In Defense of the Normative Account of Ignorance

ABSTRACT In his recent monograph— Ignorance: A Philosophical Study —Rik Peels offers a critique of the normative account of ignorance that I have developed and defended in recent work. I hereby respond to that critique. I argue that Peels’ response, even by its own lights, in fact concedes far more to the idea that there is a normative condition on ignorance than he realizes. Indeed, I conclude that Peels would be wise to embrace the normative condition on ignorance that I propose and try to incorporate it into his own theory of ignorance.