Blame and the Distance of Time

"Because the content of blame depends in this way on the significance of the agent and the agents' faults for the person doing the blaming, its content is attenuated in the case of agents who lived long ago and have no significance for or effect on our lives. We can judge such people to be blameworthy, but such a judgment has mainly vicarious significance, as a judgment about how it would have been appropriate for those closer to the agent to understand their relations with him. [...] Being the victim of an action by some stranger makes it the case that that person has had a distinctive role in our life, as the author of an event that we have to come to terms with. it thus gives our attitude toward that person a distinctive significance, even if we will never interact with that person in the future and therefore do not need to decide how to behave toward him or her. The fact that some historical agent, such as Hitler, caused terrible harm for people we know, or their families, can also give blame greater significance." ~ T.M. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press) pp. 146-147.