Abstract

When someone acts morally wrongly because they are caught in the grip of a false moral view, although they have thought a reasonable amount about morality, are they thereby blameless for so acting? Recently, a number of philosophers have embraced the view that moral ignorance does exculpate in such cases. This paper outlines an attractive line of thought according to which moral ignorance exculpates. This line of thought is mistaken: being caught in the grip of a false moral view is not exculpatory. Ethics is hard, that’s true. But this doesn’t have the implications for blameworthiness that some people think it does.