Why the Standard View of Ignorance Prevails

Rik Peels has forcefully argued that, contrary to what is widely held, ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he has argued against the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and argued for what he calls “the New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. In this paper, I defend the Standard View against Peels’s latest case for the New View.     

On Ignorance: A Reply to Peels

Rik Peels has ingeniously argued that ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In this response, I defend the ??Standard View of Ignorance?? according to which they are equivalent. In the course of doing so, some important lessons will emerge concerning the nature of ignorance and its relationship to knowledge.     

When ignorance excuses

An ingenious argument – we may call it the Argument from Excuse – purports to show that the Standard View of Ignorance is false and the New View of Ignorance is true. On the former, ignorance is lack of knowledge; on the latter, ignorance is lack of true belief. I defend the Standard View by arguing that the Argument from Excuse is unsound. I also argue that an implication of my case is that Factual Ignorance Thesis (FIT) is false. According to FIT, whenever an agent A acts from factual ignorance, A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the act only if A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the ignorance from which A acts.     

Ignorance is Lack of True Belief: A Rejoinder to Le Morvan

In this paper, I respond to Pierre Le Morvan’s critique of my thesis that ignorance is lack of true belief rather than absence of knowledge. I argue that the distinction between dispositional and non-dispositional accounts of belief, as I made it in a previous paper, is correct as it stands. Also, I criticize the viability and the importance of Le Morvan’s distinction between propositional and factive ignorance. Finally, I provide two arguments in favor of the thesis that ignorance is lack of true belief rather than absence of knowledge.     

The New View on Ignorance Undefeated

In this paper, I provide a defence of the New View, on which ignorance is lack of true belief rather than lack of knowledge. Pierre Le Morvan has argued that the New View is untenable, partly because it fails to take into account the distinction between propositional and factive ignorance. I argue that propositional ignorance is just a subspecies of factive ignorance and that all the work that needs to be done can be done by using the concept of factive ignorance. I also defend two arguments of mine in favour of the New View against Le Morvan??s criticisms. As to the Linguistic Argument, I point out that the intuitions of the adherent of the New View about cases of true belief that fall short of knowledge are really intuitions about factive rather than propositional ignorance. As to the Excuse Argument, I argue that true belief is exculpatorily relevant: a true belief in a proposition p, where disbelief that p or suspension on p would provide at least a partial excuse, is relevant in that it renders one blameworthy for one??s action, unless further excuses hold. Finally, I reply to two closely related objections that might be levelled against the New View, namely that it seems false that one can reduce one??s ignorance by arbitrarily believing as many propositions as possible and that it seems false that an intellectually conscientious and critical person is more ignorant than an intellectually sloppy and credulous person just because the latter has more true beliefs.     

What Is Ignorance?

This article offers an analysis of ignorance. After a couple of preliminary remarks, I endeavor to show that, contrary to what one might expect and to what nearly all philosophers assume, being ignorant is not equivalent to failing to know, at least not on one of the stronger senses of knowledge. Subsequently, I offer two definitions of ignorance and argue that one’s definition of ignorance crucially depends on one’s account of belief. Finally, I illustrate the relevance of my analysis by paying attention to four philosophical problems in which ignorance plays a crucial role.     

When ignorance is adaptive: Not knowing about the nuclear threat

The objective of this article is to examine the nature of individual and social responses to the nuclear threat from psychological and sociological perspectives on ignorance. It is argued that a constructed and managed ignorance concerning the nuclear threat serves many functions, structuring an individual and social reality which is reassuring, meaningful, and both individually and collectively self-serving. A sociology of ignorance framework is employed to articulate the possible benefits of “not knowing about” and collaboratively “not dealing with” the nuclear threat, as well as to define the longer-term costs of ignoring this threat. The distinctive roles played by various kinds of ignorance regarding this important issue are investigated, and the conventional wisdom that knowledge of the consequences of a nuclear war is the only way to prevent its occurrence is challenged. Yes, he must grasp with his mind the instant-by-instant, inevitable total destruction and prepare for the carnage of an uncertain future Y. Mishima, Sea of Fertility Joseph P. Reser is a senior lecturer in psychology at James Cook University of North Queensland, Australia, with research interests in a number of applied social psychology areas. Michael J. Smithson is a senior lecturer in sociology, in the behavioral sciences department at James Cook University. His current research interests include the study of ignorance.     

Why open content matters

Knowledge must forever govern ignorance, and a people who would be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. Popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy—or perhaps both.—James Madison, 1815 Bryan Pfaffenberger teaches in the Department of Technology, Culture, and Communication at the University of Virginia where he specializes in cyberlaw, intellectual property and other social aspects of information technology. He is also the author of several trade and reference titles, including Webster’s New World Dictionary of Computer Terms, 9th ed. (Hungry Minds) and Computers in Your Future, 4th ed. (Prentice-Hall). He may be reached at bp@virignia.edu or via the web at: 〈www.people.virginia.edu/~bp〉.     

Rumi and the Universality of his Message

This article evaluates the universal message of Rumi to offer it as a hopeful alternative to the ignorance and lack of spirituality in modern times. Drawing upon Rumi's writings of the thirteenth century, it advocates an understanding that there is something beyond religion and scholarly learning that can open our eyes to the reality beyond this existence; for Rumi we must climb a spiritual ladder of love. Furthermore, Rumi envisioned a universal faith, embodying all religions, because he understood that the cause of every religious conflict is ignorance. The article implies that religiosity consists in something other than outward religions. Real belief is apparent only on the inside of a person, which is not visible. Therefore, through Rumi, the article makes it clear that the religion of love involves loving the eternal and invisible source of existence.     

The dual-process turn: How recent defenses of dual-process theories of reasoning fail

In response to the claim that the properties typically used to distinguish System 1 from System 2 crosscut one another, Carruthers, Evans, and Stanovich have abandoned the System 1/System 2 distinction. Evans and Stanovich both opt for a dual-process theory, according to which Type-1 processes are autonomous and Type-2 processes use working memory and involve cognitive decoupling. Carruthers maintains a two-system account, according to which there is an intuitive system and a reflective system. I argue that these defenses of dual-process theory face two problems. First, as pointed out by Sloman, these new dual-process theories cast the net of “reasoning” too wide. Second, and more importantly, this singular distinction cannot accomplish the explanatory work needed to support dual-process theory. These theorists must fall back on using various properties from the Standard Menu in explanations, thereby committing these accounts to a “Standard View” that they had hoped to avoid. Thus, these theorists face a dilemma: either the distinction between intuitive and reflective (or autonomous and working memory involving) falls back on using the properties of the Standard Menu, or it lacks the explanatory promise that made dual-process theory attractive.     

Is there a duty to remain in ignorance?

Questions about information inform many debates in bioethics. One of the reasons for this is that at least some level of information is taken by many to be a prerequisite of valid consent. For others, autonomy in the widest sense presupposes information, because one cannot be in control of one’s life without at least some insight into what it could turn out to contain. Yet not everyone shares this view, and there is a debate about whether or not there is a right to remain in ignorance of one’s medical, and especially genetic, information. It is notable, though, that this debate leaves unexamined the assumption that, if a person wants information, he is entitled to it. This paper examines the assumption, specifically in relation to genetics, where learning facts about oneself may reveal facts about other people, particularly one’s close relatives. This may be taken as a violation of their privacy, and since privacy is something that we normally think should be respected, it is worth asking whether one ought to abjure the opportunity to obtain genetic information for the sake of privacy. In effect, there may be an argument to be made not just for a right to remain in ignorance, but for a duty to do so.     

Anti-Positionalism’s Regress

This paper is about the Problem of Order, which is basically the problem how to account for both the distinctness of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s preceding a, and the identity of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s succeeding a. It has been shown that the Standard View fails to account for the second part and is therefore to be replaced. One of the contenders is Anti-Positionalism. As has recently been pointed out, however, Anti-Positionalism falls prey to a regress argument which is to prove its failure. In the paper we spell out this worry, show that the worry is a serious one, and distinguish four possible strategies for Anti-Positionalism to deal with it.     

The concept of psychogenic pain: A psychological investigation of women with pelvic pain

Women with pain occurring in the absence of pathology have been reported to have personality and mood disturbances which account for their pain. These studies suffer from both methodological and theoretical difficulties. A common methodological problem is the absence of comparison groups of women with pain of equivalent chronicity yet with diagnosed pathology. This study compares women with and without pathology, matched for pain chronicity, on a range of psychological measures. No differences were observed between “pathology” and “no pathology” groups on global measures of personality or mood. Differences do emerge in specific attitudes and exposure to illness. The implications of these findings for our understanding of pain mechanisms are discussed and the limitations of the notion of “psychogenic” pain are considered.     

Necessary limits to knowledge: unknowable truths

The paper seeks a perfectly general argument regarding the non-contingent limits to any (human or non-human) knowledge. After expressing disappointment with the history of philosophy on this score, an argument is grounded in Fitch’s proof, which demonstrates the unknowability of some truths. The necessity of this unknowability is then defended by arguing for the necessity of Fitch’s premise—viz., there this is in fact some ignorance.     

On the Fulfillment of Moral Obligation

This paper considers three general views about the nature of moral obligation and three particular answers (with which these views are typically associated) concerning the following question: if on Monday you lend me a book that I promise to return to you by Friday, what precisely is my obligation to you and what constitutes its fulfillment? The example is borrowed from W.D. Ross, who in The Right and the Good proposed what he called the Objective View of obligation, from which he inferred what is here called the First Answer to the question. In Foundations of Ethics Ross repudiated the Objective View in favor of the Subjective View, from which he inferred a Second Answer. In this paper each of the Objective and Subjective Views and the First and Second Answers are rejected in favor of the Prospective View and a Third Answer. The implications of the Prospective View for another question closely related to the original question are then investigated: what precisely is your right regarding my returning the book and what constitutes its satisfaction?     

Don’t Know,Don’t Kill: Moral Ignorance,Culpability, and Caution

This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—that supports the view that the purported counterexample actually is a counterexample. Finally, I suggest that my arguments in this direction can supply a novel sort of argument against many instances of killing and eating certain sorts of animals.

Rational Ignorance and Political Morality*

People frequently advance political proposals in the name of a goal while remaining apparently indifferent to the fact that those proposals, if implemented, would frustrate that goal. Theorists of “deliberative democracy” purport to avoid this difficulty by arguing that deliberation is primarily about moral not empirical issues. We reject this view (the moral turn) and propose a method (The Display Test) to check whether a political utterance is best explained by the rational ignorance hypothesis or by the moral turn: the speaker must be prepared to openly acknowledge the bad consequences of his political position. If he is, the position is genuinely moral; if he is not, the position evinces either rational ignorance or posturing. We introduce deontological notions to explain when the moral turn works and when it does not. We discuss and reject possible replies, in particular the view that a moral‐political stance insensitive to consequences relies on a distribution of moral responsibility in evildoing. Finally, we show that even the most plausible candidates for the category of purely moral political proposals are best explained by the rational ignorance/posturing hypothesis, if only because enforcing morality gives rise to complex causal issues.     

Is there a Rawlsian Argument for Animal Rights?

Mark Rowlands defends a Rawlsian argument for animal rights, according to which animals have rights because we would assign them rights when deciding on the principles of morality from behind a veil of ignorance. Rowlands’s argument depends on a non-standard interpretation of the veil of ignorance, according to which we cannot know whether we are human or non-human on the other side of the veil. Rowlands claims that his interpretation of the veil is more consistent with a core commitment of Rawlsian justice—the intuitive equality principle—than either Rawls or his critics realize. Here I argue that Rawls is not committed to the intuitive equality principle, as Rowlands articulates it, and hence Rowlands’s argument is in fact only superficially Rawlsian. Furthermore, Rowlands’s intuitive equality principle is dubious on its own terms, and thus a poor principle on which to base a case for animal rights.     

On Visual Experience of Objects: Comments on John Campbell’s<Emphasis Type="Italic">Reference and Consciousness</Emphasis>

John Campbell argues that visual attention to objects is the means by which we can refer to objects, and that this is so because conscious visual attention enables us to retrieve information about a location. It is argued here that while Campbell is right to think that we visually attend to objects, he does not give us sufficient ground for thinking that consciousness is involved, and is wrong to assign an intermediary role to location. Campbell’s view on sortals is also queried, as is his espousal of the so-called Referential View of Experience.     

Apotheosis of actuality: Kierkegaard’s poetic life

By way of an interaction with Kierkegaard’s Point of View, this paper attempts to show the extent to which Kierkegaard’s Repetition was a poetic repetition of his own life. By comparing several of his published texts with journal entries and letters to friends, this paper traces the extent and degree of Kierkegaard’s poetic reflection and corresponding lack of existential immediacy. At its most extreme, this paper argues that Kierkegaard did not really exist in the typical sense of the term; or, more precisely, that he only existed as a poetic repetition, an apotheosized ideal. Kierkegaard lived only insofar as he wrote himself into poetry.