Moral Ignorance and Moral Uncertainty

In “Does Moral Ignorance Exculpate?” and “Ethics is Hard! What Follows?”, I argue that people who do awful things while caught in the grip of false moral views are not rendered blameless by the fact that they thought they were acting permissibly. I discuss related issues in “Moral Testimony Goes Only So Far,” “When is Failure to Realize Something Exculpatory?”, and my Discussion of Arpaly’s book.

In “The Irrelevance of Uncertainty,” I argue that there is no interesting question of the form: how should an agent who is morally uncertain be guided by her moral credences? I argue against the view I call “Uncertaintism”, according to which agents who are uncertain about the moral truth should be morally cautious.

“Ethics is Hard! What Follows?” in Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility, Dana Nelkin and Derk Pereboom, eds., Oxford, forthcoming. (Abstract)

“The Irrelevance of Moral Uncertainty,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2015. (Abstract)

“Does Moral Ignorance Exculpate?” Ratio, 2011. (Abstract)

“Moral Testimony Goes Only So Far,” Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, 2019. (Abstract)

“When is Failure to Realize Something Exculpatory?” in Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition, Philip Robichaud and Jan Willem Wieland, eds., Oxford, 2017. (Abstract)

“Discussion of Nomy Arpaly’s Unprincipled Virtue,” Philosophical Studies, 2007. (Abstract)