Perhaps germane to the distinction, at least for me, is that I find myself more interested in how to avoid blame and seek praise, so conflating them lets me figure out how to do that and also how to do what I should do simultaneously.
How one should assign blame/​praise and how those things will in fact be assigned, however, are almost completely unrelated. One could be both blamed and unblameworthy, or praised and unpraiseworthy.
Perhaps germane to the distinction, at least for me, is that I find myself more interested in how to avoid blame and seek praise, so conflating them lets me figure out how to do that and also how to do what I should do simultaneously.
How one should assign blame/​praise and how those things will in fact be assigned, however, are almost completely unrelated. One could be both blamed and unblameworthy, or praised and unpraiseworthy.