Unwavering Culpability for Moral Ignorance

Participants in the moral ignorance debate tend to take up one of two extreme positions concerning agents’ culpability for their moral ignorance. They either claim that agents are almost never culpable for their moral ignorance (skeptical view), or that agents are almost always culpable for it (culpability views). In the last chapter, I argued that the skeptical view fails to capture our intuitions concerning culpability for moral ignorance, and is inadequately defended. In this chapter, I focus on culpability views, and argue that they face similar problems.

Proponents of culpability views argue that agents are almost always directly culpable for their “pure” moral ignorance—i.e. moral ignorance not rooted in non-culpable factual ignorance. Culpability for pure moral is independent of culpability for any acts or omissions that contributed to it. This is because pure moral ignorance almost always manifests an objectionable moral attitude, and we are always directly culpable for such attitudes and the beliefs (or lack thereof) through which they are manifested.

In what follows, I consider two prominent culpability views. The first is offered by Elizabeth Harman (2011, 2014). She argues that pure moral ignorance always manifests a failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance. We are always directly

culpable for failing to care sufficiently about things of moral significance, and for beliefs (or lack thereof) which manifest this failure. We are therefore always directly culpable for our pure moral ignorance. The second culpability view, the non-volitional culpability view, is

drawn from non-volitional views of blame (defended by Scanlon (1998), Hieronymi (2004), and Angela Smith (over a series of papers)). Proponents of these views endorse one of the two following views of blame. (A) Blame is comprised of a judgment that an agent has an objectionable moral attitude (or holds beliefs that manifest an objectionable moral attitude). Or, (B) when we blame an agent for X, we demand that the agent defend the moral attitudes manifested by X. On (A), blame is justified if it is true that the agent has an objectionable moral attitude, or manifested an objectionable moral attitude in her actions or beliefs, and given our evidence, we are justified in making this judgment. On (B), blame is justified if the agent cannot defend the moral attitudes manifested by X, which will be true if they are, in fact, objectionable. Proponents of non-volitional views of blame are committed to non- volitional culpability views concerning moral ignorance. Because pure moral ignorance almost always manifests an objectionable moral attitude, agents are almost always justifiably blamed for it.

I take it that much is appealing about culpability views’ position that agents can be directly culpable for their moral ignorance. In holding this, culpability views accommodate our intuitions that agents are culpable for their moral ignorance, not only because it is the result of mismanagement of their moral beliefs, but because of the nature of their moral ignorance itself. For example, we might rightfully blame an agent who holds racist beliefs in the face of obvious countervailing evidence. However, she is culpable not only because she has mismanaged her moral beliefs, but because her beliefs are morally offensive—they manifest a failure to respect other human beings. Moreover, barring any abnormal circumstances (e.g. that the agent was brainwashed and holds her beliefs as a result), it is plausible that she would be culpable for her racist beliefs even if they were not the result of

a mismanagement of her moral beliefs; she is culpable for them simply in virtue of their offensive nature.

At the same time, the claim that agents are almost always culpable for their pure moral ignorance insofar as it manifests an objectionable moral attitude, is not as appealing. Many tend to think that how an agent came to hold her false moral beliefs (or to lack true ones) is relevant to her culpability for it. In particular, given the circumstances under which an agent forms her moral ignorance (e.g. against the backdrop of very unfortunate formative circumstances), she is sometimes non-culpable for it. This is not something that proponents of culpability views can accept. The circumstances under which an agent came to be morally ignorant do not bear on the fact that pure moral ignorance manifests a failure to care

sufficiently about something of moral significance. Therefore these circumstances do not bear on an agent’s culpability for her moral ignorance, according to Harman’s view. Similarly, the circumstances under which one came to be morally ignorant do not bear on whether or not her moral ignorance manifests objectionable moral attitudes. They therefore do not bear on the truth of our judgment that an agent’s moral ignorance manifests

objectionable moral attitudes, or on the ability of the agent to defend these attitudes. So too, according to non-volitional culpability views, the circumstances under which an agent came to be morally ignorant do not bear on her culpability for her moral ignorance.

In what follows, I neither defend nor object to the claim that agents can be directly culpable for their moral ignorance. Instead, I argue against the claim that agents are almost always culpable for their pure moral ignorance, insofar as it almost always manifests an objectionable moral attitude or failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance.

In particular, I challenge the imbedded claims that (1) pure moral ignorance always

manifests a lack of sufficient care or an objectionable moral attitude, and (2) that when pure moral ignorance manifests a lack of sufficient care or an objectionable moral attitude, it is thereby always culpable.

I argue that Harman is mistaken in holding that pure moral ignorance always manifests a failure to care about things of moral significance. On a sufficiently complex understanding of human psychology and the phenomenon of caring for something, agents may care sufficiently about things of moral significance, but fail to form true moral beliefs about them. At best, it is the case that pure moral ignorance very often manifests a failure to care sufficiently about things of moral significance. Proponents of non-volitional culpability views are not committed to the claim that pure moral ignorance always manifests an

objectionable moral attitude, and I argue that they are in a good position to defend the claim that moral ignorance almost always does so. But, even they must grant that there are more exceptions to this rule than they might originally be apt to admit.

Of much greater concern is (2) the claim that when pure moral ignorance manifests an insufficient care or an objectionable moral attitude, it is thereby always culpable. Harman and proponents of non-volitional culpability views fail to fully defend (2). I argue that it is plausible that some agents cannot be reasonably expected to care sufficiently about things of moral significance, or to refrain from holding objectionable moral attitudes. When this is true, it is plausible that agents are non-culpable for their lack of sufficient care, or objectionable moral attitudes, and for beliefs (or lack thereof) which manifest them.

In order to defend (2) against these objections, proponents of culpability views must defend one of two further claims. They must either defend (i) the claim that agents can

always be reasonably expected to care sufficiently about things of moral significance or to avoid holding objectionable attitudes, or (ii) the claim that agents can be culpable for that which they could not be reasonably expected to avoid. Defending either claim requires an account of the conditions under which an agent can be reasonably expected to X, and the relationship between whether or not an agent can be reasonably expected to X and her culpability for X’ing (or for not X’ing). I offer such an account in Chapter 4, where I argue that (i) and (ii) are indefensible, and therefore that culpability views are also indefensible in their current formulations.