Request for info

Jonathan Matheson just wrote me an email requesting that I ask the Garden community for help finding publications on the epistemic condition on moral responsibility.  So here I am.  Garden, what've you got?

Three off the top of my head -- Carl Ginet has a Nous article called "The Epistemic Requirements for Moral Responsibility", Manual Vargas has his paper on tracing and the epistemic requirement in Midwest Studies, and I believe Eddy Nahmias's dissertation was on this topic, though I'm not sure whether there are any associated publications.

Comments

[Neil]

Depends what you mean by the epistemic condition. There is work on culpable ignorance and blame (the thought being that one is only responsible for an action that is rationalized by a false belief if one is responsible for the belief); since work on doxastic responsibility is relevant here, there is a huge relevant literature. Some of Gideon Rosen's work on moral ignorance is relevant (eg, "Skepticism about Moral Responsibility", Phil Perspectives 2004); so is Susan Wolf's book. I have several papers on similar lines, arguing that agents are excused for actions predicated on false beliefs; eg, my "Self-Deception And Moral Responsibility" Ratio 2004 and "Cultural Membership and Moral Responsibility" The Monist 2003.

[Kevin Timpe]

In addition to Neil and Neal's suggestions:

Michael Zimmerman, "Moral Responsibility and Ignorance," Ethics 107.3 (1997).

Ish Haji gives formulations of an epistemic condition in a number of places, though the exact ones escape me at present.

Derk Pereboom has some things to say about this issue in his contribution to the 2003 McKenna/Widerker volume.

As citing by Ginet's article, Holly Smith's "Culpable Ignorance" is quite good and related.

[doris]

As Neil says, depends on what you mean. Dominic Murphy and I have a paper (ref. below), where we take something in the vicinity of a blameless ignorance line on war crimes. The argument does require something like an epistemic condition; the line we take bears affinities to Gideon Rosen's.

Doris

Doris, J. M., and Murphy, D. (co-authors) 2007. “From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXI

[doris]

As Neil says, depends on what you mean. Dominic Murphy and I have a paper (ref. below), where we take something in the vicinity of a blameless ignorance line on war crimes. The argument does require something like an epistemic condition; the line we take bears affinities to Gideon Rosen's.

Doris

Doris, J. M., and Murphy, D. (co-authors) 2007. “From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXI

[doris]

As Neil says, depends on what you mean. Dominic Murphy and I have a paper (ref. below), where we take something in the vicinity of a blameless ignorance line on war crimes. The argument does require something like an epistemic condition; the line we take bears affinities to Gideon Rosen's.

Doris

Doris, J. M., and Murphy, D. (co-authors) 2007. “From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXI

[Joe Campbell]

Don't forget Aristotle, Nicomachian Ethics, Book III, section 1ff. (I hope this is the right citation!) It is reprinted in Pereboom's edited volume, Free Will.

Also, Fischer has some nice, very general comments to make about the need for an epistemic (as opposed to freedom relevant) condition for moral responsibility. See, for instance, the Introduction to Fischer and Ravizza, eds., Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (1993).