If you're blameworthy for performing a wrong action, either you had fully intended to do something wrong or you were negligent and should have known (and done) better. Obviously, many who perform wrong actions should not be judged blameworthy: young children, the insane, the uneducated. But what about cases where things are not so clear cut?

In the year 2000, 30 percent of Americans found same-sex marriage morally acceptable. Today it is accepted by twice that percentage. Why? Powerful arguments and artistic portrayals favoring the moral acceptability of same-sex marriage became widely distributed and accepted. So a view previously taken to be wrong was fundamentally challenged and became part of a live issue. And it seems this live issue of whether same-sex marriage should be morally accepted has been decided in favor of its acceptability.

More generally, what counts as a live issue? Since it is an issue, there must be at least two sides — two live views — each judged worthy of consideration. If a view is dismissed out of hand or is considered too extreme, then it isn't live. Moreover, one shouldn't be blamed for failing to act in accord with a non-live view.

In ancient times, to say slavery was wrong or that women were the equal of men were views too extreme to be taken seriously. For European colonizers it was not a live view that it was wrong to conquer and subjugate native peoples.

In today's America it is not a live view for many that we should forego various creature comforts in order that others both here and abroad have adequate food, shelter, and medical care and that our progeny retain a hospitable planet. Only time will tell what other of our current moral shortcomings will be seen by future generations to derive from our failures to consider them as live views.

But when powerful arguments and artistic portrayals do foster a change in moral outlook, how do we assess the blameworthiness of past actions that we now see were wrong? Should we, for example, remove from America's public lands all statues, memorials and place names that glorify persons who were defenders of slavery? Should we follow today's #MeToo movement and hold accountable those (mostly men) who in the past escaped punishment for acts that we now judge instances of sexual assault/battery, harassment or discrimination?

The morally and intellectually honest answer is that we should make reasoned distinctions concerning the live-issue status of these offenses together with the corresponding level of blameworthiness and punishment that they deserve.

Given this, I think it fair to say that the glorification of Confederate defenders of slavery such as Robert E. Lee should end. Lee and his well-educated colleagues were well aware of overwhelmingly powerful abolitionist arguments and should have known/done better. But not so for George Washington, in whose lifetime the moral questions regarding slave ownership had not yet become a fully live issue.

Finally, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaking about past actions of some of her congressional colleagues, said that when "we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, we are having the wrong conversation ... None of it is OK."

Gillibrand is right that "None of it is OK." But if #MeToo is to avoid being dismissed as "too extreme," the movement must make the distinctions that Gillibrand thinks we should ignore. Factors such as victim impact, age, education, context, and the frequency of such actions remain important considerations in deciding to what extent past perpetrators of sexual misconduct should be blamed/punished.

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Jim Fahey was a longtime lecturer in philosophy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.