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Desires of one's own

Hi,
 
The term blameworthy has not yet been discussed and i think the validity of your conclusion relies on this term.
To go back to the druggie example and suppose that he/she is not identified with the desire to take drugs. Taken synchronically (at a single moment in time)  i might agree that the druggie is not blameworthy. However, and this is why i use the example of the druggie and not the klepto, it seems likely that there have been a multitude of desires that the druggie has previously identified with that have, sin some crucial way, led them to their position. Such as the first unchecked desire to rebel and smoke a joint, or the first unchecked desire to steal the tenner out of a parent's wallet. Neither of these is a case of drug addiction or kleptomania, and both are desires that are identified with - and both are steps that may eventually lead (through a long and complex progression) to the examples we are discussing.
In this case i am tempted to think that even a person who is not identified with a desire may nevertheless be in some way responsible for the consequences of the fulfillment of that desire.
This could perhaps be called a diachronic (over time) notion of blame, and it is certainly widely used. For example by those who claim that a youth offender is synchronically guilty of a given offence but diachronically innocent because there are mitigating circumstances in the youth's past, such as severe poverty or abuse.
 
My distinction between two kinds of blaim is probably undeveloped and i am sure you may be able to pick holes in it, but it does seem to enlighten us here. (as regards holes in my distinction: it could foreseeably be very difficult (impossible) to draw distinct lines and so to halt the regress of blaim - e.g. can a bank robber be absolved because of the triumph of capitalism that unethically expoits the proletariat blah blah, i think not... but maybe some would disagree).
 
cheers,
andy.

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