抄録
The purpose of this paper is to consider the moral responsibility for actions
from ignorance. For example, a man may behave violently toward women because
he mistakenly believes that men are morally superior to women and are,
therefore, permitted to treat women as instruments of man’s will. If we assume
that such a man acts from a kind of ignorance, how can we hold him responsible
for his action?
To consider this problem, I look at the Strawsonian theory of moral responsibility
and the concept of insult as an object of resentment. According to Peter
Frederick Strawson’s famous lecture “Freedom and Resentment,” responsibility
can be understood in the context of “reactive attitudes,” such as resentment. Focusing
on insult as an object of resentment, Jeffrie Murphy and Jean Hampton
argue that we resent injuries done to us because such injuries involve insulting
messages about our dignity or moral status. The wrongdoer is saying, “I can
use you for my purposes and you are not worth better treatment”; in these circumstances,
resentment is the defensive reactive emotion against an action involving
such an insult.
Based on these ideas, we propose the following hypothesis: a person, who injures
someone but mistakenly believes that his action is permitted and acts from
ignorance, can be held responsible for his action if the victim appropriately feels
resentment toward his action, as it involved an insulting message about the victim’s
moral status. To validate this hypothesis, I will begin by critically reviewing
previous studies on the moral responsibility for actions from ignorance. Following
this discussion, I will explain the distinctive character of the insulting
action from ignorance about someone’s moral status. Finally, I will demonstrate
that an insulting action from ignorance about the victim’s moral status inevitably
causes resentment by attacking the victim’s self-respect, and that ignorance
never excuses the wrongdoer from their responsibility.
