Moral Character and the Significance of Action: Judging Dmitri Karamazov Kamila Pacovsk  a, University of Pardubice Abstract The paper considers the problematic relation between a person and her action as it is expressed in the problem of blame and moral judgement. I argue that blaming someone for her action does affect our moral judgement of her, but does not imply condemnation of her moral character. I use the example of Dmitri Karamazov to show that a response to a particular situation, although shaped by the previous character of the person, does not follow from it and can in turn affect and change the person’s character by changing the way in which she perceives what is valuable. The well-known papers on moral luck by Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel voice very powerfully an essential critique of Kant’s conception of moral judgement and blame. 1 Kant claimed that we can blame people only for what is entirely in their power, and the only thing that is fully in the agent’s power is her will (as manifested in her intention). Since its actual accomplishment in action is subject to luck, the result – be it suc- cess or failure – should not affect moral judgement. Yet, the primary object of blame (Nagel) or self-reproach (Williams) is action, not inten- tion or willing: we blame people for doing something bad. What is more, we sometimes blame them even if they did not directly intend it, as in cases of negligence or recklessness, and, as Williams shows, we can blame ourselves even for something we did unintentionally or through no fault of our own. Blaming someone for a wrongdoing thus cannot focus only on the particular intention without taking into account what eventually happened. What I take Williams to have shown in his lorry driver exam- ple is the authority that a performed deed has over a person’s subsequent life and self. Whether voluntary or not, the change in the world caused by the agent becomes part of her past and affects her identity. Williams 1. Williams (1981); Nagel (1979). © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd DOI: 10.1111/phin.12235 Philosophical Investigations 42:4 October 2019 ISSN 0190-0536