Uncertainty and Ignorance
Uncertainty and Ignorance

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of uncertainty as it bears on our judgments of agents’ epistemic position. I present and evaluate a series of cases to show that cognitive habits of mind like the hindsight bias impair our evaluative judgments about ignorance. Initial judgments of ignorance in cases of wrongdoing are often the result of this bias and not grounded on genuine moral criteria. I claim that these cases demonstrate uncertainty in ethics-especially in connection to ignorance of non-moral facts. From this, I make a bold leap to offer a rationale for what I call “educated ignorance”-when an agent chooses ignorance as his or her epistemic position. I conclude by offering some suggestions for why the project of what I call “educated ignorance” is a promising area of study to an ethics of uncertainty.

• Details
• Contents