Can an unethical act be excused solely because of lack of knowledge? The title suggests that being ignorant, lacking knowledge can be the reason people have unethical behaviour. The dictionary defines unethical conduct as an action that falls outside of what is considered morally right or proper for a person, a profession or an industry. In the context of this question, ‘unethical behaviour’ can mean anything that is done and that is known and accepted to be wrong. This implies that having this sort of behaviour can be excused if there is ignorance involved.
To determine what lack of knowledge is, we have to understand and decide where knowledge begins. In different situations, lack of knowledge could be anything from not knowing somebody’s name to not being familiar with particular laws. On the other hand, ignorance, also considered as lack of knowledge, is often used an insult to describe individuals who intentionally ignore or take no notice of important information or facts. So, if the lack of knowledge is, in fact, ignorance, should it be considered as a valid excuse for unethical conduct? Let’s say, a woman is out with her friends and gets drunk. On her way home, she breaks into what she thinks is her friend’s house, which turns out to be someone else’s home. In the English Criminal law case, DPP v Majewski, it was established that voluntary intoxication, where the crime is one of basic intent, is no defence. The ‘mens rea’ (guilty mind) in this would be fulfilled by the careless behaviour of intoxicating oneself. Here, the lack of knowledge or ignorance is shown by the woman breaking into the wrong house and the unethical conduct is the act of breaking in. Continuing on the DPP v Majewski case, this act should not be excused, since the woman had the freedom to drink as much as she wanted, and got drunk.
If the unethical actions, go to the extent of stealing, harming or killing somebody it should not be excused. Even with the least knowledge, emotion could help make decisions. One should be able to judge whether a decision is unerring, just based on feelings. If harming somebody doesn’t feel right, it is a strong enough motive to do the opposite and do the right thing. Once you commit an unethical conduct, fear or guilt is supposed to be felt, which proves that there isn’t truly a lack of knowledge but the offender is turning a blind eye to the situation.
These days knowledge is very accessible, with all our new means of communication and new technologies, it is more and more unlikely to not be able to access key information on laws and ethical conduct. Manners and ‘savoir-vivre’ are usually part of education, and from early ages, we are taught what is wrong and what it right. You could argue, that the environment in which a person grows up defines what they perceive as right and wrong. A child who grows up in a violent household, with his or her parents beating them, generally grows up to believe that that kind of behaviour is normal. In general, children often associate parent’s acts towards them with love. Children who grow up in harsh conditions are programmed to think that causing harm is a way of showing you love someone. Technically, in this scenario, it is no longer a case of lacking knowledge, but lacking having the right knowledge and this could be excused to some extent. As a children grow up, they start thinking for themselves, and could develop other ways of thinking. Some could eventually dissociate the feeling of love from anger and violence and start to behave ‘normally’ ; in that case the excuse will no longer be defensible.
Reason is also a way of knowing. Looking back at what you have done or at the consequences of your acts can lead to understanding it was an immoral choice. Intuition, which is according to the Oxford Dictionary of English, the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning also shows that there are more ways of acquiring knowledge. One should apprehend rules and laws through intuition, hence determining what is right and wrong. With intention and consequence, an act could be considered as an accident. For example, a person driving slightly above the speed limit and there are no cars nearby. That person is not driving dangerously. Only problem, they didn’t see a little pot hole in the road, cause an accident, injure and kill two children waiting on the pavement. Would this be considered as an accident? Is that unethical? In the example of a man pulling over to help a woman with her broken car, only to get her number; is that ethical? Surely he his helping her fix her car, but if it was a man would he have
been that prompt in helping?
Furthermore, the last way of knowing that I am going to refer to is language. Language could be a problem in a situation where there are spoken language barriers. Not understanding basic instructions or rules could result in committing an illegal act without knowing about a ban. Reciprocally, it is the person’s responsibility to be aware of specific rules or restrictions, if you travel to a country, it is your duty to familiarise yourself with law and regulations to avoid having problems.
In conclusion, lack of knowledge or ignorance on unethical actions to the extent of killing and stealing should not be excused. Lack of knowledge should not be a justification for harming others. 90 percent of the time there is another way to acquire knowledge. Knowledge cannot be purely based on facts but on other things too. With all of the different ways of knowing such as emotion, reason, intuition, language and sense perception, it is highly improbable to lack knowledge completely. Also, using lack of knowledge or ignorance to justify immoral acts, is basically trying to admit not knowing what you are doing. This cannot be a valid argument in the eyes of justice, and that could lead to people being ignorant on purpose and intentionally committing crimes to then later on say that they were not aware of what they were doing. This could bring people to lie in order to get away with more or less anything they do. As I have argued previously, lack of knowledge is not a valid justification in the eyes of the law, so knowing that, people should take it on themselves to find out information to keep away from bad behaviour.