#907 Katarina Kovačević: Epistemic Responsibility and Strategic Ignorance

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everybody. Welcome to a new episode of the Decent. I'm your host, Ricardo Lops. And today I'm joined by Katerina Kovacevic. She is a phd candidate in the Department of Cognitive Science at Central European University. Her main research interest is responsibility. She investigates how people ascribe responsibility for good and bad outcomes across various situations. And today we're focusing on uh responsibility and strategic ignorance. So Karina, welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure to everyone. Thank

00:36 Katarina Kovačević: you. It's also a pleasure from

00:38 Ricardo Lopes: OK. So uh actually, this is very interesting because uh I've already talked about responsibility with philosophers on the show, but not with someone who approaches it from a sort of uh psychological slash cognitive science perspective. So, uh how do you approach responsibility from that perspective? And what kinds of questions are you trying to answer in your research actually?

01:07 Katarina Kovačević: Yeah, that's a good question to make some kind of a distinction in the approach of philosophers and psychologists uh to this type of topics. Um The main difference is that we in psychology approach from the descriptive perspective, which means that we don't want to say what is right, what is wrong how people should ascribe responsibility in which cases, but rather how people do that, what are people's moral intuitions? Um And um when do they feel like it's um um good to, to um ascribe responsibility, what are some relevant factors for them that influences their intuitions and their, their decisions? And um when we talk about the methodology, so how I approach this um is uh mostly through V studies uh which is when you write a certain story um about some hypothetical agents. And then you ask the person um some questions about their moral judgments such as um is the person responsible for the certain outcome um in the story. And since I'm interested in um different factors that could influence the description of responsibility, then I just vary uh the context of the story, what the agent knew what they didn't know uh what were their intentions and similar to see whether that would trigger different intuitions, uh moral intuitions in, in participants. Um Yeah, and also what psychologists do um when investigating responsibility and some other moral judgments is uh especially in my department because I'm a cognitive scientist, we um discover the processes behind uh this moral judgment. So what kind of cognitive process lies behind certain intuitions? In my case, I talk a lot about counterfactual thinking, for example, that is a thinking of possible alternatives. If this didn't happen, then something else wouldn't have happened. Um So yeah, that's like a, a crash course on what um psychologist does in uh in this type of a field. Yeah.

03:24 Ricardo Lopes: OK. So let's get into some of your results and what we know about how people ascribe responsibility to others in different kinds of situations and so on. So when exactly do people as ascribe responsibility to others?

03:42 Katarina Kovačević: Um So I will start first from a more bro broad answer. So, um when I talk about responsibility, I, I talk mostly in my current research about responsibility for the negative outcome. Um Then I see um which factors influence um people to ascribe responsibility more or less likely. So what are some kind of a mitigating factors in ascribing responsibility? And what I be shown by now is that um something that has been already known um to an extent that epistemic states a relevant factor, so whether the agent uh knew what would be the possible consequences of their actions or they didn't know. So some kind of beliefs about the situation and what could happen, the level of knowledge and information. Um And um moreover, which is not a factor that I, that I provide in my studies, but it is important to mention is um intentions that they don't have. Um So if you have desire to harm the others, uh then it's more likely that you will be ascribed as responsible uh for uh some kind of a bad outcome. But in my research, I mostly focus on um this peculiar case of agents, uh, who could have had the knowledge, um, to see how people ascribe responsibility to them, um, in, um, so to see how people react to ignorant agents and how they, uh, distinguish them from the people who have the knowledge. Um, YEAH, because it's, it's been shown like, um, that when you have the knowledge you're more likely to be responsible but the fact that you're ignorant is not always escalating. So that's interesting to see when it is and when it isn't exculpating. Yeah.

05:40 Ricardo Lopes: So you're mostly interested here in epistemic responsibility, correct?

05:47 Katarina Kovačević: Yeah, but just a bit of a disclaimer. Um I, I'm pretty sure that philosophers will have a different definition of what epistemic responsibility is. Uh WHETHER there's a duty to know enough about before forming certain attitudes, how I operationalize epistemic responsibility in my case is more something like epistemic duty, which is a duty to get informed before acting. Um And that means that if you have a certain sufficient care for other people, you, there is some kind of a normative expectation that you would take certain precautionary measures or certain actions to get informed um before uh doing something that could hire mothers uh or similar. So that is what I I talk about when I talk about epistemic responsibility. So basically that there is um when you have sufficient care for others, you have epistemic intention, which is intention to learn the relevant information that leads to checking and that leads to preventing the negative outcome from happening because now you have the relevant adequate knowledge for that.

07:04 Ricardo Lopes: So let's get a little bit into more detail here. So what if people act without relevant or sufficient knowledge in their possession? I mean, are they, are they held responsible or not or are they held responsible in particular situations and not others? How does it work? Exactly?

07:28 Katarina Kovačević: Well, as uh my b A professor, like to say, uh the best answer is it depends. Uh BUT now I will, I will explain why it depends. Um So what we know by now is that in a lot of cases, as I already mentioned to repeat is that uh being knowledgeable um is um more um being, being more judged than, than having a lack of knowledge about certain situations. But the fact that you didn't know about something uh is not enough. Um IN some cases, for example, you cannot say if you travel to another country and you didn't buy the transport ticket, you cannot say, oh, I didn't know how to use the machine, um which could be the truth that you didn't know how to exactly buy the ticket, but it was your, your obligation to get informed how to do that. Um So um or when you produce some kind of um uh very bad uh consequences, for example, you're a doctor and you didn't check some important allergy when you are prescribed the, the, the the medication. Um YOU cannot say, oh, I didn't know about that because it was kind of an obligation to get informed about that. Um But what we show in, in our research as a very important factor in this case is whether there was an opportunity to learn the information that is very important. Um If there was no opportunity to learn the information, the relevant quant factual. So this relevant alternative is about some external factors. So if it would have been possible to learn the relevant information, then the person would have done that. But if there was the opportunity to learn something relevant, but you deliberately chose not to do that, then you're more likely to be as scrapped as responsible. Um And concretely in our um experiments, those agents who uh didn't take the opportunity to learn that they had were um they ascribe responsibility almost the same as the agents who knew about the possible negative consequences. For example, um If uh you see there is a sign that parking spots are maybe uh reserved, but you don't really approach to check it because you're rushing for your dentist appointment um that's seen as negative and you are described as responsible. Um STATISTICALLY even the same as uh as a person who sees that the the spot is re uh reserved, but just doesn't do anything about that. So there is something in this opportunity to learn that people um take is important. Um We interpret this as that um people think about um counter factuals that are related to epistemic intentions. So explain this a bit more what I mean by this is that people think whether there would have been uh an agent who had a better um more sufficient concern for others who would have done things differently if there is an agent who uh cared more about the welfare of others. Um Would he um check if uh if the spot is reserved and if the answer is yes, then the person who didn't check if the spot was reserved is responsible. But then to complicate the story a bit more, we added some other factors in, in the question. So now we say, OK, the opportunity to learn the information is, is relevant. Um But then we can ask, is a person always um obliged to use that opportunity to learn something and maybe intuitively, um we are not expected to know everything about everything, right? So when it is very, it is more important uh to get, to get informed. And one of the interesting factors that, that, that we write is how effortful this action of getting the the adequate information is. So with the hypothesis that if um if the action is very effortful and too costly for the agent, uh that will be some mitigating factor, and uh there will be less expectation from this agent to engage in the action that is very costly for them. Um So, um we showed that that this was the relevant factor and when there were two agents who both didn't engage um in the um action of checking, uh the one who needed less effort uh to do this action um is where as was described as, as more responsible to give you an example. Um If you just need to read the sign uh to check whether the spot is reserved or not. Um And you didn't engage in such a simple action that would not be costly for you, then you are s ascribe responsible. But if this action involved waiting for a parking attendant to come and you don't know when he's coming and you're in a rush because you will um miss your appointment, then a person, people are a bit um more um empathizing with the situation and they ascribe uh less responsibility. So in this case, when they come back to this counterfactual theory, we can say that even the agent who had sufficient care for others uh maybe wouldn't um check in this situation when the costs are too high. So there is kind of a benefit of a doubt given to this to this person. And we can say that the relevant counterfactual becomes, if the action was not so effortful, then the agent would have done it. Um Yeah, so there is some relevant factor. There are some um other ones, but let's say these, these are some, some of the most relevant. We also checked um the weather. Um THE probability of the navigate outcome happening is what is relevant. Um With, uh with the idea that if it is highly unlikely that something uh negative would happen, are you still asked to, to check? Um AND to, to put some uh put some effort in order to, to check what is uh what is the relevant information about that event or to prevent? Um But this factor didn't seem to be uh relevant. I mean, there may be reasons that uh the probabilities that we had were still above some threshold, above which it is expected from people to act. So if, even if it's like 30 40% probability of something negative happening, if the action is so uh effortless, such as just reading the sign, you're expected to do it if you can prevent some harm to others. But this factor is still a bit uh something that, that is, that should be researched more. Yeah.

15:12 Ricardo Lopes: So, I mean, uh it's not the case that people always hold people responsible. If they haven't gathered all the relevant information, it depends. Uh I mean, a little bit on how much effort you have to put into it to gather all the relevant information. But I would, I mean, in terms of the effort, I would imagine that there are particular instances where people, even if it would take a lot of effort would still hold you responsible. I mean, just one clear, I guess example that comes to mind is in health related situations. I mean, if a doctor for some reason gets across a patient with a very rare condition and just because it's very rare and it would take him or her a lot of uh uh g uh a lot of time to gather enough information to really understand how that rare condition works and how it might interfere with treatments and other uh comorbidities. For example, people probably people in that specific case because they are dealing with a supposed experts would be less lenient in terms of, I mean, not holding them responsible, particularly if something bad happens because of that.

16:43 Katarina Kovačević: Yes. Um Yes, that's, that's a very important what you're saying. Um I see two relevant things there in your example, one is um the responsibility that comes with the obligations with the roles. So we can talk about the normative expectations of certain roles. So um like doctors, lawyers or some certain um roles in the society that are connected to some certain behaviors. And we expect more, more uh from a doctor, especially in this situation than of some person who is not an expert in the field and didn't oblige to help others and similar. The other relevant factor that I see there is mostly when we talk about health and especially in this situation where there is a serious rare disease we talk about a very severe outcomes. Um And this is something, this effect of severity of the outcome is something that has been studied. Um um IN some other context, um uh when, for example, negligence. Um AND it, it does make a difference, people ascribe more moral blame uh for agents who uh who produce more severe um outcomes. Um But in this context, when we talk about ignorant agents who didn't get informed and some, some bad happened. Um Then that, that's a factor that I would, I would uh like to uh to investigate in some of my future experiments. What my intuition about it uh is now is that people are um computing the the utilities and maybe this now sounds uh sounds weird but maybe this is the behavioral economist side of me. Um But I believe that people do um um consider uh the benefits, cost costs and benefits. Um And this case, when um the potential harm is so severe, then um the ratio between uh the cost for the agent who needs to put some effort is still lower than the cost. Um The uh of uh of the agent who would suffer uh from uh the lack of this prevention. So, in this case, um the more severe the outcome is I believe that people hold more expectations from agents to check the relevant information. Um I cannot claim this as for my, from my data, but this is my my, my strong intuition about this. Um So let's see, maybe some uh next time I can, I can give you a empirical answer to that question. Um But yeah, this, this is what I uh what I think uh for now.

19:35 Ricardo Lopes: So uh we'll get back to outcomes in a second. But let me just ask you one relate relevant information because I was just thinking about what people usually consider relevant information to be. I mean, of course, we would have to look perhaps at specific cases, specific examples. But for example, going back to the case of, I mean, relevant information, what if for some reason, the person cannot have access to particular kinds of relevant information or if what people think is relevant information is not even there because for example, we don't know enough about a particular disease. It has not been studied enough, there are particular aspects of it that we don't know about yet. So, uh I mean, uh basically, what I'm trying to understand is uh what people tend to consider relevant information basically.

20:44 Katarina Kovačević: Oh yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, 11 thing that I would like to mention here is that um the factor that I was uh I was uh talking about previously is this opportunity to learn. And of course, there is no opportunity to get some information. Um Even the doctor wouldn't be uh found responsible if there is just no, the medicine did not develop to the extent that could help a person or there is no medication available in a certain context. And uh of course, in this case, situations when there is no opportunity to act differently and then the the relevant quant factuals are about some external factors, right? But this question, what is the relevant information? Uh I mean, I'm gonna get a bit uh theoretical but when I talk about what the relevant information is, I talk about information that has the power to change the outcome. OK. Um And that's true what you say that it's not always obvious what type of information uh could change the outcome, right? Especially if you're a doctor and you need to uh check for multiple options, then you don't know exactly which information would answer your questions. But if we talk about um some other interpersonal relations, uh for example, um you want to take a car of your sibling um that you share um the relevant information would be, does my sibling need the car for today? Um And um you would call, call them to check um about this. So, uh sometimes what is the relevant information is very obvious uh such as in the case of um checking what reading the parking sign and reading if the spot is, is reserved or not, can you park there or not? And the relevant information is yes or no, right? Uh Because that could change the course of the outcome if a person, uh, who needs this space cannot park there. Right. Uh, BUT, uh, I mean, I, I agree in some situations, um, what is relevant to be known, uh, is not so obvious. Yeah, that's

23:03 Ricardo Lopes: true. Yeah. And going back to the outcomes because we've already talked here about how, uh, if it's a severe outcome, people usually tend to ascribe more responsibility to the person. But what if, uh, people get a good outcome even if they didn't hold, uh, uh, the relevant information that it was just a good outcome basically by chance. Do, does that matter to people or not?

23:39 Katarina Kovačević: Mhm. Um, BUT do you mean there, whether a person would be responsible? Um, OR for,

23:47 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, if, in that case, so let's say that uh, they get, they got a good outcome but later people learn that it was mostly by chance because the person didn't really, uh have, uh, the relevant information. I mean, just basically did things they went into it blind, let's say, and they got a good outcome. I mean, does that matter? Do people care about that at all or not? I mean, does that over, is that more important to people than the fact that they just got a good outcome or not?

24:29 Katarina Kovačević: Um, THAT, that's a good question when we talk about responsibility, the way I define responsibility is that, uh, some certain outcome is needed because responsibility can be seen as a, um, response to something So when something happens, we can talk about who is responsible for that certain outcome. Um But there are other moral judgments that would take these uh mental states more into account. And that uh for example, um um Cushman theory, Cushman is talking about um this how for um judgments of blame and punishment outcome is, is uh what is very important and more important than when we talk about the judgment of moral wrongness, for example. So in this case, when somebody, um even when there is no negative outcome, we can still maybe not talk about whether the person is responsible because nothing bad happened, but we can talk about whether they acted morally wrongly. Um FOR not gathering the right information such as a doctor who didn't really check for some relevant conditions before giving the medication that could have produced some negative consequences. So in that case, I wouldn't talk about responsibility, but I could talk about whether it was right or wrong. Um Not to have a certain information. Um That is the case of, for example, uh drunk driving, you can be morally judged for driving drunk, even if you came home safely by pure luck, right? So we can, we can judge this action and your behavior as not being the good one, but we cannot make you responsible for an outcome that didn't happen, right? Um This is my take on this, that uh when I talk about responsibility in this case, I talk about the, the responsibility for something that happened, um, some people would maybe talk about responsibility, like, um, and that assigning responsibility to people to do certain actions, like some kind of obligations. But, um, I talk mostly about the, the responsibility for the harm that, that happened in this case but we're sure we can talk about whether the, the, the, the lack of knowledge, uh, was bad. Right.

27:01 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. Right. So let's get now into strategic ignorance since we're talking about also epistemic responsibility here. I guess that this ties very well to that. So what is strategic ignorance? Exactly.

27:17 Katarina Kovačević: Yes. So we talked about different situations in which agents are ignorant, right? And there can be multiple causes why somebody um it was left ignorant. Strategic ignorance is this specific situation uh when uh people are using as Dan and colleagues say this moral wiggle room, uh what it means it means that since we talked about how in um a lot of cases, the fact that didn't, didn't know that something bad can happen, can mitigate the responsibility. People can use this space to say, oh I didn't know such as this case with not buying a transport ticket. Oh I didn't know how to buy a transport ticket. Um So I'm I'm not responsible for um I shouldn't be punished for this, right? So strategic ignorance is ignoring some relevant information in order to run away from uh the responsibility of of your actions. Um In my case, we call it fearful ignorance, but still in these cases, um, that I mentioned to you such as a person not checking the parking sign, um, we can say that the person did that on purpose so that they are not late for their appointment because in this case, they would need to change uh the spot. Uh, THEY would need to park and lose some time. So they strategically ignore this in order not to be uh not to feel morally obliged to change their actions. That's the idea. Um Either to themselves um or to other people. So basically, to save some kind of a positive picture of themselves or they want other people to think more positively of them. So if you say, oh, I didn't know I took somebody else's spot, um It's not the same as saying, oh yeah, I, I knew that was reserved, but I didn't care. Right. Um And there are interesting experiments of, of Dan and colleagues. Um YOU know, dictator games. Um So this economic games where um you give certain um um certain um outcomes for people. If you get six points, a person will, or $6 a person will get $1. But uh if you choose to have um $5 a person will also have $5 and then you are asked to choose which outcome uh would, would you prefer? Um And basically what these type of games are testing is whether there is some kind of a uh prosocial, so whether people would uh also think about other people's welfare and not only their own, right? Um And when you show this information transparent like that, so what is the outcome for you and for the other person? Um PEOPLE in a lot of cases um are doing, choosing a prosocial answer. So choosing such as that they maximize or optimize the developer for the other person. So what they would rather choose, rather choose five for both than six for them and one for the other person. But what's interesting is that if you cover um what is the outcome for the other person? And you say it's 50% chance that it's either one or five. Um So a person who chooses, doesn't know what would be the possible outcome for the other person. And then the question is um they, the people have the opportunity to cover, to uncover this and to learn what would be the outcome for the other person. So they have this like uh reveal, reveal part, the a lot of people they don't choose to reveal, that's the thing. Uh LESS than 60% percent of um of people choose to reveal what would be the outcome for the other person and why they do this. So they, they con they can continue choosing more for them without feeling bad because they have some kind of a benefit of a doubt or this moral wiggle room. So you say, well, I choose more for me, but I didn't know what the other person would get and they can be, they can save their self uh self picture. And also how other people see them, they can be, they can remain perceived as, as a fair person. That that's the idea of that. Of course, if they choose to reveal, then people would choose an option that uh mostly choose the option that maximizes also the benefit for the other person. Um So this type of strategic ignorance is, is, is very interesting. Um But now in real life, some examples apart from this, not reading the parking sign and parking wherever you want are um even some like health related things like you are, you don't want to know how bad smoking actually is because uh with smoking or you don't want to learn particular information about your group that you belong to because you don't want to um think more about your group identity and reconsider it. Um And uh or for example, you don't want to see how mu how many um sugar, how much sugar your favorite drink has because you just want to continue drinking it um and similar. So people do this in, in a lot of cases that are related to others or, or just related to themselves. And um yeah, um and to be able to uh to continue with doing what they want to do but still um having some nice, some good picture about themselves. And there's also a problem with some certain ecological behaviors that people are ignoring how they affect the community. The, the, the, the, the ecology uh because changing their behavior to start recycling um et cetera can be effortful and not something that they want to change. Um Maybe some people would call this rather deliberate ignorance than strategic ignorance. So this uh terminology is sometimes a bit confusing because you have uh strategic ignorance, deliberate ignorance, skillful ignorance, uh et cetera. Maybe I would say the strategic ignorance is more concerned with this uh that relates for others to others, such as kind of this justification. Why you did something or being perceived as positive in the eyes of other people. But so maybe I would call deliberate ignorance um this um behavior that are related to your health, choices and stuff. Um Hertwig and people from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have a lot of papers on deliberate ignorance. Um And then they use this terminology. Um So, so yeah, those are some also some interesting literature to check on this topic. Who is more interested? Yeah.

34:59 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, great. So uh this will probably be my last uh question. But I would also like to get into uh perhaps some more concrete example, uh health care related example. You al you also mentioned health there. So because the there are particular cases. And I also read about this in the literature where people actually use strategic ignorance but are really a little bit more severe in terms of the possible outcomes. It can have, I mean, people, when they read about it, many people think, oh my God, why would people do that? So when it comes to, for example, uh, sexually transmitted infections or ST s, there are actually cases where people, I mean, they might think that they might have been exposed to an ST I, and they might have got it but they don't want to get tested, uh, in that particular case and sometimes it might be something very serious like A I DS or something like that. So, uh, a and in that particular case, I guess that people find it a bit weird, that kind of literature because, uh, I mean, if it's, for example, uh, tobacco use or if you're, uh, consuming too much su sugar, people might think that, ok, that's not great, but at least you're not affecting other people or potentially harming other people. It's just yourself. But in that particular case, I mean, there's a very big potential there that you will be harming other people. And in that specific, I mean, it, it could be the case that in a particular case you were exposed accidentally an sti, I mean, it could have not been transmitted sexually and you didn't know at all. And so that's a different thing. But if you think that you might have got it, then, I mean, that's completely different, right? So why, why, why do people do that? Exactly.

37:14 Katarina Kovačević: That's a great, uh, comment. Now I can get a bit more personal as to why did they choose to start working on this topic? That is not exactly the example that you mentioned, but, um, how this question of how much should we know? How much should we check? How much should we care of not affecting other people? All these questions were always some kind of my interest. Um AND this concern for others. But when we talk about health, it especially arose when I moved to Austria. So I disclaimer, I moved to Austria in the time of COVID. So 2021 and in Austria, the lockdown measures, the COVID testing measures were very severe. So I moved from Serbia where PC R tests were not possible to be done by your own choice. Only if you have symptoms, if you wanted to do it just to check if you maybe were exposed, uh or you think that uh you were exposed or similar, you needed to pay €60 let's say then I moved to Austria where testing is the easiest thing ever. You just do it at your home. It's for free. You can do it every day at the time when I moved. And then I felt obliged to do the test almost every day because I felt, what is the justification of not doing the test it for free? It's easy. There is no reason not to do it. So I felt even a bit obsessed with, with this because I felt so responsible to check, right? Um And then I was asking this question. So why do I feel like this, you know how this moving change these expectations for myself so much? And um and yeah, I mean, this kind of a, um, um, thinking that maybe you are, uh, you have the disease or similar can be translated to the example that, that you mentioned. And indeed this uh, question of transmissible sexually transmissible diseases is very, very important. Um, AND I think I'm not sure, uh, we could ask legal um, practitioners but, uh, that even transmitting, uh, transmitting some serious, uh, sexually transmittable diseases is, um, is illegal if not to, to, to dis, to disclose that you have them, right? Um, SO it's a very serious problem. Um And, um, of course, here we have the similar, um, motivation for not checking, which is, um, in case of some uh transmittable diseases, um, is that you want to continue, um, doing what you want, um, which is having some, some, some pleasure and you don't want to talk about that. You don't want to maybe stop for some time, uh, and similar. Um, AND then this, there is this strategic motivation I'm not gonna check because then I can continue doing what I'm doing. Um, AND I don't feel so guilty about it. Right. The other part of that, um, that doesn't include this lack of care for others, which I would say it's a lack of care for others if you, um, have a serious suspicion, especially that you could be, um, infected, but you don't check the other part of that, um, is connected with the emotional regulation, which is also a case with some other diseases. Um THAT people don't want to know if they are sick. Uh So even if they have some symptoms, they are afraid of some um some negative information, especially if you, if, if some very serious transmittable diseases are in question that you may feel uh afraid to learn uh that you have some of them. Um And this fear is stopping you from, from checking. Um But of course, I mean, what my research would say about that is that um if there is some reason to, to be suspicious, especially and uh if you have um and a sufficient care for others that uh it is expected like that you would have have checked, especially if it's uh if it's available to you. But since if we talk about something very serious, then I get to go back to my question. People would consider the utility and if it's uh it's an important uh topic as such here, transmittable diseases, you could put a bit more effort uh to find out whether you have something that could harm others.

42:09 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. A and in the particular case of, uh, STIs, for example. And in the law, II, I mean, of course, I'm not a law expert or anything like that and I don't know the laws of different countries but I would imagine just intuitively, uh, someone simply suspecting that they might have been infected and not testing, uh, in the eyes of the law would be different than actually having tested and know for sure that you have the disease and still continue on with the behavior and infecting other people. Because in the first case, you might still have some plausible deniability. Right.

42:53 Katarina Kovačević: Yes. Um Yes, that's true. And as far as I know, as I think, I know, um this, uh I like um punishment, uh like legal punishment for that behavior is only in the case if you know. Um But since I was working on this case of beautiful ignorance, I was reading a lot even about some uh philosophy of law and some law articles. And in some cases, some philosophers even claim um that in some cases, the willful ignorance can be perceived similarly to knowledge. Uh BECAUSE in, in view of the mens rea which is this guilty mind and if there was a sufficient suspicion. Yeah. Um, DID that you could have checked, that could be also punishable. I think it depends on the country on the legal system. It's a question whether it's just like, um, now some kind of a open discussion, I'm not sure exactly about this because again, I'm not a legal practitioner just interested in this topic. So, uh, I come, uh, to read some, some certain stuff like this. Um, BUT, uh, yeah, in some cases being, um, having a reasonable suspicion, such in this case is your three ex partners of yours told you that they have HPV, uh, or you have some certain symptoms of it. I'm not sure how this particular case would be treated in the legal system. Um uh OR uh when we talk about um some, some other diseases. Um BUT uh but that, that um this reasonable suspicion can sometimes be even enough. Um Yeah, maybe not in this health context but in some other context when you're harming others or killing someone extent. Um AND it's similar, maybe in these cases, this having enough reasons to be suspicious could, could lead to more severe judgments. Yes.

45:10 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. The only reason why I brought that distinction to the table between actually knowing that you have the disease and just suspecting that you might have it, but not really testing is that psychologically speaking and from the perspective of psychology and cognitive science, perhaps uh for people who actually do not care about harming others and just want to go on having fun or something like that, then in the case where they don't test, I, I mean, in their own self interest. Uh, IT would be better for them because that, because then they would, if they are ready, do not care about harming others, then adding to that they would have more plausible deniability because I didn't even actually test it. So I didn't know

46:08 Katarina Kovačević: that the idea of this moral wiggle room and that was strategic, strategic ignorance is using this fact that sometimes not knowing, uh is mitigating your moral judgment towards you. And you're using this moral wiggle room of not saying, oh, I didn't know exactly that's the problem. But what I want to claim there is that, well, that's, that's not always the excuse, you know, maybe we're supposed to know, maybe we're supposed to care more and then if you cared more, then you will know. And uh yeah, some, some philosophers would agree with this. Um um BECAUSE what we do sometimes is as moral psychologist, we um can take some, some notions from, from philosophy, some uh prescriptive theories and then test them empirically. And um some people do talk about the quality of y and uh this uh recognizing whether the agent uh had uh in consideration the, the, the welfare of others, even if come to produce some negative outcomes. Um They, they would be not judged as blame, very irresponsible. Um Yeah, so um yeah, II I want to, to study this more in my future research, this for sociality and care for others. Um And how it influences some certain decisions that we make and certain expectations uh from people. Um Yeah, I think it's important to take other people into because I mean, that's my personal value. I would say uh taking some other people in the consideration when you make certain decisions and then to see what, to what extent it is, uh it is reasonable to what extent people uh people think it is reasonable. Um Yeah, let's, let's say like that.

48:05 Ricardo Lopes: Ok, great. So let's leave it. Uh Let's leave that as perhaps a teaser for a possible future conversation once you've finished your phd. So just before we go, would you like to tell people where they can find you and your work on the internet?

48:23 Katarina Kovačević: Um Yes. So we recently published a preprint that um is um called, you should have checked and uh the importance of epistemic intentions in description of responsibility um with my co authors, Francesca Bonna Lomi and Christoph Heinz, my supervisor. Um Also you can find me on the Aces um like the Cards Aces uh page uh at CEO, which is the, the name of my lab. Um um So, so yeah, um those are some, some places you can find me and there you can see my email address on the CEO website. Um So yes, if you, if you have any questions, please feel free to, to uh to uh email me. Yeah, for sure. Or always on linkedin, you can find me. So I'm, I'm on multiple locations.

49:17 Ricardo Lopes: Ok, great. So Luke Karin, thank you so much again for taking the time to come on the show. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much.

49:26 Katarina Kovačević: Thanks.

49:28 Ricardo Lopes: Ok, great. So Luke Karin, thank you so much again for taking the time to come on the show. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Thank you for watching this interview. Until the end. If you like what I'm doing, please consider supporting the show on Patreon or paypal. You can find the links in the description box down below and if you like the interview, please share it, leave a like hit the subscription button and comment. The show is brought to you by N Lights learning and development and differently check their website at N lights.com. I would also like to give a huge thank you to my main patrons and paypal supporters, Pero Larson, Jerry Mueller and Frederick Sunder Bernard. So all of Alex Adam, Castle Matthew Whittenberg, Arno Wolf, Tim Hollis, Eric Alan J con Philip Forrest Connolly. Then the mere Robert Windier ruin. Nai Z Mark Nebs Colin hope Mikel Storm Andre Francis for the Agn Fergal Ken Harl hero, Jonathan lebron and Eric Heinz Mark Smith Hummels are friends, David Wr Ro Romani Charlotte, Bli Nicolo, Barbaro, Adam hunt Palo Stassi, Nele Bach Guy, Madison, Gary G Hellman, Samo Zal, Adrian Yi Paul Tolentino. Julian Price Edward Hall, Eden Bruner Douglas Fre Franco Bartolo Gabriel Pan Cortez or Lalit Scott Zachary Fish, Tim Duffy and Smith John Wiesman, Daniel Friedman, William Buckner, Paul Georgina, L Lo A Georges, Theo Chris Williams and Peter W David Williams the Costa Anton Erickson Charles Murray, Alex Shower, Marie Martinez, Coralie Chevalier, Bangalore atheists, Larry D Lee Junior, Old Harri Bon Starry Michael Bailey. Then Sperber, Robert Grass is a Jeff mcmahon, Jake Zul Barnabas Radix Mark Temple, Thomas Dubner, Luke Neeson, Chris to Kimberley Johnson, Benjamin GALT, Jessica Nowicki Linda Brandon, Nicholas Carlson, Ismael Bensley Man, George Kiss Valentin Steinman, Per Rowley, Kate Von Goler, Alexander Robert Liam Donaway br Masoud Ali Mohammadi Perpendicular, Jonas Herner, Ursula. Good enough, Gregory Hastings David Pins of Sean Nelson and Mike Levin. A special thanks to my producers is our web, Jim Frank Luca Stefi, Tom Ween, Bernard Yugi Cortes Dixon Benedict Muller Thomas Trumble, Catherine and Patrick Tobin, John Carl Montenegro, Alick Ortiz and Nick Golden. And to my executive producers, Matthew Lavender, Sergi, Adriano Bogdan Knits and Rosie. Thank you for all