Nathan Biebel

One of the most common excuses is ignorance. Ignorance does not always excuse, however, for sometimes ignorance is culpable. One of the most natural ways to think of the difference between exculpating and culpable ignorance is in terms of justification; that is, one’s ignorance is exculpating only if it is justified and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it not justified. Rosen :591–610, 2008) explores this idea by first offering a brief account of justification, and then two cases that he claims are counter examples to the justification thesis. The aim of this paper is to defend the justification thesis against Rosen’s two cases. The argument will proceed in the following way. First, I clarify a few things about the nature of culpable ignorance generally and why the justification thesis is so intuitive. I then present Rosen’s purported counterexamples. Once this is done, I argue that Rosen misses an important view of justification in the epistemology literature that I call the pragmatic view. I present a general picture of the pragmatic view, and explain how it fits naturally with our practices of criticizing people’s beliefs, including claims of culpable ignorance. Finally, I address Rosen’s cases arguing that, if the pragmatic view is right, then Rosen’s cases are not counterexamples to the justification thesis.

This dissertation examines the relationship between ignorance and responsibility. Ignorance is often treated as an excuse, but there are times when ignorance does not excuse. Ignorance that does not excuse is usually known as culpable ignorance. Since ignorance is largely an epistemological concept, the difference between culpable and exculpating ignorance suggests a connection between epistemology and theories of responsibility that has gone relatively unexplored. The following work explores this connection and argues that incorporating epistemological theories will help provide a robust account of both the ignorance excuse and culpable ignorance. The project begins by pointing out that some highly intuitive accounts of culpable ignorance seem remarkably like theories of epistemic justification. As such, epistemic justification seems like the best candidate for an epistemological concept that might share a connection with the culpable ignorance literature in moral philosophy. I argue that there is a theory of epistemic justification that captures our intuitions regarding culpable ignorance. Its close connection to our practices gives us good reason to think that, if this theory of justification is right, then the following is true: one’s ignorance exculpates only if it is justified, and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it is not justified. I call this the Justification Thesis. Once I establish the Justification Thesis, I defend it against various possible objections. First, the Justification Thesis is a derivative account of culpable ignorance, and it is often thought that derivative accounts are forced into responsibility skepticism. I argue that this is not true. Second, it is often thought derivative accounts like the Justification Thesis are open to a large class of counterexamples. I examine a few common alleged counterexamples and argue that they trade on ambiguities that, I suggest, are shared by every purported counterexample. When disambiguated it turns out they are not counterexamples after all. Third, some question whether ignorance with moral content exculpates. I argue that the Justification Thesis captures our intuitions regarding moral ignorance. Finally, I address a challenge to the initial assumption that culpable ignorance does not excuse and argue that this challenge is mistaken.

It is widely agreed that ignorance of fact exculpates, but does moral ignorance exculpate? If so, does it exculpate in the same way as non-moral ignorance? In this paper I will argue that on one family of views explaining exculpating non-moral ignorance also explains exculpating moral ignorance. The view can be loosely stated in the following way: ignorance counts as an excuse only if it is not the result of a failure to meet some applicable reasonable epistemic standard—call this the Reasonable Epistemic Standards Thesis and call views that accept some version of this principle reasonable standards views. I argue that any plausible reasonable standards view ought to allow that moral ignorance exculpates, at least sometimes, and defend such views against the charge that they are susceptible to clear counterexamples.

The theory of pragmatic encroachment states that the risks associated with being wrong, or the practical stakes, can make a difference to whether one’s evidence is good enough to justify belief. While still far from the orthodox view, it has garnered enough popularity that it is worth exploring the implications when we apply the theory of pragmatic encroachment to group epistemology, specifically to the justificatory status of the beliefs of group agents. When we do, I claim, we discover two novel cases of divergence; cases where a group epistemic agent is justified in believing but none of the members are, and vice versa. Using Jennifer Lackey’s influential Group Epistemic Agent Account as a foil, in particular Lackey’s arguments against previous proposed cases of divergence, the present paper defends the following argument, which I call Pragmatic Encroachment Divergence (PED): (i) Practical stakes make a difference to what an agent (group or individual) is justified in believing. (ii) The practical stakes of a group agent can come apart from the practical stakes of the (operative) members. (iii) Therefore, it is possible for the justified beliefs of a group to diverge from the justified beliefs of its members.