2025.06.10 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews
Michael J. Zimmerman, Ignorance and Moral Responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2022, 392pp., $115.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780192859570.
Reviewed by Philip Robichaud, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Over the past 25 years, philosophers have begun to address the long-standing neglect of the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. Several prominent accounts have emerged, each attempting to answer a fundamental question: when does ignorance excuse an agent from moral responsibility, and when does it not? In this book, Michael Zimmerman solidifies his position as one of the most prominent defenders of what he calls the “pretty radical” view that “all blameworthiness rests on, or is rooted in, non-ignorant, that is, witting wrongdoing” (21). This “origination thesis” is radical mostly because, on the plausible assumption that most ignorance doesn’t have this inculpating etiology, it entails that many commonsense assignments of moral responsibility for ignorant action will be mistaken.
Although Zimmerman is not the only defender…
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