The Epistemic Condition Across Cultures

If you haven't read about it already, take a look at this rather disturbing case. In brief, the story is as follows. A British woman teaching in the Sudan asked her class what they wanted to name the teddy bear that was to be the class mascot. The children suggested the name 'Mohammed', and so that became the bear's name. What the teacher didn't know is that it is against the law in the Sudan to name an inanimate object after the prophet. The teacher was arrested, and now protestors are calling for her execution on Socratic grounds: insult to religion and polluting the minds of children.

What's going on here? Is this an example of a culture that rejects an epistemic condition on moral responsibility? Or is this merely a case of strict liability taken to the extreme? (Or something else?)

Comments

[Clayton Littlejohn]

I think we cannot say that this is evidence of a culture that rejects the epistemic condition on moral responsibility as (i) I see no reason to take it that this response is representative of the culture (ii) when responses are accompanied by inflamed passions, we are not dealing with ideal conditions for determining what people's attitudes are. I haven't seen much evidence that suggests that the protesters believe that her ignorance is non-culpable. I confess I can't make sense of a view that is a strict liability view about blameworthiness (although I confess to being attracted to SL views on odd days about permissibility), but if they do not believe that her ignorance is non-culpable, I don't see that their attitudes about blame are all that different from ours. If I unwittingly break the law and should have known my actions to be illegal, you don't have to buy into any sort of strict liability view to say I'm culpable, blameworthy, etc...

[Tamler Sommers]

Thanks for posting this Neal! I found this case fascinating (and like you, disturbing). I disagree with Clayton. I'd argue that this is precisely a case of a culture that does not employ an epistemic condition for moral responsibility that even resembles the ones found in Western theories of moral responsibility. You see the same kind of attitude in the practice of honor killings, where women are held responsible even in cases of rape. (Cases in which the woman does not intend to lose her virginity or know that she will lose virginity.) The fact that the British woman did not intend to offend Islam, and that she did not know the effect of her actions, is just not as central to their judgments about blameworthiness.

Clayton brings up an interesting alternate explanation though. Maybe the Sudanese are employing a normative interpretation of the knowledge condition--the British women SHOULD have known that the effect of her action would be to offend Islam. There doesn’t seem to be any way to evaluate these competing explanations right now. But if the case does go to trial, it would be interesting to see whether the prosecution’s argument is based on this interpretation of the knowledge condition. Of course, there are a lot of distorting factors at work here—the British are putting a lot of pressure on Sudan to find her innocent. What might be really illuminating is to examine similar cases with Sudanese defendants to see whether this normative interpretation of the knowledge condition is employed.

I talk about different intuitions for the conditions of moral responsibility across cultures in my paper “Metaskepticism about Moral Responsibility”—the one I gave at the Manuel Conference. Link here for those who are interested:

http://www.morris.umn.edu/academic/philosophy/Sommers/metaskepnotblind.pdf

[Clayton Littlejohn]

Fwiw,

I should emphasize that this case is not one I think we can learn much from concerning a culture's attitudes concerning epistemic requirements on moral responsibility. I didn't want to imply that there aren't other cases that might warrant our saying that their attitudes differ from ours. Apparently I failed to refrain from implying that, but luckily Tamler will forgive me as I did not know that my remarks had this implication.

[Tamler Sommers]

Clayton,

I didn't think you were implying that no case could warrant that. (I didn't know my post had that implication. So you have to forgive me too, especially since you explicitly reject strict liability views of blameworthiness).

But I wonder why you think this case can't teach us anything about attitudes towards responsibility. What if the trial takes place, and the prosecutor never once accuses her of culpable ignorance. Wouldn't that reveal something about intuitions involving necessary conditions for blameworthiness among those who want her to be punished?

[Tamler Sommers]

P.S. It's not just the trial we could learn from. We could learn from interviews and published reports on the part of those who want her to suffer the lashes. Imagine talking to someone like that and simply asking: "why do you blame her, why do you want her punished?" If they don't appeal to anything remotely resembling culpable ignorance, we'd learn something. Similarly with a response like 'she should have known that her actions would offend Islam.

You might even say: "In our culture, we think that if the women did not, and could not, have known that her actions would have this effect, then she does not deserve to be blamed or punished. Do you agree with that?"

There are (at least) two ways to respond here. The person might say: "should could have known, she shou'd have known." Or "Who cares whether she knew or not? She offended Islam, she deserves the lash." Obviously, it wouldn't be so clear-cut; but you might identify which part of the spectrum people are closer to.

[Clayton Littlejohn]

Tamler,

Agreed, we could learn quite a lot from the trial. I thought we could not learn much from what had been said about the protesters since we don't know whether they'd say that non-culpable ignorance excuses action. I haven't seen any indication that they think the children who proposed naming the bear should be punished, which might lend some support to the view that they distinguish between those who can be held responsible for acting in ignorance and those that cannot. But, of course this asymmetric response could be due to roughly a gazillion different factors.

[Joe Campbell]

Are we talking about cultural beliefs or religious beliefs? Many people in our own culture endorse the concept of original sin, which seems to go against assumptions about moral responsibility held by most philosophers (say, principle Beta -- I'm no expert about original sin but I think this is right). I wouldn't call the belief in original sin a cultural belief.

[Tamler Sommers]

Joe,

Right but you can learn a lot about the cultural belief from how they respond to the religious beliefs. It seems to me that contemporary theologians struggle with the doctrine of original sin, they try their best to interpret it in a way that can somehow cohere with a control condition for responsibility. Or they lament on the limits of human rationality (the implication being that we can't understand how we can be responsible for Adam and Eve's actions). All of that points to a cultural belief that moral responsibility should have a control condition.

It would be interesting to see whether the notion of original sin seemed so counterintuitive when it was developed. Maybe cultural beliefs about the conditions of responsibility were quite different. My guess is they were, but I'm the farthest thing from an expert in matters of theology.

[Roman Altshuler]

1. I think there is another possible explanation here: moral responsibility may not be at issue at all. If you believe that God has ordered you to punish anyone who insult him, then you may well see yourself as under obligation to punish offenders regardless of whether you hold them responsible for their actions. This is perfectly consistent with believing some epistemic conditions to be necessary for moral responsibility. One may hold that someone is ignorant and thus not responsible, but still ought to be punished.

This strikes me, moreover, like a fairly reasonable position for someone whose world has not been disenchanted. If you believe that there is a divine order in the universe, then you may well believe that punishing those who upset that order has nothing to do with responsibility: they need to be punished in order to serve greater ends.

A relevantly similar case: Most of us, I would guess, do not have a serious problem with the idea that a person carrying a deadly virus should be quarantined (and so deprived of freedom) in order to prevent him from infecting others; this is perfectly consistent with believing the person to be in no way responsible for becoming infected.

2. None of that may be in play in the Sudan case, however. I recently read an article (which I can't find at the moment) that claimed the prosecution's argument was this: the teacher's action is part of the West's campaign against Islam, and is tied in with various US led wars and Danish cartoons. I don't know how prevalent this sort of belief in an anti-Islamic conspiracy is, but it may well be that many of those calling for the teacher's execution simply do not believe she lacked the requisite knowledge. I suspect that many believe she insulted Islam intentionally.

[Tamler Sommers]

Bad news for my hypothesis (but good news for Gillian Gibbons!). Here is a statement from the Muslim Council of Britain about the Sudanese decision to pardon the British Schoolteacher:

"There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith. The children in Ms Gibbons' class and their parents have all testified as to her innocence in this matter. We are glad that this has finally been recognised. Ms. Gibbons should never have been arrested in the first place. We are sure she will be warmly welcomed back to the UK by all Britons, both Muslim and non-Muslim."

Note the emphasis on intention and deliberate insult; this appears to affirm a knowledge and control condition Of course, this is the Muslim Council of Britain. If anyone knows of links to thoughtful reaction in Sudan, please post here or let me know.

[Eddy Nahmias]

And this from AP article: "Muslim scholars generally agree intent is a key factor in determining whether someone has violated Islamic rules against insulting the prophet."

My guess would be that some Sudanese people's reactions are driven more by the honor culture idea that wrongs must be punished regardless of intent, with the content of the wrong in this case deriving from Islamic law.