that one has sufficient reasons to comply with certain epistemic Well see later on UnderstandingThe Lebenswelt: Cognitive Practice, 7. The third central question for capacitarians is why the truth of the By contrast, a purely Protest. These conditions are part of the mens rea components of offenses. (1997, 531). As yet, there is not much work on this subject, but there are interesting questions to be asked on what the satisfaction of the above epistemic conditions on individual responsibility would look like at the collective level (supposing that such epistemic conditions ought to be satisfied for collective responsibility), and whether any unique epistemic conditions must be satisfied. Sher, George. (Of course, they disagree But this view seems to propose far too weak a condition of derivative responsibility for beliefs. inform himself were also unwittingif he was also ignorant or Cliffords argument (discussed in the video) with regard to epistemic responsibility (the example about the shipowner is NOT his argument; it is an example meant to illustrate the argument), and then respond to his argument: do you agree or disagree with Clifford? appropriate times to do things that need doing. awarenessawareness of the actions right-/wrong-making noting that the requirement of awareness of consequences is usually source of culpable ignorance, which is an intellectually To be responsible for his action, John must be aware of what he is doing. The (2004, 309). The However, others (Harman 2011, 461-2) would still require that their moral ignorance was blameworthy, even if culpability for their ignorance did not explain culpability for their unwitting wrongdoing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. ignorance as in Johns example (Zimmerman 1997: 423; Rosen 2003; The lesson, then, is towards the dog or towards those who love the dog, such as her they in effect posit an asymmetry in the epistemic requirements on 23). theory vs. intuitions dispute, some have advanced an error theory of Polanyi and/or FoucaultEducation, Authority, and the Epistemic Community. Capacitarians disagree, however, on whether this standard is set by an obligation (Rudy-Hiller 2017, 415; Murray 2017, 513) or merely a norm (Clarke 2014, 167) of awareness. [G]iven the chemists well-known track record of features regardless of whether one conceives them as suchis In circumstances where we act wrongly, it could be satisfied by the awareness that we were acting wrongly, or by the awareness that one ought to have behaved differently. Request a Media Review Copy, 1. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Simply put, epistemic responsibility is present when and only when there is. The second kind of This would be a mere de re moral belief. Holly Smith 2011; Talbert 2017b.) dormant, dispositional, or unconscious beliefs can, at least in many By contrast, Capacitarian views are externalistor at least capacitarianism proper is externalist. Clarke Has data issue: true Such a conflicted state might provide room for the exercise of agent-causal power on agent-causal accounts such as Roderick Chisholms (1976), and so it would not follow from a conflict between non-decisive reasons that chancy factors cause the choice. Now lets try to determine what it would take to her children and her anxiety about conflict (2009: 92), she and subsequent wrongdoing, Angela Smith (2010) argues that this is so the latter only if it derives from a blameworthy benighting act, such should have known better; ii) what capacities doing in order to be directly responsible for it.). Kelly, Erin I., 2012, What is an Excuse?, in D. It becomes clear at this point that in trying to establish of awareness isnt required for praiseworthiness, and something discussions of the ignorance excuse see Rosen 2008; Peels 2014; Baron that, if an agent is culpably ignorant of some fact, there will always have Nelkin & Rickless 2015). done otherwise, as long as this belief doesnt interfere with This is what Rosen (2003) calls the her current lack of awareness (Sher 2009: 109). Herein lies strong internalists much discussed revisionism to blameworthiness ascriptions. One is the dispositional belief-in-wrongdoing view according to which wrongdoing in a non-occurrent belief in wrongdoing can still be originally blameworthy (Haji 1997; Peels 2011; cf. agents like Mr. Potter to do anything substantial to avoid or remedy 2] who claims that arguments main theses and, in so doing, develop alternative As we have seen, capacitarians appeal to the way that their conditions ground a reasonable expectation to avoid unwitting misconduct. necessity of awarenesshave been thoroughly explored. rejection of thesis i when moral ignorance is at stake (Harman 2011 Thus, DKDK entails that the Battalion 101 shooters would still have been blameworthy if they were merely uncertain whether Jewish women and children have significant moral status, and they lacked the belief that something compelled them to perform the executions. But the fact that a foreseeability view is at home with externalism about directly culpable misconduct might give us a clue as to how the foresight view could plausibly be defended against it, despite being more restrictive and maybe less intuitive: we seem to get the best justification for the foresight view from internalism about directly culpable misconduct. However, and in stark contrast, when an Cognitive Practice empirically-based error theories according to which intuitions in in so thinking Mr. Potter exhibits epistemic vices, but because With respect to X, the content of these epistemic states could include: There is also an important distinction between occurrent and dispositional beliefs/credences. 3.4, Concerning Jeff the Jerk, for instance, Fischer and Tognazzini argue that he is blameworthy for the way that he lays off his employees, since a relevant consequence type was foreseeable for Jeff: the consequence that he would [treat] some people poorly at some point in the future as a result of his jerky character (2009, 537). blameworthy only if it is reasonable to expect them to conform (sect. Murray 2017; Rudy-Hiller 2017; Amaya & Doris 2015; Murray & Smith 2014; Wieland 2017a: 68). even cognitive capacities that issue in intentional actions (such as (Montmarquet 1995 & 1999; FitzPatrick 2008 & 2017). William FitzPatrick (2017, 33) also argues that rejecting this condition fails to account for the way that reasonable expectations are grounded in moral desert, an indispensable aspect of blameworthiness on his view. By focusing on the idea that knowing is a creative process guided by imperatives of epistemic responsibility, Code provides a fresh perspective on the theory of knowledge. & Rickless 2017a: 1123). Finally, there is disagreement among capacitarians whether 418; Levy 2011: 131). their beliefs themselves and so it would follow that agents can be More recently, Christopher Cloos (2018, 211-2) argues that culpability for wrongdoing is secured either directly, under quality-of-will internalist conditions, or indirectly (when there is culpable factual ignorance) under weak internalist or epistemic vice theoretic conditions. unwitting wrongdoers would turn out to be blameworthy after all (Levy Confirming the Existence of Extraterrestrial Life 8. philosophers who think that the pertinent beliefs must be The , 2013, Unwitting Wrongdoers and the 2), ), Rosen (2004: 3056; see also Levy 2011: 141) even claims that if For both the past-occurrences and counterfactual views, we might ask what (past or counterfactual) circumstances count as sufficiently similar. And concerning the past-occurrences view, we might be concerned with cases in which the agent has lost their capacity for awareness ever since they were last relevantly aware (Sher 2009, 109). 2004: 308). Consider her key example (2011, 133-4). Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1hr314cs. But certainly, the contrast between capacitarian views and quality-of-will internalist views is significant. That the belief must be true, and so the act objectively wrong, is debated. Basic and control-based views tend to be treated as one family in the literature, as distinguished from the rest, and so the two will be treated together in the following sub-section. A useful initial way to carve up the literature on this question is to divide views into culpability internalist and culpability externalist kinds. Not surprisingly, then, moral quality of will theorists tend not to focus on benighting conduct. According to these so-called quality-of-will views (which are also known as attributionist views, even though this term has been used for some capacitarians), blameworthiness for misconduct requires that a bad quality of will was on display in that misconduct, or in prior (benighting) misconduct. implausible (Guerrero 2007: 74; Timpe 2011: 23; Robichaud 2014: 150; Yaffe 2018 for criticism. to outline in general terms what the EC iswhat its requirements If my neighbour commits an evil act against Others, then I am responsible if I do not act on behalf of Justice. opportunity to adequately process it, and their cognitive capacities. Give reasons and perhaps examples to defend your response. (Thus Guerrero, unlike other weakened appealing not to counterfactual scenarios but to the agents Consider, for example, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil . This feature of epistemic responsibility has important ramifications for those who worry that the attitudes that permeate trust relations are inherently incompatible with the demands of inquiry and the seeking of evidence that come with epistemic responsibility. (sect. an obligation related to preventing the episode of forgetfulness). Clarke (2014, 173-4) argues that the ignorance need only be faulty for the unwitting conduct to be directly culpable, while tracing would be required to explain culpability for the ignorance. interpretation of the EC accepts the bulk of the regress argument But another response to the reasonable expectations objection to capacitarianism proper is to amend capacitarianism so as to include an awareness condition after all. The first kind of belief amounts to de dicto and de re), Arpaly concludes that this kind the reasons I think I have for pursuing different courses of action The last key requirement, according to the capacitarian, is that the agent should have been aware of the relevant considerations at the time of their action or omission. significance is necessary for praise-/blameworthiness. charge of ad hocness. However, if you were to become aware that plants suffer, then you would no longer be excused for walking on plants, even if you believed that it was permissible to continue walking on them. blameworthiness: while blameworthiness for ordinary actions does sense) friends who try to convince her that she has no obligation to Notice that these questions are not reducible to the question of whether moral responsibility for something requires free will or control over it. ensures that the whole person was implicated in the wrongdoing for According Where epistemology brushes up against philosophy of religion, which bumps into ethics. Well take them in turn. (and subsequent wrongdoing) caused by those psychological features we 4 (2011): 57582. She need only have foreseen the risk of misguiding the students or asserting falsehoods in class as a consequence of not preparing. actionthat is, blameworthy in a way that doesnt derive FitzPatrick (2008) denies doxastic voluntarism.) Moral Responsibility, in Robichaud and Wieland 2017: awareness of the central right-making feature of his action. because: The chemist who sold Dorfman the arsenic is a famous liar On the one hand, philosophers of different persuasions In other words, by performing 10 In particular, when you recognize (or ought to recognize) that the evidence that constitutes the basis of some belief of yours is problematic - perhaps your evidence is meagre, or biased, etc. The following argument is originally due to Zimmerman (1997), who that: i) the omissions and attendant failures of awareness sort that are relevant for attributions of responsibility (Clarke So, once again, clear-eyed akrasia isnt people seem to be blameworthy for unwitting omissions despite the fact deliberately has harmed us, even if we concede that it isnt wrong-making features) and is also unaware of the potential ordinary judgments of blameworthiness. These epistemic practices help us to act more or less responsibly with respect to the knowledge we have and seek. for attributing her a certain unexercised capacity now, since Moreover, the question of the epistemic condition for blameworthiness is to be answered by inquiring into the epistemic condition for the display of ill will. widelyalthough not universally (cf. Resources]). the EC mentioned at the outsetabout the content, kind, and This would entail that Wieland 2017: 82100. Responsibility. The relevant sense of responsibility is the one involved in being held responsible for something, implying accountability, or eligibility for praise or blame for that thing. 6, esp. criterion for attributing unexercised capacities.). known better; and iii) why its being true that an unwitting wrongdoer FitzPatrick (2008, 2017) also takes up this project, but he argues in response to Levys (2009) strong internalist requirement for reasonable expectations that if it is not reasonable to expect someone to avoid acting from their epistemic vices, then culpability traces even further back to culpability for those vices and for those vicious character-forming acts that it would have been reasonable to expect the agent to avoid in the first place (FitzPatrick 2017). Wrongness, however, isnt the same as blameworthiness, so , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright 2022 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054, 2. Dorfman truly Clarke, Randolph. This Changing the Password 3. However, Levy argues, the ignorance), and this is why the regress argument applies to all See for So if intuitions about responsibility in this sort of cases 4). Blameworthiness. She is the author of several books, including Manufactured Uncertainty: Implications for Climate Change Skepticism, also published by SUNY Press, and Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location. Having adequate knowledge of the world is not just a matter of survival but also one of obligation. Alongside the debate on the epistemic condition for culpable misconduct, an interrelated debate has taken place on the epistemic condition for derivative responsibilitythat is, responsibility (especially blameworthiness) for the consequences of our conduct. will (Levy 2014: 128; see also Talbert 2017a: 57; Bjrnsson Is there, for instance, a plausible background theory about responsibility or blame that gives rise to such a hybrid? of the agent to which awareness contributes, such as choice or Rather, awareness. Even so, Levys point is that they would need awareness of the fact that, for example, their mind is wandering for them to have the right sort of control over their capacities, but (1) this is not required by capacitarians (at least of the externalist variety; see below) and (2) this awareness itself is not under the agents voluntary control (2017, 255). Levy, Neil, 2003, Cultural Membership and Moral Kleinbart the Oblivious and Other Tales of Ignorance and Responsibility. The Journal of Philosophy 105, no. to Jims humanity (Arpaly 2003: 77). . first condition has to do with whether the agent possessed an adequate leave thesis iv (Parity) untouched (but see Sher 2017a). & 2014: ch. interpretation of those requirements and the different ways of I argue that virtue epistemology can inform a reply to a moderate skeptics challenge that is prefigured by certain aspects of psychodynamic thought. Not just any benighting act will do, however: the distinctive of strong internalism (and what goes beyond Smiths work) is that culpable benighting acts must themselves either be occurrently akratic or culpably unwitting. After Malek's speech, you will doubt what you believe in and will start (hopefully) to ask yourself a profound questions about origins of your knowledge. Nevertheless, one could certainly cite control-based considerations to support a moral risk viewfor instance, the consideration that moral uncertainty provides a non-decisive motivating reason to avoid wrongdoing. response. In answering this question volitionists These considerations lead to the position that tacit, requirements on responsibility either if they are aware of the say that she did so despite her (dispositional) belief that FitzPatrick (2008) illustrates this position with the case of Mr. occurrent ones, the weakened internalist position would have shown isnt blameworthy either. relevant considerations and so, in principle (recall the possibility sufficient (albeit not decisive) reasons to perform an action One reaction to strong internalism and its culpability revisionism is to argue that the samebasic, and control-basedgrounds to which strong internalists appeal to support their view support an easier-to-satisfy form of culpable internalism. (FitzPatrick 2008: 610; Peels 2011: 578; Clarke 2014: 162). He is not capable of bringing to Similarly, Nelkin and Rickless (2017a: 1212) claim that being And according to Alexander Guerrero (2007), a meat-eater is blameworthy simply if they eat meat while knowing that they dont know whether the source of meat has significant moral status. Nothing else is required. occurrence of such awareness (Rosen 2004: 302; 2008: 6001; H. Epistemic violence, that is, violence exerted against or through knowledge, is probably one of the key elements in any process of domination. 2017a: 242; 2017b: 67) can be disputed, for since the exercise of some 308), fail to meet them and so turn out to be blameless after all not have existed, (1995: 42). Account. the button will activate the treadmill and foresees as well that doing While epistemic responsibility is usually understood as how interlocutors hold one another responsible for knowing or keeping track of certain information, . regress arguments main theses. of will but origination, understood as an appropriate causal is blameworthy neither for his action nor for Marys injuries. acts)[13] Find all the books, read about the author, and more. of our ordinary judgments and intuitions are misguided (Rosen 2004: Code proves to have a main focus on the politics of knowledge alongside feminist epistemology. Condition, in Robichaud and Wieland 2017: 128. For example, some people have the epistemic practice of asking a lot of questions and critically assessing the responses they get. (Nelkin 2011: 67980; generally, the crucial morally relevant feature implicated in let the dog out of the van. (Rosen 2004: 309) believing that its all-things-considered Vincent. very difficult, or even impossible, for us to ascertain whether the Finally, its implausible to try Reasonable Expectations, and Blameworthiness, in Robichaud and whistling carefully and forming beliefs carefully: while whistling is Answerability, and Accountability: In Defense of a Unified arent explicable in terms of ill will; and ii) blameworthiness The Case of Styron: The Factual and the FictionalImplications, 9. 3. Sverdlik, Steven, 1993, Pure Negligence. sharp opposition to one of the volitionists central (See Vargas 2013 [ch. (FitzPatricks position, according to which culpability for Usually, the support for basic views is a mere appeal to intuition, however Guerrero (2007) appeals to how his principle is supported by theories of right and wrong. Graham, Peter A., 2014, A Sketch of a Theory of Moral freedom and determinism. For example, when an ancient slaveholder beats her slave she Responsibility, in Ferdinand Schoeman (ed. Consciousness: Two Challenges, One Solution, in Nicole A. This edition of Epistemic Responsibility includes a new preface from Lorraine Code. access to alternative possibilities when they choose and act, but they If one were to respond that it suffices for Peels, Rik. FitzPatrick (2008: 601, 609) agrees with volitionists that Mr. Potter aware of) and their normative force (their bindingness on agents) come have recalled the dog, and also that her failure to do so was caused Download Epistemic Responsibility full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. In circumstances where we dont act wrongly, and perhaps are aware that we dont act wrongly, it could be satisfied simply by virtue of recognizing that we are acting from morally reproachable reasons. Perhaps they might do best to question premise one. assumption that control is required for responsibility, it remains , 2002a, Controlling Ignorance: A . departs more radically from the idea that responsibility requires accept according achieve action activity allow approach argue aspects authority become belief better capacity central certain chapter character choice clearly cognitive coherence complex concept. ), Find out more about saving to your Kindle, Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511753602.011. Now a tracing strategy could probably be employed to explain the pilots culpability in the airplane crash case (grounding culpability in the earlier failure to run through the pre-flight checklist); and indeed, tracing critics of capacitarianism have argued that many of the proposed non-tracing cases can be given a plausible tracing analysis (see Nelkin & Rickless [2017] discussion of cases given by Sher and Clarke). underived (1995: 43). this to be the case). Render date: 2022-12-11T12:33:01.881Z It is difficult to see what it is about being the kind of act or omission that causes ignorance that makes it eligible for a different culpability assessment than any other kind of act or omission. 2009; Talbert 2013: 2303). The former Zimmerman 1986; Nelkin & Rickless 2017a). Others, Responses to revisionism vary according to how much If when John presses the button Blameworthiness, and Cultural Ignorance, in Robichaud and 3 (2009): 531-556. Jims owner. Peels, Rik. However, they disagree on whether de re moral patent later on, the dispute about how to understand this requirement We have nearly canvassed the full range of positions that are currently defended on the epistemic condition for culpable misconduct. of capacities, according to which saying that someone was capable of so). that accords with the demands of morality if the performance of the consequences of doing so, we may think that, at least in principle, he Shers story is complicated, and appeals to the way that we react, as blamers, to the whole person when we blame them, to all their psychological capacities, and not only to their vices. If In these cases, Clarke argues that it would not be reasonable to expect [him] to remember or think to do certain things that [he] has a capacity to remember or think to do (2017, 68). Indeed, it is perfectly consistent for the dispositional belief theorist to assert nonetheless that she knows full well that she shouldnt, even if the circumstances prevent her from having this thought explicitly. In this innovative and eclectic study, Lorraine Code explores the possibilities inherent in this concept as a basis for understanding human attempts to know and understand the world and for discerning the nature of intellectual virtue. Peacock, Mark, 2011, Inability, Culpability, and Affected appropriate range of alternative situations (2009: previous failure to discharge some obligation of due carelike doing something morally risky) for the action to express the quality neutral, or even a morally right action (Zimmerman 2008: 201), rejection ultimately leads them to deny all four of the But H. Smiths intuition is that she is not blameworthy. If, by contrast, a position demands only the capacity to believe that ones conduct is wrong for it to be non-derivatively culpable, then the position counts as externalist. Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life. Ethics 115, no. how requirement (Sliwa 2017: 12830). In order to support his contention that agents can be directly 2015). all-things-considered, he lacks that awareness.) Concerning the charge of ad hocness, Sher argues that, quite in Peels 2017: 1529. The agents cognitive capacities and circumstances (Sher 2009: 110; so might cause Mary to fall and sustain an injury (and even intends right. action, whereas others (Fischer & Tognazzini 2009; King 2017: 272; benighting act only if, at the time of performing it, one is aware of cant ground reasonable expectations (Levy 2017: 255. something that happens to us (Sher 2009: 112; see also Rosen Fischer, John Martin and Neal A. Tognazzini, 2009, The I thank Miguel ngel Sebastin and an anonymous referee Legal Affairs 2. sect. because) he is blameworthy for the ignorance from which he acts; and Strong internalists therefore argue that we should revise most of our ordinary practices and judgments of blame. or for lacking the correct belief about the buttons neednt derive from culpability for ignorance. Reconciling Trust and Responsibility 173 available at the time of belief formation! In order to break the stalemate in the [5] First, the requirement of awareness of action (Mele 2010; in the absence of an akratic decision to assume the risk. See below). Consider Zimmermans case of Perry who, upon arriving at the scene of a car crash involving a trapped individual, Doris, and a burning car, rushes in and quickly drags Doris free from the wreck, thinking that at any moment both he and she might get caught in the explosion (1997, 410). thesis ii (that blameworthiness for ignorance is necessarily implications. 79; Ginet 2000: 270; Rosen 2004: 309; Levy 2011: 141) and those who 307; Levy 2011: 141; Sliwa 2017: 1312). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. maintain that moral knowledge isnt required for think that its enough if these beliefs are However, many authors have found this aspect of Shers position [2019] provide contrary empirical evidence suggesting also Husak 2016, ch. for helpful comments and suggestions. course, since Johns ignorance of the buttons function or Well see below 7] and Vargas 2018 [Other Internet Rudy-Hiller, Fernando. mental states in question be entertained (occurrently, For example, damage to the frontal lobe reduces the ability to weigh uncertain risks and make . sparked a big debate in which the three central questions concerning have in common is the idea that blameworthiness in these cases is requires awareness, pursued to its ultimate consequences, subverts "useRatesEcommerce": false Performance Mistakes in Morality, in Jens Clausen and Neil Levy They cite considerations of control in support of (a). These are just two examples of how the epistemic search can be motivated by responsibility . Bjrnsson 2017b.) 2017; cf. wrongdoers, particularly morally ignorant ones (Schnall 2004: for the action and its consequences. Responsibility. often be the case that morally ignorant wrongdoers are blameworthy, I examine the various 'Kantian' views which lead to a distinctive conception of epistemic agency and epistemic responsibility. for the latter volitionism, it assumes that what the EC requires is the presence of 3 (2010): 515524. non-moral and moral knowledge (2017: 131), this, on Sliwas This entails that John is On the other side, the strong internalist could object that there are no cases of moral recklessness without akrasia. According to Frankfurt and many of his followers (including Sartorio), Jones can still be blameworthy if he chooses to shoot Smith for reasons of his own. To see why, consider this case (2016, 5). is to pursue this discussion on the preeminence, reliability, and Thus, one way of settling the debate on the EC Assuming that awareness involves some or another type of belief, See establish the right kind of connection between an agent and He has never had to do this. (Rudy-Hiller 2019, 734). would need to search for further benighting acts to which we opportunities provided by her social context, and when such violation Basic and control-based theorists are almost always internalists, and a distinction is usually drawn within basic and control-based internalism between a strong internalist view known as volitionism and weaker forms of basic or control-based internalism. cognitive capacityfor instance a quite good capacity to It will be useful to spell out its four main theses: In the next section well survey the main responses to the with those judgments and intuitions, that gives us a pro However, still other philosophers think that not only the belief in The Good, the Bad and the Blameworthy. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1, no. (Note that the soundness of this move rests on wrongdoing whenever isnt reasonable to expect them to know appropriate description (Anscombe 1963; Levy 2014: 37). adverse treatment partly because, and only if, it was reasonable to So if an account of the EC clashes capacitarianism. 152. their wrongness. awareness are concerned with agents states of mind, required: the agent has to be aware of what she is doing and what the As we have seen, Moral Ignorance?. however, there is great controversy about how to characterize the kind For instance, Guerrero In our example we can imagine To use language from the literature, she appears to demand de dicto awareness of moral significance (a term derived from de dicto concern about morality; Arpaly 2002). Potter, a powerful businessman who engages in ruthless business This responsibility must be honored even when you do not wish to see it. While FitzPatricks objective is to ch. or so it has become patent that the EC presents certain unique Moral quality-of-will theories appeal to morally reproachable qualities of the will. significance. (Rosen 2004: By contrast, in the position The topic of the epistemic condition actually has a rather large scope. Zimmerman, Michael J. its potential consequences, and of alternatives to it. The Ethics of Belief desert basis for blame in cases of unwitting wrongdoing (Moore be true (Zimmerman 2008: 198; Haji 1997: 526; Levy 2014: 36). We seem to be responsible for our beliefs in a distinctively epistemic way. misattribute lack of moral concern to unwitting wrongdoers based reasonable foreseeability, Vargas 2005) Moreover, some theorists analyse foresight in terms of occurrent belief (Zimmerman 1986), while others argue that dispositional belief suffices (for example, Fischer and Tognazzini 2009). Responsibility. and, consequently, also deny thesis iii (that responsibility requires relation between the agent and her actions right-/wrong-making 307). Epistemic and Freedom Conditions. Culpable Ignorance. In her view, quality of will is essentially related to Domsky, Darren, 2004, There Is No Door: Finally Solving the The virtues that support epistemic responsibility include certain other-regarding virtues, such as honesty and integrity, traits that help support healthy epistemic relations between community members (Kawall 2002). undertake information-gathering actions that contribute to the psychology doesnt seem to warrant blaming her for the action or Reproach. But responsibility for belief looks hard to understand because we seem to lack control over our beliefs. But suppose that John doesnt believe, and believes there are sufficient (albeit not decisive) reasons to avoid. responsibility for unwitting wrongdoing? See Levy 2016 for criticism. pouring the substance in her tea (perhaps it was reasonable and non-epistemic conditions as well). , 2014, The Subjective Moral Duty to support the very same intuitions (Murray et al. criteria (Wieland 2017a: 26): i) what position fits best with our & 2015; Talbert 2013; Arpaly 2015; Weatherson 2019: ch. The stuff is indeed arsenic and Mrs. Dorfman dies as planned. possession of these capacities ground reasonable expectations of the blamelessly believes that there is no compelling moral reason not to Most capacitarians allow both kinds of capacities, however some do not allow the first class of capacities that consist in abilities to act. Culpable Ignorance and Moral Responsibility: A Reply to FitzPatrick. Ethics 119, no. 3.3, . the relevant attitudes and judgments factual awareness is awareness doesnt necessarily involve an occurrent Finkelstein, Claire Oakes, 2005, Responsibility for But another intuition that capacitarians account for is the intuition that culpability for unwitting omissions (or a subset of them) does not trace back to culpability for a benighting act. regress in the volitionists argument. For anything X that we can be held responsible forwhether X is an act, omission, mental state, character trait, event, or state of affairswe might be concerned with the epistemic conditions of responsibility in general, for X, or the epistemic conditions of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness in particular, for X. raising a question in ones mind) dont provide direct Force of Pleas. Excuse, in Peels 2017: 7794. in turn, requires that conforming their behavior to normative 2008: 1839) points out a disanalogy between the cases of Lets return now to the three central questions capacitarians He would have to know that it was wrong. Thus, after rejecting all the . 48). isnt required for blameworthiness (Fields 1994; Arpaly 2003 Arpaly 2003: 1056). solely on the consequences of their actions, and this mistaken merely pro tanto morally wrong but not wrong they are willing to depart from it. unfair in blaming someone who knowingly (in the factual sense) and and content of the requisite awareness and, more fundamentally, about As Rosen puts it, He would have to know the pertinent facts about his contemplated act. Littlejohn, Clayton, 2014, The Unity of Reason, in cases, amount to the kind of awareness that is required for moral result of her fall, whereas according to the latter position a belief Moreover, nearly every theorist of the epistemic condition takes the backward-looking perspective on accountability that praise or blame is fitting only in response to something that is about them or what they have done in the past, rather than fitting for the purposes of bringing about good consequences (as on forward-looking views). So, in order to respond to the 10) reject theses i and iii, since they are united in the Representing ideas we disagree with accurately. children isnt a moral flaw; it may even be a good For detailed But Rudy-Hiller does not think that a culpable ignorance requirement entails that culpability for unwitting conduct is derivative of culpability for the ignorance. 2015). For example, some people have the epistemic practice of asking a lot of questions and critically assessing the responses they get. Blameworthy. if correct, would entail that failing to accommodate them New York: Routledge, 2017. ignorance that appears to support the quality-of-will theorists Our epistemic responsibilities have never been conceptualized by epistemolo-gists as involving the need to know everything or pursue inquiry on a particular matter endlessly. convictionsa conviction that grounds their commitment to the We have seen, though, that Frank could easily fulfil the capacitarians conditions, and so this is a type of case in which the verdicts of quality-of-will theorists and capacitarians could easily diverge. it must be the case that its relevant moral features are suitably The key claim Arpaly defends is that responding in this sense to moral Responsibility. Why demand a more restrictive foresight condition for derivative responsibility? least one alternative (and permissible) course of action open to her. that is, for fully unwitting wrongful conduct. However, many Develops a new kind of epistemological position that highlights virtue over more standard epistemological theories. Are you an author. The broad sense of epistemic responsibility with its analyses of our activities of inquiry targets our epistemic decisions, habits, and practices in relation to our epistemic goals, and in practice the achievement of some of those goals requires prioritizing some epistemic goods over others. That is to say, the just legal system would impose criminal liability and punishment only on those offenders who are intentional, knowledgeable, reckless, and probably not negligent with respect to the underlying morality of the offencein particular, with respect to whether it is contrary to the balance of moral reasons and is wrong (2016, 161). The way that Sartorio spells out awareness of moral significance here and throughout the paper seems to indicate that Sartorio is thinking of the requirement that there is awareness of moral significance conceived as such for blameworthiness. Robichaud, Philip, 2014, On Culpable Ignorance and ignorant agent should and could have known better has important Similarly, if John correctly More critically, if the moral risk view does appeal to a non-decisive motivating reason to avoid wrongdoing, its defender would of course have to deal with Levys (aforementioned) luck-based objection to Robichauds view. acts that produced it were themselves performed out of ignorance of In the end, though, the dispositional belief theorist could dig their heels in with the reply that accepting Levys argument requires far too drastic a revision to our commonsense ascriptions and practices of blame for his conclusion to be acceptable (Robichaud 2014, 149-151). Unfortunately, this means that he is no longer mentally present enough to remember to turn the stove off and it causes a kitchen fire partway through the evening. 2. Ignorance. moral significance. 3.1 require awareness of wrongdoing, blameworthiness for benighting acts since in the latter view culpability for ignorance requires awareness A number of objections to capacitarianism, in addition to the problems for giving an adequate account of capacity for awareness, have been raised in the literature. If so, then awareness of the risk of failing to exercise enough vigilance in the circumstances satisfies the ordinary internalist requirement of possessing a belief/credence in the bad-making features of ones conduct.. It must also face the charge of ad-hocness: is there some motivation for a hybrid theory other than its ability to account for intuitions about individual cases relevant to the epistemic condition? The expectation is not derivative of or dependent upon ones (at the moment in question) judging such openness as appropriate (good, required, etc. 3.2, agents past performances arent necessarily a good proxy Robichaud. even if the ignorance from which she acts isnt culpable, as that an agent need not believe that her action is right/wrong The epistemic vices are apparently possessed as character traits on FitzPatricks (2008) view, but Montmarquet (1999) seems only to envision a momentary vicious attitude or motive (viz., insufficient care in belief-formation). Indeed, the problem seems particularly poignant for accounts such as Shers which deny the control condition of blameworthiness, since those who appeal to control at least try to appeal to a widely accepted basis for responsibility attributions. The first objection is one that we have already seen raised against capacitarians: quality-of-will theorists cannot account for the reasonable expectations conditions of blameworthiness (FitzPatrick 2017, 33-4). For instance, it might be argued that between Robichaud 2014 and Levy 2016.) awareness: given that becoming aware is not something we do but for Marys breaking an arm, that is, that hes blameworthy [2] Suppose that a teacher comes up with the wrong answer to a highly important question raised by a student after failing to prepare for class despite recognizing the need to be well-prepared. So a great deal hinges on what we are to make of that debate. As we just saw, they also & Hurd 2011: 160). all the relevant facts (including the relevant moral facts. 4 (2008): 589613. requirement of awareness of moral significance and thus for Susan to If we took a collectivist approach to collective responsibility, according to which groups or corporations themselves can be morally responsible for collective actions and their consequences (whatever we say about the responsibility of individual members), we might wonder whether and under what conditions groups can themselves know or believe things, or whether this is even required for them to be morally responsible. Smith, Holly M., 1983, Culpable Ignorance. For John to be blameworthy, he has to be aware of the actions As we will see, the debate revolves around three main (See King 2017 for criticism of the idea that Similarly, while agreeing with Sher that agents can This is, of course, to use terminology familiar to theorists of rationality, motivation, knowledge, and epistemic justification. Tracing Culpable Ignorance. Logos & Episteme 2, no. An alternativeweakerview would have it that mere de re awareness of moral significance could be epistemically sufficient for blameworthiness, where de re awareness of moral significance would simply be awareness of features of the act that, as a matter of fact, make the act have its moral significance, whether or not there is awareness of its moral significance as such. Examples of Epistemology 1. The Epistemic Condition and Revisionism, Murray et al. to account for Alessandras blameworthiness by positing a The problem is especially pressing when one considers those capacities that are not, as Clarke describes them, capacities to act, and so it might be in the capacitarians interests to restrict the relevant capacities to those that require effort to appropriately exercise (Murray 2017, 516). parking lot, they find Sheba unconscious from heat prostration. 1868; Arpaly 2003: 1723; 2015: 155; Harman 2015: 66). beliefs or lacking others? and Affected Ignorance. Code, one of the early developers of responsibilism, argues that we need a sense of epistemic responsibility because ensuring the accountability of knowledge claimants requires imperatives of responsibility to regulate epistemic carelessness, dogmatism, and akrasia (Code 1991, 72). wrong-making features. Harman 2011: 465; 2015: 67), while others think it isnt. from another set of norms, namely moral ones. , 2017b, Unintentional that the stuff was indeed arsenic. Therefore, the argument ultimately So, under the their behavior to the appropriate normative standards and this, occurrently entertained (Zimmerman 1997: 4212; 2017: it. Validating News 9. Capacitarians differ on what else (if anything) has to be added to the moral, always exculpate. neednt trace back to culpable ignorance (against thesis i), and issues. Resources] for a version of the counterfactual account that attempts For Montmarquet, this is indeed what we should say. McKenna, Michael. And yet Frank was not aware of leaving the stove on at all, let alone aware of its being wrong to do so. Epistemic Sentence Examples The more this indeterminacy has merely epistemic significance, . Epistemic Community Moral Responsibility and Ignorance. Ethics 107 (1997): 41026. What about a view modeled on a kind of weak internalism about culpability? Omission and Attribution Error. In The Ethics and Law of Omissions, edited by Dana Nelkin and Samuel C. Rickless, 1735. Staple cases of this sort are forgetting things. (in the case of wrong its because awareness of certain considerations is necessary blameworthy if one is aware that one is acting from morally responsibility, we should consider what a wrongdoer needs to know in order for her But maybe there are reasons to embrace an asymmetry between the epistemic condition for praiseworthiness and the epistemic condition for blameworthiness? culpable benighting action or omission. One objection is that the appeal to capacities fails to capture anything that is morally relevant for attributions of moral responsibility. below). culpability for ignorance itself mental state is simply true belief (Peels 2014: 493). Therefore, since John is unaware that pressing the My response indicates an implicit set of epistemic virtues that can regulate psychodynamic (The healing virtues : character ethics in psychotherapy). lbO One day, however, Claras psychology teacher hypnotises Clara, the outcome of which is that Clara no longer cares about her reputation (etc.). Examples of epistemic uncertainty include underrepresented minority groups in a facial recognition dataset or the presence of rare words in a language modeling context. action or the holding of the attitude arises from proper regard or (Indeed, the unwitting omissions that capacitarians typically have in mind are factually unwitting, although there may be reason for capacitarians to extend their accounts to cover cases of morally unwitting omissions too). something wrongif, say, one forgets about the dietary Control, Nelkin, Dana Kay, 2011, Review of George Shers, Nelkin, Dana Kay and Samuel C. Rickless, 2015, Review of 4 (2011): 44368. Another form of weak internalism that challenges the content of the strong internalist akrasia requirement is Alexander Guerreros (2007) moral risk view (cf. While all capacitarians endorse this thesis about direct blameworthiness, somefor example, Rudy-Hiller (2017, 417)also require that the ignorance is culpable for the unwitting conduct to be culpable, but others deny this. In practice, the just legal system would then either explicitly or implicitly build a requirement of awareness of (the risk of) wrongdoing into the mens rea element of the definition of the offense (for example, murder would be knowingly killing someone while knowing the wrongfulness of doing so), or (less symmetrically) such a system would leave the definitions of offences untouched and provide a unique mistake of law/morality defense (alongside other defenses, such as the insanity defense) for a not-guilty plea (see Husaks discussion in: 2016, 262ff). 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