Abstract
The concept of moral innocence is frequently referenced in popular culture, ordinary language, literature, religious doctrine, and psychology. The morally innocent are often thought to be morally pure, incapable of wrongdoing, ignorant of morality, resistant to sin, or even saintly. In spite of, or perhaps because of this frequency of use the characterization of moral innocence continues to have varying connotations. As a result, the concept is often used without sufficient heed given to some of its most salient attributes, especially those germane to moral agency and the moral community. In this article I intend to identify these attributes and propose that moral innocence is best defined as an inability to enter the moral community as a result of a trust in moral illusions. The content of the illusions pertains to several factors including one’s role(s) in the moral community, one’s ability to wrong or harm others, the intricacies of one’s moral interaction with others, and the corresponding manifold complexities tangled up with the concepts of good and evil. Maintaining these illusions impedes or even prohibits an appropriate exchange of praise and blame with others. As membership in the moral community requires precisely this ability to engage in such an exchange, moral illusions necessarily give rise to an inability to participate in the moral community.
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Notes
For example: See Blake (1789); Wordsworth (1807); Brontë (1847); Golding (1954); Davis (2011); Munzer (2012). The FBI Database for tracking violent crimes against children is called, “Innocence Lost” (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/vc_majorthefts/cac/innocencelost). The International Movie Database lists 467 films with the theme of innocence and innocence lost.
To be clear, I do not mean to investigate particular innocence, or the status of not being morally responsible for a particular act. This kind of innocence applies to individuals qua moral agents who have an excuse or justification for what they have done and are not, as a consequence, blameworthy in a particular set of circumstances. My task is to examine moral innocence as the status one has prior to becoming a moral agent in the moral community. We might call this status global or general innocence in contrast to local or particular innocence.
This is not to say that ignorance does not play any role in moral innocence. However, the morally innocent are not “simply ignorant”.
A general ability to see that events have moral significance does not require that an individual moral agent always correctly or actively utilizes that ability. Analogously, I maintain the ability to run even if I am not running at this moment, run awkwardly, or run without proper form.
In a conversation there are a variety of appropriate responses in a given context. Once can declare, inquire, exclaim, and so on. For more on appropriate ways of using language given specific contexts, see Austin (1962).
My focus in this essay is on the ability or inability, and not on the willingness or unwillingness.
See also, R. Jay Wallace (1994).
This example is borrowed from Fischer and Ravizza (1998, p. 208). The boy’s wrongdoing is admittedly quite mild. Nevertheless, the example helpfully draws our attention to a moral innocent who is capable of wronging another, and who maintains an illusory conception of the moral order.
Although the two models cohere generally, Kohlberg disagrees with Piaget regarding how many stages of moral development a child goes through. Piaget’s model has two stages: roughly, before 10 to 12 years of age children see rules as fixed and tend to focus on consequences. Later on they see rules as permutable to allow for exceptions, and tend to focus on intention. Kohlberg’s findings lead him to posit six stages of moral development that start with rule-following and end with a recognition of individual rights and universal principles.
Slote (2013), pp. 66–71.
See Hebrews 7:26; Proverbs 20:9; Psalms 26:6, 73:13; Exodus 23:7; Philippians 4:8; 2 Cor 11:2
However, Hanson does not go so far as to claim that this interpretation is ex post facto. It is not a mental state applying a principle to an experience just had.
One might worry that there is an epistemic level confusion here. There is an added third party objective standard about the truth of there being a nebula. However, this is precisely the reason to distinguish to seeing from seeing that. The child clearly sees a nebula despite lacking the ability to name it or correctly list its essential properties. This is why she does not see that it is a nebula. Her inability to name it properly is a direct result of her inability to see that it is a nebula. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
Additionally, I might imagine how to go on to bring about wrongdoing or evil. I can imagine what the worst consequences for someone else would be, how a vicious person might act, or imagine a different way of life in order to act cruelly or disrespectfully. Thus, the moral imagination need not lead one to be morally good. It can easily lead to wickedness. It does, however, give one the ability to go beyond a simple knowledge of good and bad, and to question why knowledge of good and bad can be indeed ‘simple’.
For more on this notion, see Kekes (2006).
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Goldberg, Z.J. Moral Innocence as Illusion and Inability. Philosophia 43, 355–366 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9580-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9580-4