UC Santa Barbara

The focus of this dissertation is whether or not (and the conditions under which) agents are culpable for their moral ignorance and actions they perform from it. In recent years, there has been a steady interest in this topic, due to its practical and theoretical import. We often find ourselves in the position of judging whether or not agents are culpable for actions they perform from moral ignorance. For example, we often hear of cases in which an agent has not only done something terrible, but also endorses his action as acceptable (thereby exhibiting moral ignorance). However, the background of these agents is sometimes such that we find ourselves wondering if the agent could have formed correct moral beliefs. If not, is he culpable for his moral ignorance? If he is not culpable for his moral ignorance, is he culpable for the terrible actions he performed from it? Our answers to these questions not only determine our responses to a significant subset of wrongdoers; they also have broader implications for theories of moral responsibility, and in particular theories concerning the epistemic conditions for moral responsibility.

Those who weigh in on the topic of moral ignorance tend to take one of two extreme positions concerning it. They either hold the “skeptical view,” according to which agents are almost never culpable for their moral ignorance and actions they perform from it, or they hold “culpability views,” according to which agents are almost always culpable for their moral ignorance and actions they perform from it. Proponents of the skeptical view argue that agents are culpable for their moral ignorance only if it is the result of a knowing mismanagement of their moral beliefs. Agents very rarely knowingly mismanage their moral beliefs, and therefore are very rarely culpable for their moral ignorance or actions they perform from it. Proponents of culpability views argue that agents are culpable for their moral ignorance if it manifests insufficient moral care or objectionable moral attitudes. Moral ignorance almost always does so. Agents are therefore almost always culpable for it, and for actions they perform from it.

I argue that the skeptical view and the culpability views fail to capture the complexity of our intuitive reactions to particular cases of moral ignorance. In light of this fact, and the potential theoretical implications of these views, we ought to reexamine them. In Chapters 2 and 3, I consider the skeptical view and culpability views in-depth. I argue that evaluating these views requires an account of the general conditions under which an agent can be reasonably expected to avoid X, and how this affects her culpability for X. I offer such an account in Chapter 4. I use it to argue that both the skeptical view and culpability views are mistaken. In their place, I offer a more moderate view that vindicates what I take to be our intuitive responses to cases of moral ignorance: although agents often are culpable for their moral ignorance and actions they perform from it, there are genuine and compelling exceptions.