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Articles

When to Hold Your Friends’ Feet to the Fire

Jordan Myers argues, against Christine Korsgaard, that we shouldn’t always hold our friends morally responsible.

I would not like to be friends with the Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard. I don’t wish to pursue a friendship with her, not because she isn’t (presumably) a lovely person and a deep thinker, but because being a close friend of hers may entail a level of commitment I am not prepared to engage in. This is because Korsgaard holds that she ought to always and totally hold her friends morally responsible, regardless of any external considerations. And while this would certainly be a welcome status quo most of the time, I have good reason to believe her insistence on such a standard would end up straining our relationship as friends. For I believe it is not only permissible, but sometimes necessary, to withhold or suspend responsibility from others, even those to whom we are close.

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