Ethics of Fallibility

An ethics of fallibility can have a normative and a descriptive dimension. The normative traditions of consequentialism and duty ethics provide conflicting advice about what is the morally right response to different kinds of mistakes. The chapter outlines some theoretical resources available to formulate a normative platform for coping with fallibility, both with regard to what from a moral point of view should happen ahead of critical events where people are likely to make mistakes, in the midst of such events, and in their aftermath. The descriptive dimension of an ethics of fallibility addresses alternative explanations to why people become involved in moral misbehavior, and often continue to be so once they have habituated a certain behavioral pattern. In the final section of the chapter, the normative and descriptive dimensions are combined in a stance on forgiveness. Considerations of whether a person who has made a moral mistake ought to be forgiven (a normative issue) can be informed by knowledge about why people make such mistakes (a descriptive issue).