Abstract
A plausible view in the literature on the epistemic condition of blameworthiness is the
Reasonable Expectation View (RE). According to RE, whether ignorance excuses an agent from
deserving blame is a matter of whether the agent could have reasonably been expected to have
avoided or corrected the ignorance. This paper does not take up the task of defending this view, but
instead examines what it implies for an interesting type of ignorance: moral or political ignorance
rooted in myside bias. With the prevalence of increasing political polarization, it is worth examining
what a plausible view like RE implies about when, if ever, myside bias-based ignorance excuses the
agent from blame—from deserving resentment or indignation. To assess this issue, the paper
examines the empirical literature on what it takes to mitigate myside bias and then takes the United
States as a case study to examine what RE implies for the actual non-ideal circumstances many
agents are in. The paper argues that RE has two revisionary implications for our practice of blame.
First, the paper argues that RE implies that political or moral ignorance rooted in myside bias is
currently an excuse in a surprising number of cases. Second, our epistemic position to know whether
a given instance of political or moral ignorance is excusing is often inadequate.