The notion of “fault” is an oversimplification. Both Alice’s and Bob’s behavior contributed to the undesirable outcome, it’s just that Alice’s behavior (misremembering what she was supposed to buy) is socially-agreed to be blameworthy and Bob’s behavior (not giving Alice a written reminder) is socially-agreed to be perfectly OK.
You’re missing a critical point:
Alice’s behavior is socially agreed to be blameworthy, because there exists a social norml that Alice had the obligation not to behave as she did. Bob’s behavior is socially agreed to be perfectly OK, because there exists a social norm that Bob had no obligation to act otherwise than he did.
Crucially, these are pre-existing norms, of which both Alice and Bob were aware—not any sort of arbitrary, post-hoc judgments.
A person, such as Alice, is at fault when she violates an obligation that she knows she has, or acts otherwise than she knows she should (where ‘should’ means “acknowledges an obligation to behave this way”).
We could have different norms, and then the blame might fall on Bob for expecting Alice to remember something without writing it down for her.
No. We couldn’t. The norm is: did Bob have an obligation to do X, and did he violate that obligation by failing to do X? Then Bob is at fault. Otherwise, he is not. That is what fault is.
The reason Alice is at fault here isn’t arbitrary, and the judgment of fault is not itself, directly based on some arbitrary norm. Alice had an obligation—which she has acknowledged that she had, and which she knows that she violated. That constitutes fault. If she had not had this obligation—that would be different.
We could have different norms for who has what obligations. That is irrelevant to the matter at hand, because whoever has whatever obligations, the fact is that they are known in advanced and (in your examples, and in most similar real-life cases) acknowledged after the fact. That means that changing the norms concerning who has what obligations cannot change my analysis of the situations.
the norm that we have isn’t optimal because it blinds Bob to the fact that he also has the power to reduce the chance of the bad outcome repeating itself.
Indeed, Bob does have this power. The question is, why does it fall to Bob, to use said power? Why not Alice? And if Alice does not give a satisfactory answer to this question, then it seems to me that Bob also has—and will (or, at least, should) give serious thought to using—another power that he has: the power of not associating with Alice henceforth, having written her off as an unreliable, untrustworthy person, lacking in integrity or a sense of fairness or justice.
You’re missing a critical point:
Alice’s behavior is socially agreed to be blameworthy, because there exists a social norml that Alice had the obligation not to behave as she did. Bob’s behavior is socially agreed to be perfectly OK, because there exists a social norm that Bob had no obligation to act otherwise than he did.
Crucially, these are pre-existing norms, of which both Alice and Bob were aware—not any sort of arbitrary, post-hoc judgments.
A person, such as Alice, is at fault when she violates an obligation that she knows she has, or acts otherwise than she knows she should (where ‘should’ means “acknowledges an obligation to behave this way”).
No. We couldn’t. The norm is: did Bob have an obligation to do X, and did he violate that obligation by failing to do X? Then Bob is at fault. Otherwise, he is not. That is what fault is.
The reason Alice is at fault here isn’t arbitrary, and the judgment of fault is not itself, directly based on some arbitrary norm. Alice had an obligation—which she has acknowledged that she had, and which she knows that she violated. That constitutes fault. If she had not had this obligation—that would be different.
We could have different norms for who has what obligations. That is irrelevant to the matter at hand, because whoever has whatever obligations, the fact is that they are known in advanced and (in your examples, and in most similar real-life cases) acknowledged after the fact. That means that changing the norms concerning who has what obligations cannot change my analysis of the situations.
Indeed, Bob does have this power. The question is, why does it fall to Bob, to use said power? Why not Alice? And if Alice does not give a satisfactory answer to this question, then it seems to me that Bob also has—and will (or, at least, should) give serious thought to using—another power that he has: the power of not associating with Alice henceforth, having written her off as an unreliable, untrustworthy person, lacking in integrity or a sense of fairness or justice.