Culpable Ignorance: A Consequentialist Perspective

What is culpable ignorance? What kind of responsibility do we have to avoid being culpably ignorant?

      Let's consider some possible definitions of culpable ignorance.

      (1) It's ignorance that's within our power to avoid, and that results from a failure to comply with our epistemic duty to become informed about something (when we have such a duty). Because we have some control over whether or not we're culpably ignorant, we can be held morally responsible for being so. A distinction can thus be made between ignorance for which we're responsible (culpable ignorance) and ignorance for which we're not responsible (non-culpable ignorance).

      (2) Culpable ignorance is ignorance for which there's no excuse, and for which there are harmful or undesirable consequences that could have been avoided or anticipated. It can be argued that simply being culpably ignorant is harmless if no negative consequences result from that ignorance. (It can also be argued that ignorance of any kind is intrinsically harmful, but this seems somewhat implausible.) From a consequentialist perspective, simply not knowing something we should have known may not make us culpably ignorant unless some harmful or undesirable consequences result from that ignorance. The extent of our culpability for our ignorance may depend on the wrongness or inappropriateness of the actions that result from that ignorance, as well as the gravity and extent of their negative consequences.

      (3) Culpable ignorance is ignorance in cases where we "should have known better" or "should have realized" that relevant facts or conditions needed to be considered.

      (4) It's also ignorance where we failed to take due regard of, or pay sufficient attention to, relevant facts or conditions.

      (5) It's also the spreading or promulgation of falsehoods and misinformation, without any regard for the veracity of that information or the consequences of spreading such falsehoods and misinformation.

      Ignorance alone isn't culpable, if there's some excuse for it. The ignorance must be inexcusable rather than excusable, deliberate rather than inadvertent, or intentional rather than unintentional, if it's rightly to be held as culpable. However, if an individual refuses to reexamine or reevaluate their beliefs despite evidence that those beliefs may be mistaken or in need of better justification, then they may be held blameworthy for their refusal to reexamine or reevaluate their beliefs. Similarly, if an individual takes an action for which some knowledge of relevant facts is necessary in order to determine the action's rightness or appropriateness, and they willfully refuse to inform themselves of those relevant facts, then they may rightly be held responsible for any negative consequences of that action.

      We may be culpably ignorant for not knowing something (such as the rightness or wrongness of a particular action) if (1) we should have known about that thing (or should have known that we didn't know about that thing), and (2) as a consequence of that ignorance, we (a) do what we shouldn't have done or cause others to do what they shouldn't have done, or (b) don't do what we should have done or cause others not to do what they should have done. If our actions or non-actions in such cases cause negative consequences for ourselves or others, then we may rightly be held blameworthy for those actions or non-actions.

      Holly Smith (1983) argues that the concept of culpable ignorance must be restricted to (1) cases in which an individual believed they were acting justifiably, and (2) cases in which they were not acting precipitously. Thus, culpable ignorance involves an initial "benighting act" for which the individual is culpable and in which the individual fails to improve (or positively impairs) their initial cognitive position, followed by an "unwitting wrongful act."¹

      Niels de Haan (2020) argues that culpable ignorance may in some cases be irreducibly collective (not attributable to a single individual). While it might not be fair in some cases to expect an individual to have avoided their ignorance of a particular fact, it might be fair to expect the group to which they belong to have collectively avoided its ignorance of that particular fact.² In such cases, the group, rather than the individual, is culpable (or at least the individual is culpable only insofar as they are a member of that group). de Haan notes that an individual's (or group's) culpability for not knowing something may also imply they could reasonably have been expected to take measures to remedy or avoid that ignorance.³

      Alexander F. Sarch (2014) explains that when someone is willfully ignorant of some fact (when they deliberately avoided learning whether the fact in question obtained), they may be held culpable for that ignorance. For example, in cases where a defendant is charged with a crime, and the defendant was willfully ignorant of some fact, they may, according to the "willful ignorance doctrine," be found to be culpable on the ground they were willfully ignorant of the relevant fact.⁴

       Culpable ignorance may include willful ignorance (the deliberate rejection of knowledge or the deliberate avoidance of measures to become informed about something), but not all culpable ignorance is willful, insofar as it may in some cases be due simply to a lack of diligence with regard to measures to become informed about something (in cases where there is a duty to become informed about that thing), rather than deliberate avoidance of those measures.

      Jason B. Freeman (2022) defines willful blindness as "an attempt to avoid liability for a wrongful act by intentionally failing to make reasonable inquiry when faced with the suspicion or awareness of the high likelihood of wrongdoing." He also says, "It is a deliberate attempt to keep one's "head in the sand" when faced with information or facts that create a suspicion or awareness that there is a likelihood of wrongdoing."⁵

      The Law Library of American Law and Legal Information at law.jrank.org defines culpable ignorance as "the lack of knowledge or understanding that results from the omission of ordinary care to acquire such knowledge or understanding."⁶

      What's the relation between willful ignorance and denialism? They may be closely related to or associated with each other, but they aren't the same. Willful ignorance may involve a failure to be acquainted with relevant facts, while denialism may involve an acquaintance with relevant facts, but a failure to recognize those facts as facts.  For example, denialism may involve denial of such facts as the link between HIV and AIDS, the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and the efficacy of vaccines in preventing transmissible diseases such as polio, measles, and COVID-19.

      Charles W. Mills (2007) describes "white ignorance" as a group-based cognitive phenomenon that has epistemic, moral, social, and political implications. It's based on a system of white privilege in which white racism plays a significant causal role. It's also based on white normativity, i.e. on the centering of whiteness as a constitutive norm, while the experience of blacks and other people of color is marginalized. One of its functions has been to protect those who for racial reasons have needed not to see or know about the black or brown people in their midst.⁷

      Annette Martin (2021) presents three alternative accounts of "white ignorance," as (1) a willful ignorance about racial injustice (the "willful ignorance view"), (2) an ignorance resulting from social practices that distribute faulty cognitive resources, e.g. by accepting faulty norms of reasoning about race (the "cognitivist view"), and (3) an ignorance resulting from a social process that systemically gives rise to racial injustice (the "structuralist view").⁸

      Examples of white ignorance (sometimes guised as "color blindness") include blindness to acts of racial injustice, blindness to racially discriminatory laws or policies, and blindness to structures of racial inequality.

FOOTNOTES

¹Holly Smith, "Culpable Ignorance," in The Philosopher's Annual, Vol. VI, 1983, 243-271.

²Niels de Haan, "Collective Culpable Ignorance," in Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2021, p. 99.

³Ibid., p. 100.

⁴Alexander F. Sarch, "Willful ignorance, Culpability, and the Criminal Law," in St. John's Law Review, No. 4, Vol. 88, 2014, 1022-1101.

⁵Jason B. Freeman, "Willful Blindness and Corporate Liability," 2022, online at Freeman Law, https://freemanlaw.com/willful-blindness-and-corporate-liability/.

⁶Law Library of American Law and Legal Information, "Culpable," 2022, online at https://law.jrank.org/pages/5914/Culpable.html

⁷Charles W. Mills, "White Ignorance," in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. 13-28.

⁸Annette Martin, "What is White Ignorance?" in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 71, Issue 4, October 2021, 864-885.

2021 Under Armour Charles Street 12

The Under Armour Charles Street 12 is a 12-mile road race down Charles Street through the center of Baltimore. This year it was held on Saturday, September 4th, at 7:30 am. The weather was a bit chilly at starting time, about 63 degrees, but by about 9 am, it was warm and sunny, almost 80 degrees. 

      The race started at the Shops at Kenilworth in Towson, going west along Kenilworth Drive to Charles Street, and then south down Charles Street to the Inner Harbor, continuing down Light Street to Key Highway, and then onto the Key Highway Extension to TidePoint, finishing in front of Under Armour's Headquarters at Locust Point.

      The course had a fairly difficult uphill in the first mile, then another  uphill at miles two and three, but from there it was mostly downhill until the last three miles, which were mostly flat.

      The overall men's winner was Ryan Fan, age 24, from Baltimore, MD, who finished with a time of 1:07:15.0, for a pace of 5:36 per mile. The overall women's winner was Suzie Jakes, age 36, from White Hall, MD, who had a time of 1:09:48.3, for a pace of 5:49 per mile, in fourth place overall among 952 runners (473 male and 479 female).
      I finished with a time of 1:44:33.8, for a pace of 8:43 per mile, which was 2nd of 34 in my age group (60-69), and 284th out of 952 overall. I was very pleased. I had just been hoping to break 2 hours. The downhills really helped me. The men's winner in my division, Hank Reiser, from Edgewater, MD, finished in a time of 1:43:37.8, for a pace of 8:38 per mile.

Moralism

Moralism may be defined in a variety of ways. It may be a tendency to see all things in moral terms and to believe that all (or almost all) things have moral dimensions. It may also be a tendency to believe that all (or almost all) actions have (or should have) moral motivations, and that they serve (or should serve) moral purposes. It may also be an obsessiveness or zealousness about the application of moral principles to the empirical (natural, or social) world. It may also be a habit of moralizing or making moral judgments about other people's behavior.
     Moralism may also be an absolutism or dogmatism about moral principles or standards, as opposed to a relativism or skepticism. It may be both descriptivist and prescriptivist in its scope and application. It may also be cognitivist in asserting that there are moral facts and that moral knowledge is possible.

      A moralist may be someone who tends to make or express moral judgments in or through their speech or writing. They may be someone who tends to look for moral meanings and moral explanations for things, and to make moral inferences or draw moral conclusions from them.

      To be moralistic may also be to be focused on morality, to the point of seeing things only for what they say about some other person's or group's morality and ignoring any other non-moral meanings those things may have.

      A moralizer may be a person who says "I told you so" or who scolds you for not having listened to their advice. They may be someone who subjects others to public ridicule or shame for having acted wrongly. They may also be someone who likes to gossip, and who makes veiled (or not so veiled) allegations through insinuation or innuendo about others' behavior.

      On the other hand, someone who consciously avoids making moral judgments about things (or who avoids moralizing or being moralistic) may do so as an expression of the view that not all things can be explained in moral terms, and that moralizing may be inappropriate in some situations. They may be someone who recognizes that there may be deeper explanations for some things than those provided by conventional notions of morality.

      While scientism may hold that all (meaningful) questions are ultimately scientific questions, moralism may hold that all (meaningful) questions are ultimately moral questions. While scientism may hold that all questions can be answered scientifically, moralism may hold that all questions can be answered morally.

      In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice meets a Duchess who tells her there's a moral lesson to be learned from everything; we have only to discover what that moral lesson is. The Duchess may thus be a moralizer.  "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it," she says. One of these morals is: "Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."¹ (In other words, if we truly attend to the meaning of something, then we'll most likely find some way of expressing that meaning.)

      Alfred Archer (2017) explains that moralism involves an inflated sense of the extent to which moral criticism is appropriate.² Thus, moral criticism of individuals who've performed actions that are morally indifferent may be inappropriate, as may be criticism of individuals who haven't performed actions that are supererogatory. So also may criticism of individuals who've acted wrongly be inappropriate, if there are exculpatory circumstances.³ 

      Craig Taylor (2012) notes that when we accuse others of moralizing, we ourselves may be moralizing. When we accuse others of moralism, we ourselves may be guilty of moralism. So we must do more than merely point a moral finger at those who point a moral finger at others.⁴

      According to Taylor, a defect of moralism is that it may involve a failure to recognize or acknowledge the full humanity of those who are criticized, as well as their nature as morally accountable beings.⁵ Another defect of moralism is that it may involve a distorted conception of morality, insofar as it means taking some things as a moral matter when they actually are not.⁶ 

     Phillip Rieff, in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959), describes Freud as a moralist, in the sense that Freud divides the self into three psychic agencies, the id (or instinct), the ego (or reason), and the superego (or conscience), thereby assigning control over the id to the ego, and control over the ego to the superego. Each of these three psychic agencies has moral dimensions and can be described in moral terms.

      According to Noël Carroll (1966), radical moralism in the evaluation of art is the theory that the purpose of art is to express moral values. Radical moralism holds that the aesthetic value of an artwork depends on the moral values it expresses. The moral virtues of an artwork are always aesthetic virtues, and the moral defects of an artwork are always aesthetic defects. Moderate moralism. on the other hand, holds that the aesthetic value of an artwork may partly depend on the moral values it expresses. The moral virtues of an artwork may sometimes be aesthetic virtues, and the moral defects of an artwork may sometimes be aesthetic defects; however, not all moral virtues of an artwork are necessarily aesthetic virtues, and not all moral defects of an artwork are necessarily aesthetic defects.⁷

      Other theories of moral and aesthetic criticism, as described by Carroll, include radical autonomism, which holds that moral values and aesthetic values are totally autonomous and separate, and moderate autonomism, which holds that moral values and aesthetic values are autonomous and separate, but that artworks may be evaluated for their moral as well as aesthetic virtues or defects.⁸

FOOTNOTES

¹Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass [1865] (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p. 68.

²Alfred Archer, "The Problem with Moralism," in Ratio (July 2017), p. 1, online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318288004_The_problem_with_moralism

³Ibid. p. 3

⁴Craig Taylor, Moralism: A Study of a Vice (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012), p. 11.

⁵Ibid., p. 34.

⁶Ibid., p. 58.

⁷Noël Carroll, "Moderate Moralism versus Moderate Autonomism," in The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 38 (Oct 1998), p. 419.

⁸Noël Carroll, "Moderate Moralism," in The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 36, No. 3 (July 1996), p. 230.

OTHER REFERENCES

Phillip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1959).

Baltimore 10 Miler, 2021

The Baltimore 10 Miler was held Saturday, June 5th, 2021. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the race organizers were unable to obtain a permit from Baltimore City, and the race was held in Hunt Valley, about 15 minutes north of Baltimore. 

      The weather was warm and sunny, about 70 degrees at 7 am, and 80 degrees by 9 am. The course route was hilly, with a few fairly steep uphills and downhills.

      The overall men's winner, Jeremy Ardanuy, age 28, who won the race two years ago, finished in a time of 56:05, with a pace of 5:37 per mile. The overall women's winner, Robyn Mildren, age 30, finished in a time of 59:39, with a pace of 5:58 per mile. Natalie Atabek, age 29, who won the women's division two years ago, finished second in a time of 1:03:52, with a pace of 6:27 per mile.

      My son Douglas and I ran together the whole race, finishing in a time of 1:31:06, with a pace of 9:07 per mile. I finished 4th out of 21 runners in my age group, 364th out of 1465 runners overall. Doug finished 48th out of 128 runners in his age group, but he'd only been training for a few weeks due to his work schedule. I thought I actually ran better than I did two years ago, when I had a time of 1:19:09, but the hills along the course were probably a factor in my slower time. The men's winner in my division, Tom Heid, finished in a time of 1:25:15, with a pace of 8:31 per mile.

Doug and I crossing the finish line.

Moral Authority

The following is a reflection I shared with my fellow parishioners at the "Faith at Eight" online service of our church, on Sunday, January 31, 2021.

The first two verses of today's reading from The Gospel According to Mark tell us that Jesus taught in the synagogue at Capernaum, and that when he had finished, the crowd was astonished by his teaching, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes (Mark 1:21-22). I was struck by the second of these two verses, because it also appears in The Gospel According to Matthew, which tells us that when Jesus finished his Sermon on the Mount, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, "for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes" (Matthew 7:29).

      Why was the crowd astonished, and what does it mean that Jesus taught as one who had authority? I think it means the crowd was astonished because they recognized that Jesus was not merely a teacher or interpreter of the law, he was the fulfillment of the law. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets, I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17); and in Luke chapter 4, when Jesus comes to the synagogue in Nazareth, he reads from the book of the prophet Isaiah, where it's written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," and when Jesus closes the book, he says to the gathering in the synagogue, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:16-22).

      So how was Jesus the fulfillment of the law? I think he fulfilled the law because he obeyed the law, and he fulfilled the law and prophesies given to the Jewish people by Moses and the prophets. He also fulfilled the law because he was a lawgiver; he gave us the law in the form of his two commandments, "Your shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

      Jesus also fulfilled the law because he was an embodiment of the law. He not only obeyed the law, but also, by redeeming us from our sins, enabled us to obey the law. I think the crowds were astonished by his teaching because it was apparent to them that he was the incarnation of the Word of God.

      I think perhaps some contemporary parallels to this kind of astonishment might occur when youthful prodigies appear in our midst and we're astonished by their admonishment of us for not having acted like we should. I"m thinking of the sense of astonishment we felt when young people like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg began to speak publicly at various places around the world about issues like the importance of providing educational opportunities for girls and the importance of dealing with climate change. I'm also thinking of young people like Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who, after a gunman killed seventeen people at the school in 2018, became nationally recognized advocates for gun control. I think we were astonished because we recognized they had the moral authority to speak out as they did. We were astonished because young people like Malala, Greta, Emma, David, and others spoke to us in a way that no one had ever spoken to us before, and we recognized that we had to respond by trying to make the world a better place.

      Another example of moral authority might be when someone undergoes great suffering and yet has the capacity to transcend that suffering and show us the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. I'm thinking of Nelson Mandela who, after being imprisoned for twenty-seven years by the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa, had the moral authority to lead his nation through a process of truth-telling and reconciliation that led to the end of apartheid.

      Much of the influence of historical figures such as Jesus, the Buddha, Confucius, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and other icons of saintliness and compassion may be due to their being recognized as having the moral authority to teach and guide us.

      What are the sources of such moral authority? Individuals who embody such moral virtues as love, compassion, understanding, honesty, generosity, unselfishness, and humility may be recognized as having moral authority. Thus, the personal exemplification of moral virtue may be a source of moral authority. Another source of moral authority may reside in the social roles that people play. Thus, authority figures such as parents, teachers, priests, rabbis, gurus, spiritual advisers, employers, and elected officials may have moral authority, insofar as they're able to shape or influence the moral decisions, judgments, and actions of others. Another source of moral authority may reside in social institutions, such as the church, the legal system, the educational system, and the healthcare system, insofar as they're able to promote human dignity, freedom, security, and well-being. Thus, the ability of social institutions to promote moral ideals or social goods may be a source of moral authority.

      The nature of moral authority may be an important subject for us to consider at this juncture in the history of our nation, given the recent events of political and social unrest. Our country, through its ongoing social conflict and division, seems to have lost much of its moral authority in the world. We're often mistaken in assuming that we as individuals, as a society, and as a nation have the moral authority to serve as an example for others. Our moral authority as a nation may depend on such things as our ability to promote human rights, our ability to promote the rule of law, our ability to promote fairness and impartiality in the application of the law, and our ability to promote legal, economic, and social justice.

      Defiance of authority may have various motivations, including anger, resentment, frustration, and discontent caused by unfair or inequitable distribution of social goods, arbitrary or inconsistent application of disciplinary practices, and imposition of excessive and oppressive social constraints. Resistance to authority may also be motivated by the need to protest bigotry, discrimination, infringements on civil liberties, and violations of human rights.

      Moral authority may be distinguished from epistemic authority, insofar as moral authority is authority relating to morality, while epistemic authority is authority relating to knowledge. Theodore L. Brown, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Illinois, says in a book entitled Imperfect Oracle: The Epistemic and Moral Authority of Science (2009) that while epistemic authority is "the capacity to convince others how the world is," moral authority is "the capacity to convince others how the world should be."¹

      Linda Zagzebski, professor of philosophy at the University of Oklahoma, describes an epistemic authority as an expert, a person who's a reliable source of information in some domain.² We may accept the truth of a statement on the authority of another person if she's presumed to be an expert in the domain about which she's speaking. The fact that she holds a belief about something within her field of expertise may be an authoritative reason for us to hold that belief. If we trust not only in the expert's authority, but also in her sincerity, then we may have good reason to believe what she's saying.³

      Dr. Anthony Fauci is a good example of both epistemic and moral authority. He has epistemic authority, because he's a scientific expert and a reliable source of information, but he also has moral authority, because he wants to provide us with the facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and won't let himself be manipulated into covering them up or providing misinformation. And people trust him because of that.

      Marianne Janack, professor of philosophy at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, calls attention to the need to distinguish between epistemic authority and epistemic privilege. Epistemic privilege refers to the privileged standpoint that the experience of marginalized groups, such as women, racial minorities, disabled people, and gender nonconforming people, may confer on them regarding what it means to be oppressed. Such groups may be in an epistemically advantageous position to know what it means to be oppressed. Epistemic authority, on the other hand, may depend on various assumptions about the epistemic position of the person in question, including assumptions based on the perceived class, race, gender, or sexual orientation of that person, and may thus be subject to implicit bias. Janack says, "People who appear to be white, male, upper middle or middle class, and well educated generally carry more epistemic authority on their shirtsleeves. While those of us who are not upper-middle-class white men may be epistemic authorities in some circumstances...our authority is usually trumped by [so-called] "experts"--who are often upper-middle-class white men."⁴ Thus, "Epistemic authority is conferred in a social context as a result of other people's judgment of our sincerity, reliability, trustworthiness, and [perceived] objectivity."⁵

      Another subject that may be important for us to consider is the relative priority we should give to various kinds of authority. For example, when should we give moral authority priority over legal authority, and when should we give civil authority priority over religious authority? How should we resolve conflicts between moral and legal authority, and between civil and religious authority?

      What does Jesus tell us to do?

      Another question we might consider is: Has the Church lost its moral authority? When evangelical Christians support the kinds of lies and falsehoods propagated by Donald Trump, how can they claim to have any moral authority? To them, it makes no difference that he's a habitual liar, that he attacks the news media as "fake" whenever the media provide unfavorable coverage of him, that he threatens to jail his political opponents, that as a matter of policy he separates immigrant children from their parents at the Mexico border, that he says neo-Nazis are "very fine people," that he tries to subvert the outcome of a presidential election by making baseless claims of voter fraud, and that he incites his supporters to storm the Capitol. What must be done for the Church to regain its moral authority?

FOOTNOTES

¹Theodore L. Brown, Imperfect Oracle: The Epistemic and Moral Authority of Science (University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).

²Linda Zagzebski, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 5.

³ Ibid., p.107.

⁴Marianne Janack,"Standpoint Epistemology Without the Standpoint?: An Examination of Epistemic Privilege and Epistemic Authority," Hypatia, vol. 12, no. 2 (1997), p. 132.

⁵Ibid., p. 133.