it’s typically argued that meddlesome blame lacks standing because it violates norms of privacy. But these views cannot explain why unilateral blame lacks standing, since we do not violate privacy norms when we meddle in affairs that are our business, but not only our business. Thus, in order to explain why we lack standing to blame unilaterally, we must look beyond the norms of privacy.

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