Actions done by reason of ignorance
Every action one proceeds in doing will always have its consequences whether they are good out bad. All actions are governed by two main categories: voluntary and involuntary. It is through these two categories can one determine where the responsibility of the action lies and what is the proper outcome that the person who performs the action should receive. As Aristotle has mentioned, if the act is voluntary one should be praised or blamed, but should be given reason to be pardoned and sometimes even forgiveness if involuntary. However, what can be said about action done out of ignorance? It seems that some actions can be blame on the person who acted and others cannot. The following essay will discuss the concerns on when one is blameworthy for their action and when one is not.
An action performed out of ignorance is, as it said, a deed that one carries out unknowingly or not understanding/given complete information of the situation. An example of that would be, if Anne was driving on a highway and a person, Carl, jump out of nowhere. Anne hits Carl and kills him. Anne cannot be blame for killing Carl because Carl had no reason to be there and Anne had no idea if she had continued down the highway she would have killed someone. Of course one could argue that driving can be considered a dangerous act to begin with and that Anne should have been aware of the consequence that might transpire. In spite of this, Anne still should not be blame. In another example, if Jane had left a piece of candy on the table at a restaurant and leaves. Then someone who is a complete stranger to Jane, John, eats the candy, chokes and dies. Jane had no idea that leaving that piece of candy out would result in killing John, nor did she have any intention of killing John. More importantly, Jane had no idea that the candy she left behind killed someone and seeing how the two does not have any connection perhaps never will. In a situation such as this, one cannot truly place blame on Jane for killing John. It is a possibility that leaving a piece of candy out can result in someone choking on it and dies in the process but one cannot expect for Jane to realize that by simply leaving a piece of candy will result in a person’s death. Saying that Jane should have realized the possibility of leaving a piece of candy can result in someone’s death is no different than saying that Anne should have prepare for the fact that someone would have jump out of the highway when she is driving. Therefore, in both situations, both Anne and Jane cannot be blame.
On the other hand, this does not mean that all actions done out of ignorance can be forgiven. There are things that people in generally should know, in other words, some information should just be common sense. For example, walking around pointing a loaded gun at people, accidently killing someone and then saying that you did not know you would accidently pull the trigger. How does this differ from Anne or Jane’s cases? They differ because both Anne and Jane’s cases are extreme. Not many people would expect killing someone by leaving a piece of candy at a restaurant or someone jumping out of a speeding highway. In order to justify whether one can be blamed for an act performed out of ignorance should be the magnitude of the action (how extreme is it). However, how does one know the magnitude of the action? One would then have to look back to what the person was ignorant about. It matters whether the ignorance is concerned with the general public or just the particular person itself. As mentioned before, common sense is important, if there is something that the general knows and understands it can be considered as common sense. An example is like the one previously given, everyone knows that you should not walk around pointed a loaded gun at people. In case like this, despite it sounding cruel, one can be blamed for the action performed out of ignorance because the knowledge is generally known even though the individual does not know. Fortunately, this is not absolute there are some exceptions. If Mike just moved into a town where there is a rule that men cannot sit on the left side on the table and Mike sits on the left side of the table. Mike can be forgiven because nobody told him that before he sat down. Therefore, one can be blamed for a action acted out of ignorance if the ignorance was to the individual person, not the general people and that some information about the ignorance of the individual was given sometime before the action is performed. If someone had told Mike that he do not sit on the left side of the table right before he sat down, and he still sat down, then mike can be blamed. If the general was ignorant about something before performing the action, they cannot be blamed for the action. For example, only Amy knew that she is allergic to peanuts and the restaurant gives her a dish with peanuts in it. Amy eats it and has an allergic reaction that resulted in her death; the restaurant cannot be blamed for the action.
Ignorance between factual claims and normative claims are also important factors that could determine whether or not one can be blamed for actions done by ignorance. Normative claim, meaning a typical standard way of thinking for something. A person can both be blame and not to be blame to be ignorant about a normative claim. A good example would be abortion; some think abortion is wrong others do not. If Sally had gone through abortion without knowing the whether it is wrong or not, she can be considered both to be blame and not to be blame. How one would view it, simply depends on their own point of view and how Sally herself would view it also depends on her own point of view. Factual claims are claims about a particular thing that is back up with evidence. Sun is hot, snow is cold these are all factual claims whether the evidence came from experience or from research. So when dealing with factual claims, one cannot be blame for an action because they were ignorant about a factual claim. An example would be Paul gave a sick person some medicine not knowing if it will kill him or save him. If the person dies Paul cannot be blamed for act done by ignorance (not knowing if the medicine would kill or save him), but rather he would be blame because he simply acted (gave the medicine). Just because something is factual, does not make that it is general knowledge. Despite the claim being true, it does not mean that everybody knows that. Hence, one cannot be blamed of acting out of ignorance of a factual claim.
Culpable ignorance is the failure and lack of ordinary care of common knowledge of the law and/or facts about the world in which may result in criminal liability. If a person was lock in a room for most of his life and lack the all-common knowledge like killing is wrong was eventually let out and killed someone can he be blamed for his actions? The answer is no, because the person is complete ignorant regarding to what he is doing. There is no knowledge of what he is doing is right or wrong, or even any reason for him to do it. Some types of common can be obtain simply because you know something else and therefore one could perform some self-judgment to the situation. However, in a case such as this, because there was no previous engagement to anything in the world, there is no possible way that one would have any kind of self-judgment. There is an absolute no chance that the person knew what he was doing and therefore should not be blamed.
There are many factors to determine whether or not one can be blame when the action is done by reason of ignorance.