"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

-Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Is Ignorance an Excuse?

After months of searching I finally found a copy of The Office and Philosophy. The first chapter discussed the issues of morality on the show. A large chuck of text is spent analyzing the ideas of ignorance. If anyone is not that familiar with the show, the main character, Michael Scott, routinely toes the line of morality due mainly to his ignorance.

Ignorance makes someone unable to know what is actually acceptable.
Yet moral cues are easily picked up by either simple observation or experience.
Therefore ignorance is only an excuse the first time around.

What are legitimate excuses for a lack of morality?

1 comment:

  1. Alyssa, nice concise argument. Someone like Plato would say, in answer to your question, that we couldn't really *blame* someone for amorality if s/he had never been raised to learn morality. But, of course, he would go on to say that anyone who's raised around other people at all would certainly observe/absorb at least the basics. So, unless you've been raised by wolves (and maybe even then...), we can legitimately expect you to know and live by a basic moral code.

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