Harman’s Culpability View

Elizabeth Harman (2011, 2014) develops her culpability view in response to the skeptical views of Rosen and Zimmerman, discussed in Chapter 2.26 _{She rejects the notion}

that agents are only ever indirectly culpable for their moral ignorance, and instead holds that false moral beliefs can be the loci of original culpability. There are moral norms that govern not only the management of our beliefs, but also norms that govern our beliefs themselves (Harman, 2011, p. 459). The core premises of Harman’s argument are (1) “Beliefs (and failures to believe) are blameworthy if they involve inadequately caring about what is morally significant [and also relevant to our actions],” and (2) pure moral ignorance always involves inadequately caring about what is morally significant.27 From these two premises, Harman concludes (3) that pure moral ignorance is always culpable.

26 _{In both articles, Harman defends a complex view concerning culpability for moral}

ignorance, and culpability for actions performed from moral ignorance. I discuss only the former in this chapter.

27 _{See Harman (2011) p. 460, and Harman (2014), p. 13. Harman does not believe we are}

Premise (1) involves two separate claims: (a) beliefs (and lack thereof) sometimes involve a failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance, and (b) agents are culpable for their beliefs when they involve such a failure. In support of (a), Harman (2011, 2014) argues that holding a belief by way of some consideration, is a way of caring about that consideration (460, 14). For example, believing that it is wrong to use animals to test the safety of cosmetics, based on the consideration that doing so causes animals undue

suffering, is a way of caring about the undue suffering of animals. We form (or fail to form) moral beliefs based on our consideration of features of the moral landscape. Because of this, our moral beliefs (or lack thereof) can involve a failure to care sufficiently about these features.

It is not clear what Harman has in mind by a belief “involving” a failure to care sufficiently about something of moral significance. There are at least three things she might have in mind. She might have in mind that a belief (or lack thereof) is caused by a failure to care sufficiently about something of moral significance. E.g., she argues that Huck Finn does not care sufficiently about Jim’s humanity because his care for it does not move him to form a true moral belief about it (Harman, 2014, p. 20). It is also possible that she holds that a belief (or lack thereof) reflects or expresses a failure to care sufficiently. Alternatively, she may hold that a belief (or lack thereof) is an instantiation of a lack of sufficient care. E.g. in her example of a Mafioso who believes it is morally right to kill an innocent shop keeper (discussed directly below), she states that to hold this false moral belief is “to hold that the

have no belief concerning the morality of a senator reading every letter of every bill that

comes across her desk. Because this is not at all relevant to my own actions, on Harman’s view, I am not blameworthy for lacking a moral belief with respect to it. For the remainder of the dissertation, I will assume this qualification when discussing Harman’s view, and will

shop owner’s life is cheap and can permissibly be sacrificed to his family’s own goals,” i.e. it is to care insufficiently about it (Harman, 2014, p. 14). Her view that believing something based on a consideration is “way of caring about it,” also suggests a reading on which our beliefs about something are instantiations of our care about it. I refer to beliefs as

“manifesting” insufficient care, in order to capture all of these senses in which a belief might “involve” a lack of sufficient care about something of moral significance.

When a belief (or lack thereof) does manifest a lack of sufficient care, Harman holds we are culpable for it insofar as we are always culpable for failing to care sufficiently about things of moral significance, and for manifestations of this lack of care. Harman does not offer a defense of this claim, but she does point out that our intuitions suggest that agents are always culpable for failing to care sufficiently about things of moral significance. E.g., she points out that we are inclined to hold psychopaths to be culpable for failing to care

sufficiently about others, even if we grant that they are unable to do so, given their psychological constitution (Harman, 2014, p. 20).28

Harman also does not offer a sustained defense of (2) the claim that pure moral ignorance always manifests a failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance.29 However, she offers examples in support of it. As noted above, in one of her examples, a mafia member kills a shop owner who refuses to pay a weekly extortion fee (Harman, 2014, p. 10-11). The Mafioso falsely believes he is doing the right thing insofar as he is acting to

28 _{Harman argues that if psychopaths are non-culpable for their lack of sufficient care,}

this is because there may be a requirement on responsibility (i.e. for counting as a responsible agent) which they fail to meet—“the ability to be moved by any moral considerations at all” (20).

29 _{This will of course be true if Harman holds that in order to care sufficiently about}

something of moral significance, we must hold true moral beliefs with respect to it. It is not completely clear that she does in fact hold this to be true. See my discussion of her analysis of Huck Finn below.

protect the financial well being of his own group. This man’s beliefs manifest a failure to care sufficiently about something of moral significance, i.e. the shopkeeper’s life. She believes that all pure moral ignorance will manifest such a failure. This is in contrast to moral ignorance that is based on non-culpable factual ignorance, which Harman (2014) holds will not manifest a failure to care sufficiently about something of moral significance (13-14). E.g., if it is someday established that even embryos experience pain, then the belief that it is permissible to perform very early term abortions without administering embryonic anesthesia or other pain relief, may turn out to be false. However, this false moral belief will not manifest a failure to care sufficiently about fetal pain.

If Harman is right, then whether or not an agent is culpable for his pure moral

ignorance is not, as proponents of the Skeptical Argument claim, simply a matter of whether or not he has fulfilled his obligations to manage his moral beliefs well. On her view, agents are culpable for their moral ignorance (at least) because it manifests a failure to care

sufficiently about something of moral significance, and this is true even if one has managed her moral beliefs well, since one can manage his beliefs well, and still arrive at the wrong conclusion. In fact, Harman (2011) argues that this happens quite often. She holds that it is true of “most (if not all) ordinary moral claims” that an agent may do everything we could reasonably expect of him in order to avoid moral ignorance (i.e. he may manage his moral beliefs well), and yet “come to deeply false moral views” (455). For example, “for many business practices that are in fact reprehensibly ruthless, we can find plenty of

businesspeople ready to offer elaborate, sustained, and serious moral defenses of them” (Harman, 2011, p. 454). Moreover, these individuals often, “have thought carefully about the questions at issue and they have not violated any procedural norms” (Harman, 2011, p.

454). However, the fact that one has thought carefully about whether or not his ruthless business practices are justified does not entail that his beliefs do not manifest a failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance.