Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition
ISBN: 9780198779667
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Oxford University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Philosophy Metaphysics/ Epistemology Moral Philosophy;

Philosophers have long agreed that moral responsibility might not only have a freedom condition, but also an epistemic condition. Moral responsibility and knowledge interact, but the question is exactly how. Ignorance might constitute an excuse, but the question is exactly when. Surprisingly enough, the epistemic condition has only recently attracted the attention of scholars. This volume sets the agenda. Sixteen new essays address the following central questions: Does the epistemic condition require akrasia? Why does blameless ignorance excuse? Does moral ignorance sustained by one's culture excuse? Does the epistemic condition involve knowledge of the wrongness or wrongmaking features of one's action? Is the epistemic condition an independent condition, or is it derivative from one's quality of will or intentions? Is the epistemic condition sensitive to degrees of difficulty? Are there different kinds of moral responsibility and thus multiple epistemic conditions? Is the epistemic condition revisionary? What is the basic structure of the epistemic condition?

Philip Robichaud received his PhD from Rice University in 2012 for a dissertation on the epistemic condition. From 2013-2016 he was a postdoc on the "Enhancing Responsibility' project at Delft University of Technology, before taking up a tenure track position at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His current research project entitled "Nudging Responsibly: The impact of choice architecture on responsibility attributions" is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Jan Willem Wieland is a postdoc in the philosophy department at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His interests lie between ethics and epistemology, and his current research centers on the epistemic condition. Previously, he wrote a dissertation on infinite regress arguments in philosophy, and he has long-term ambitions to promote analytical skills to the broader public. For his research, he received substantive grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and the Research Foundation Flanders.

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