Lecture Series in Practical Agency: Scott Hershovitz

The Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law is delighted to host Professor Scott Hershovitz for the first workshop in the 2024/25 KJuris programme.

The Blame Game

In many team sports, there's a taboo against blaming one’s teammates for their mistakes. That’s true even if—especially if—those mistakes are consequential. From a young age, athletes are taught to avoid playing the blame game. It’s partly pragmatic advice. Focus on what you can control, coaches tell kids. But there’s clearly more to it than that. In this paper, I argue that there’s a kind of moral virtue manifest in athlete’s refusal to blame their teammates, even when their teammates are in some sense blameworthy. And I ask what those of us that don’t play team sports can learn from those that do. I suspect the answer is: a lot.

Scott Hershovitz is the Thomas G. and Mabel Long Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He directs the University’s Law and Ethics Program. And he co-edits Legal Theory.

Hershovitz is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids (Penguin Press 2022) and Law is a Moral Practice (Harvard University Press 2023).

Before joining the Michigan faculty, Hershovitz served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court and an attorney-advisor on the appellate staff of the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice.

Hershovitz earned a J.D. at the Yale Law School, a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and a M.A. and A.B. at the University of Georgia.

Host or Publisher Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy & Law