A Literaure Query

I'm a long-time reader, first-time poster - but I had a literature review question and hoped the Garden could help me out.

It is often assumed (or taken as obvious) that an undermining condition no longer undermines responsibility if the agent is culpable for that condition obtaining in the first place.  So, ignorance may excuse an agent, but *culpable* ignorance does not.  We might call this the "No-Culpability Clause on excuses".

I've seen lots of people assume this clause, but is anyone aware of any place where someone explicitly defends it (or a close relative)?

Comments

[Youngjae Lee]

Victor Tadros' book Criminal Responsibility has a chapter on this problem.

[Joe O.]

Just to rephrase for myself; you're looking for how to explain why an agent should be held responsible for an action despite, at the time of action, not meeting certain requirements typical of a morally responsibile agent (e.g. conscious, sober)?

Frankfurt's "Freedom of the Will and The Concept of a Person" and Watson's "Skepticism about Weakness of the Will" could be good general places to start.

Doesn't some of the X-Phil work try to see if it is in fact that case that anyone makes the assumption regarding responsibility that you're asking about Matt? I'd need help with specific citations. That would be another place to look.

The "No-culpablity clause on excuses" is a bit redundant. Antecedent responsibility? Also some of the work by Jeanette Kennett and Michael Smith might offer some help with this problem. Also, thinking about cases of strict liability might show that setting different responsibility conditions due to context isn't uncommon.

[Tamler Sommers]

Joe O,

I think the idea is this:t while ignorance is generally an excusing condition for moral responsibility, it doesn't count as one if you're responsible for your ignorance. If I deliberately avoid learning the traffic laws of my town, then I can't use ignorance as an excuse when someone stops me for talking on a cell phone while driving. I'd be blameworthy for the act even though I didn't know it was against the law.

Matt,

I can't point you to anything in particular, although Kevin Timpe's talk at the Manuel conference last year addressed the issue. You might try emailing him. My question about this problem is how to distinguish culpable from non-culpable ignorance. That debate, it seems to me, will collapse into the more traditional debate over what constitutes culpable action period.

[Matt King]

Thanks for the input so far.

Youngjae lee,
I should probably note that I'm talking about *moral* responsibility, as distinct from, say, criminal liability.

Joe O.,
I'm asking about something a bit different than antecedent responsibility. What I'm asking about is why a condition that normally excuses fails to excuse if the agent's culpable for that condition obtaining? I haven't seen this idea defended explicitly anywhere.

[Matt King]

Thanks, Tamler - I was writing my response when you posted yours.

I thought Kevin's talk was related to "tracing" concerns, which are surely relevant here, but slightly downstream from what I'm after. But I'll give him a ping.

And I agree - distinguishing between culpable and non-culpable instances will be tricky work, though some, e.g., Holly Smith, have tried. Still, there seems the presumption that there are cases in which certain excuses are no longer legitimate because the agent's "at fault for them" - for lack of a better phrase.

[Tamler Sommers]

Matt, right, Kevin's talk was about tracing but this seems to me to be a tracing issue through and through. Correct me if I'm wrong, in order to call ignorance (or any excuse) "culpable" you'll have to say that the person is morally responsible for having that ignorance. Why are they morally responsible for it? Because they made a decision, or did something (refrained from doing something) that resulted in the ignorance.

Ok, so far so good, but then the question arises: why did they make that decision [perform that action]? There's bound to be a causal history behind it, one that traces back to an event that the agent is not morally responsible for. Now we're back in very familiar territory.

How can trying to assign responsiblity for excuses avoid collapsing into that more general problem?

[Matt King]

Hey Tamler,

You're right that tracing is at issue here. I agree that in order to say one is culpable for one's ignorance, one has to show that he's responsible for it. And tracing is a tool for explaining how he could be responsible for it.

But that means that tracing is an explanation that's required after one has assumed that culpability invalidates excuses. That is, tracing is a resource embraced to explain what follows from adopting the clause, not a *defense* of the clause. After all, if you rejected the clause, you wouldn't have to show that the agent was responsible for the excusing condition.

I'm interested instead in anyone who's defended the more basic claim - that culpability "erases" excuses. Those who favor tracing are, more than likely, committed to that claim, but haven't so far as I can see, provided an argument for it.

[Youngjae Lee]

Matt: I understood your question; my suggestion remains the same.

[Joe O.]

Gotcha. I think I'm clear now. There's a little bit of work in psychology on responsibility for belief. Peter Halligan and Kathleen Taylor have written on the subject.
Audi's work on doxastic virtue might be helpful?

[Mark Smeltzer]

Is Fischer's concept of "tracing" relevant?

For example, he argues that we can hold an agent responsible for getting in an accident while intoxicated when agent is also responsible for being intoxicated. Negligent ignorance seems like the same thing as negligent intoxication.

He has quite a bit to say about the mechanics of tracing, and why it is important to ascriptions of responsibility.

[Joe Campbell]

“(2) one is culpable for behaving ignorantly only if one is culpable for one’s ignorance” Michael Zimmerman, “Moral Responsibility and Ignorance,” Ethics 107: 414 (1997).

[kevin timpe]

Matt,

Since it's come up in the comments, if you want a copy of my paper I'd be happy to send you a copy. Drop me an email at kevin dot timpe at gmail dot come. I interact some with the materials by Smith and Zimmerman that others have also mentioned.

[Matt King]

Mark,
You’re right that negligence is related here, but in one use of the term, it seems to be a mechanism for capturing how one can be responsible even when an excusing condition is present – negligence is a *way of being* culpable. Interestingly, it’s a way whose conditions differ significantly from paradigmatic cases or responsibility (like fully intentional action).

On the other sense of the term, (which is only slightly different) I think 'negligence' refers to 'culpable inadvertence', where this would be just a special kind of the sort of case I’m describing.

Tracing is similarly a mechanism for ascribing responsibility in the presence of an excusing condition, but it tries to make the conditions for the ascription look like the ordinary conditions involved in paradigmatic cases of responsibility. We just locate that responsibility at an earlier time, but the conditions satisfied at that time are the usual ones.

I have a paper that discusses this relation between tracing and negligence on my website, if anyone's interested.

I take it that Fischer’s intricate discussion of tracing is important to ascriptions of responsibility *only if* excusing conditions can be ‘negated’ by culpability. That is, only if the clause I mentioned at the outset is true. But maybe I’m wrong about Fischer.

Joe,
It seems to me that Zimmerman’s principle here is just the other side of the same coin from my clause. I take it that “(2) one is culpable for behaving ignorantly only if one is culpable for one’s ignorance” is another way of stating that “ignorance no longer excuses if one is culpable for that ignorance.” But if I remember the Zimmerman article correctly, he assumes (2) in the same way I’m claiming most authors do. Again, I’ll be sure to look at it in case I’m mistaken.

[Alan]

Almost all traditional American law is based on the mens rea criterion of responsibility, however that criterion is analyzed. The latter part of the 20th century disclosed that mens rea was to be interpreted as having two components: 1--rational intent to act and 2--freedom to choose/do the good (the Model Code of the American Law Institute). Post-Hinckley, this criterion has been challenged vigorously, but arguably only for purposes of political expedience (2 was dropped by congress for federal jurisdiction in '84 and several states did as well--but 1 and 2 are still in force for many states, including my own of Wisconsin). But such tinkering is at the "high-end" of mens rea with respect to insanity cases--at the low-end--where minimal standards of traditional mens reas apply--it seems that discernible versions of 1 & 2 still stand. So negligence is to be interpreted most charitably as the abolition of 1 &/or 2--and since most instances of attribution of negligence are to ordinary people who ostensibly would satisfy them both, 1 becomes a subsidiary function of assessing 2 in a counterfactual sense. That is, if subject X was capable of rational intent but chose to drink heavily with car-keys in his pocket, then he shoulda/coulda/woulda have chosen to not become so freaking drunk knowing that he would probably later drive. That is, in the actual past he chose not to put himself in the place of being later able to better assess his condition to drive, and thus is responsible for thus placing himself into such eventual incapacity. In other words it seems to me that negligence is predicated on the presumption of 1 & 2 capacities that are misused.

[Matt King]

Alan,
Negligence has a long (and difficult) history in legal theory. As you probably know, it has been often challenged as a basis for *criminal* liability precisely because it seems to eliminate the critieron of mens rea.

Drunk driving cases can certainly count as instances of negligence, and readily lend themselves to analysis by tracing (though I have some doubts about the adequacy of such an approach).

But notice the following case: Norm wakes up, has his morning breakfast (with coffee), but as he's backing out of his driveway he is distracted (e.g., by the radio that was left on, a flock of birds that flew overhead, thoughts about his meetings that day, etc.). So he doesn't see a child walking to school, and hits him, breaking the child's leg. His failing to look behind him seems sufficient for his being negligent, but he doesn't intend to fail to look, nor does he choose to do anything that causes his distraction (in the way the drunk driver's decision to drink causes his drunkenness).

[Joe O.]

The very kind of case you're talking about is in Michael Smith's article, "Rational Capacities, or How to Distinguish Recklessness, Weakness and Compulsion." You can find it in an edited volume by Christine Tappolet and Sarah Stroud. I think that Smith's view definitely deserves more attention and work.

[Alan]

Matt--

You're right to say that the relation of negligence to intent and choice is a complicated one. The example you gave does not directly involve choice as does the drunken driving case. But even in your case responsibility is assessed by mens rea--intent to fail to look would be quite pernicious indeed, and would seem to involve a degree of guilt beyond negligence. The relation of negligence to reposibility here is tied more to the factor of intent than choice (I agree), but responsibility is a result of (i) the assumption that the individual could have and should have had the proper intent to drive safely but (ii) inattentively allowed something to distract him while he proceeded to drive. So the assessment is not due to an intent the driver actually had, but counterfactually is ruled as one lacking (the intent to drive safely) that he should have had. I'd say that the final ruling on distraction here and in like cases is whether most people would ordinarily be distracted to such an extent that they could not prevent the unfortunate consequences.

[Anibal]

In Dennett´s Fredom Evolves there is a defense of knowldge seeking attitude of reposnsibility that left no room to excuses.
We are obligued to know the relevant facts of knowledge to exercise responsibility.