Logos and Episteme 2 (4):575-582 (2011)
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Abstract |
In this paper, I respond to the following argument which several authors have presented. If we are culpable for some action, we act either from akrasia or from culpable ignorance. However, akrasia is highly exceptional and it turns out that tracing culpable ignorance leads to a vicious regress. Hence, we are hardly ever culpable for our actions. I argue that the argument fails. Cases of akrasia may not be that rare when it comes to epistemic activities such as evidence gathering and working on our intellectual virtues and vices. Moreover, particular cases of akrasia may be rare, but they are not exceptional when we consider chains of actions. Finally and most importantly, we can be culpable for our actions even if we do not act from akrasia or from culpable ignorance, namely in virtue of our unactivated dispositional beliefs.
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Keywords | Culpable Ignorance akrasia |
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ISBN(s) | 2069-0533 |
DOI | 10.5840/logos-episteme2011246 |
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Citations of this work BETA
A Plea for Epistemic Excuses.Clayton Littlejohn - forthcoming - In Fabian Dorsch Julien Dutant (ed.), The New Evil Demon Problem. Oxford University Press.
The Epistemic Condition for Moral Responsibility.Fernando Rudy-Hiller - 2018 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A Capacitarian Account of Culpable Ignorance.Fernando Rudy-Hiller - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1):398-426.
On the Blameworthiness of Forgetting.Sven Bernecker - 2018 - In Dorothea Debus Kourken Michaelian (ed.), New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory. London: Routledge. pp. 241-258.
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