When it's physically hard to do something and people fail are they responsible for that failure? I'm not super tall. If I tried to dunk a basketball and failed, am I responsible and to blame for that failure? Typically, we'd say "no." Though it was possible for me to dunk the basketball with a lot of hard work, it was, well, hard. The difficulty of the task lessens my responsibility for not achieving the dunk. We'd likely blame my genetics for the failure, despite all my effort.

That's physical difficulty. But what about intellectual difficulty? When it's tough to uncover a truth does that make us not culpable for our ignorance? Does that mean we're not blameworthy for an immoral act done from such ignorance?

A Puzzling Case

Imagine that someone kidnapped my friend and locked her in a box without much fresh air. She only has about 20 minutes until she uses up the fresh air and dies. After locking up my friend the kidnapper texts me a complicated puzzle. The correct answer to the puzzle is a series of numbers that unlocks the box my friend is trapped in.

Immediately after receiving the text I begin working on the puzzle.  I complete all the steps in the puzzle, but I make a mental mistake in a calculation, and I end up one number off from the correct code to unlock the box. My friend dies. 

Am I morally responsible for the death of my friend? Given that I could have saved her life and I failed to do so because it was intellectually difficult, though not impossible, to complete the puzzle, am I (somewhat) blameworthy for the death of my friend?

What About Moral Ignorance?

What about when the ignorance that results in a bad outcome was not a correct answer to a math puzzle but a false belief about the morality of an action? The classic example is the ancient slaveholder. 

The ancient slaveholder falsely believed that keeping slaves was morally okay. It was possible for the slaveholder to discover the truth about the immorality of slavery, but most people in that culture believed slave-keeping was morally okay. Does the fact that it was hard to find the moral truth relieve the ancient slaveholder of moral responsibility for keeping slaves?

Conclusion

What do you think about these cases--dunking the basketball, getting your friend out of the box, and the ancient slaveholder? 

If you think there's a difference in responsibility between the physical and mental cases, what explains that difference? Why do you have a more stringent standard when it comes to the intellectual realm--a realm many think it harder to control?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments below, if you're so moved.