"best summed up by Thomas Jefferson (1787), who wrote: "...ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can be always pretended" (para. 2). On its face, Jefferson's point seems reasonable. If all you had to do was feign ignorance to get a case dismissed, there'd be crowds of people wandering around with blank stares and airtight alibis ("Nobody told me arson was frowned upon.")."
"It appears when people suspect-rightly-that learning more would obligate them to act differently. So, they stay in the dark. Not because they don't care but because they suspect they'd care too much. And acting on that concern would be inconvenient, costly, or deeply uncomfortable. Licon argues that this kind of ignorance becomes morally problematic when two conditions are met: Awareness: The person reasonably suspects that learning more would morally motivate them to change."
Ignorance of the law is a longstanding principle: ignorance of law excuses no one. The principle functions to prevent people from escaping legal liability by feigning ignorance. Moral responsibility raises a related question about whether ignorance can absolve moral duties. Strategic ignorance is deliberate avoidance of knowledge when learning it would create an obligation to act. Strategic ignorance often stems from anticipating inconvenient, costly, or uncomfortable obligations. Two conditions make such ignorance morally problematic: reasonable awareness that knowledge would motivate action, and control over access to that knowledge without undue burden. When both exist, ignorance becomes evasive and morally blameworthy.
Read at Psychology Today
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