Willful Ignorance, Culpability and the Criminal Law

Sarch, Alexander

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2394240

Cited by 12 publications

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“…Interestingly enough, ECT has hardly been defended in the literature. A recent exception is Sarch (2014Sarch ( , 2016, who defends a restricted version of it. Further philosophical reflection on ECT is called for.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…2 For the purposes of this paper, I'll assume that an agent S is willfully ignorant that her conduct is wrong if: S does not know this, but merely suspects it, and S knows she could take reasonable steps to inform herself, but chooses not to take these steps. I follow Husak and Callender (1994: 41-53) and Sarch (2014Sarch ( : 1048Sarch ( -1052 in assuming that willful ignorance does not amount to knowledge. I follow Sarch (2014Sarch ( : 1047, and differ from Husak and Callender (1994), in assuming that willful ignorance is compatible with various motives for remaining ignorant (see Sect.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…I follow Husak and Callender (1994: 41-53) and Sarch (2014Sarch ( : 1048Sarch ( -1052 in assuming that willful ignorance does not amount to knowledge. I follow Sarch (2014Sarch ( : 1047, and differ from Husak and Callender (1994), in assuming that willful ignorance is compatible with various motives for remaining ignorant (see Sect. 3 below).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The question arises here of how much additional blameworthiness agents might incur for their ignorance. Sarch (2014Sarch ( : 1086Sarch ( -1088 points out that he has no comprehensive view on how to calculate this, though he does make four remarks on the issue. First, the easier it is to inform oneself, the greater one's degree of blameworthiness for not doing so.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In that case, their blameworthiness is a function of the strength of the whole configuration of reasons for which they act. 10 See Sarch (2014) for the references to these systems. Even if in many of these systems motives do not affect the seriousness of the offense for which one is convicted, they might still affect the actual sentence the court imposes.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Willful Ignorance and Bad Motives

Wieland

2018

Erkenn

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Does willful ignorance mitigate blameworthiness? In many legal systems, willfully ignorant wrongdoers are considered as blameworthy as knowing wrongdoers. This is called the 'equal culpability thesis' (ECT). Given that legal practice depends on it, the issue has obvious importance. Interestingly enough, however, there exists hardly any philosophical reflection on ECT. A recent exception is Alexander Sarch, who defends a restricted version of ECT. On Sarch's view, ECT is true whenever willfully ignorant agents incur additional blameworthiness for their ignorance. In this paper, I defend an alternative view, according to which ECT is true whenever the motives of willfully ignorant and knowing wrongdoers are equally bad.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Willful Ignorance and Bad Motives

Wieland

2018

Erkenn

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Across the Spectrum of Intent

Kwik

2024

Lawfully Using Autonomous Weapon Technologies

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Responsibility for strategic ignorance

Wieland

2016

Synthese

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Strategic ignorance is a widespread phenomenon. In a laboratory setting, many participants avoid learning information about the consequences of their behaviour in order to act egoistically. In real life, many consumers avoid information about their purchases or the working conditions in which they were produced in order to retain their lifestyle. The question is whether agents are blameworthy for such strategically ignorant behaviour. In this paper, I explore quality of will resources, according to which agents are blameworthy, roughly, depending on their moral concern. The account I will propose-the Maximal Account-has three innovative features: (1) it utilizes a suitable concept of maximal moral concern, (2) it offers an accountability version of the account which significantly differs from the more familiar attributability variant, and (3) it maintains that agents without maximal concern are blameworthy (in some sense, to some degree).

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Willful Ignorance, Culpability and the Criminal Law

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Willful Ignorance and Bad Motives

Willful Ignorance and Bad Motives

Across the Spectrum of Intent

Responsibility for strategic ignorance

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