Moral ignorance and blameworthiness

Abstract

In this paper I discuss various hard cases that an account of moral ignorance should be able to deal with: ancient slave holders, Susan Wolf's JoJo, psychopaths such as Robert Harris, and finally, moral outliers (people who, despite a normal background, behave in odious ways). All these agents are ignorant, but it is not at all clear that they are blameless on account of their ignorance.I argue that the discussion of this issue in recent literature has missed the complexities of these cases by focusing on the question of epistemic fault. It is not clear that all blameworthy morally ignorant agents have committed an epistemic fault. There are other important issues that pull us in various directions: moral capacity, bad will, and formative circumstances. I argue that bad will is what is crucial, and moral ignorance itself can be a form of bad will. I argue that we should distinguish between two sorts of bad will, and correspondingly, two sorts of blameworthiness. Ordinary blameworthiness, requires moral knowledge, and is based on akratic action. The other kind of blameworthiness, objective blameworthiness, applies when the agent is morally ignorant, and when this indicates bad will. Objective blameworthiness can be undermined by unfortunate formative circumstances.

Blame and Wrongdoing

“…Analogously, some have recently suggested that epistemology can understand blameless norm violation 1 In particular, the discussion excludes appeals to the quality of the subject's will (e.g. Mason 2015), appeal to habits or virtues, or appeal to dispositions (e.g. Sutton 2007;Williamson Forthcoming).…”

“…Certainly, if they torture a baby for fun while ignorant that this is to violate a norm, it's not automatic that they are not to blame (e.g. Harman 2011;Mason 2015). So, I will set aside normative ignorance to focus on factual ignorance, taking it in what follows that the subject is not ignorant of the relevant norm.…”

No excuses for moral realism

“…If, as many authors argue, differences in blameworthiness track differences in subjects' quality of will rather than some kind of epistemic failing (Mason 2015), then the fact that factual ignorance excuses while moral ignorance does not need not have any implications for moral realism whatsoever.…”

“…What grounds differences in praise-and blameworthiness are differences in the quality of will agents display towards those affected by their actions (Mason 2015;Arpaly 2002Arpaly , 2003Markovits 2010). If one acts from ill will, whether or not one knows one's action to be wrong is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not one is blameworthy.…”

The Place of the Trace: Negligence and Responsibility

“…2 Many theorists rely implicitly or explicitly on some notion of tracing: Vargas (2013); Smith (1983); Ekstrom (2000); van Inwagen (1989); Fischer and Ravizza (1998: 50); Dennett (1984: 13); Kane (1996: 39); Ginet (2000); Fischer and Tognazzini (2009); Timpe (2011); Audi (1991). Notable exceptions to this trend include Harry Frankfurt's (1998) later work on responsibility, Mason (2015), Scanlon (1998Scanlon ( , 2008, and Angela Smith (2005Smith ( , 2008Smith ( , 2015. This is only a sample of the relevant literature.…”