In Defense of Moderation: Culpable Ignorance and the Structure of Exculpation

Abstract

Many of us believe that if some acts wrongly out of culpably ignorance, they are morally blameworthy to some degree. I offer a defense of this view against the powerful "Liberal Challenge" to the position. My defense proceeds by arguing that facts about a given agent's quality of will can play a different explanatory role in the larger theory of blameworthiness and the structure of exculpation than is often assumed.