Praiseworthy though unwitting rightdoing: On <i>posigence</i> , negligence’s positive counterpart

Abstract I argue that agents can be praiseworthy for doing the right thing despite their being unaware of their doing that thing (and not only that it is right). Differently put, I propose that negligence has a positive counterpart, which I dub “posigence.” To motivate this proposal, I introduce cases in which an agent has sufficient reason to act in a way that promotes her own well-being but sets back (or at least, fails to promote) the interests of another, but inadvertently omits to do so, manifesting therein good quality of will.