How Much Should a Person Know? Moral Inquiry & Demandingness

Abstract

An area of consensus in debates about culpability for ignorance concerns the importance of an agent’s epistemic situation, and the information available to them, in determining what they ought to know. On this understanding, given the excesses of our present epistemic situation, we are more culpable for our morally-relevant ignorance than ever. This verdict often seems appropriate at the level of individual cases, but I argue that it is over-demanding when considered at large. On the other hand, when we describe an obligation to know that avoids over-demandingness at large, it fails to be sufficiently demanding in individual cases. The first half of this paper is dedicated to setting up this dilemma. In the second half, I show that it cannot be easily escaped. Finally, I suggest that this dilemma impedes our ability to morally appraise one another’s ignorance, and even our own.

Bearing Witness: The Duty of Non‐indifference and the Case for Reading the News

“…Notice, this challenge is non‐unique. It confronts every plausible moral theory, since each must have an account of culpable ignorance (Hartford, 2019; Smith, 2014). As Daniel Dennett (1986, p. 144) writes, ‘ignorance is all too unavoidable today.…”

Consequentialism and Its Demands: The Role of Institutions

“…The moral reading is the traditional account of the Objection; the motivational reading is perhaps most apparent inWolf (1982). For the epistemic reading, seeSmith (1988) andHartford (2019).…”