The Forbidden, the Doubtful and the Moral. What Could be Known but Isn't

Abstract

While it is difficult enough to develop what has been termed “negative knowledge”, that is, knowledge about the limits of knowledge (Karin Knorr-Cetina), also later in the process it continues to be a challenge to understand how to deal with these identified fields of non-knowledge. This panel will deal with such known unknowns, and present experimental methods of investigation as well as the resulting question related to the responsibility for not-knowing in moral and ethical terms: While Joanna Kempner will present her exploration and work within the territories of “forbidden knowledge” in medical science research, Jamie Allen will give insight into his artistic work and research related to “apocryphal technologies” as examples for ignorance through the false believe of being knowledgable. The ethical questions related to these and other forms of willful (that is, motivated, affected, or strategic) forms of ignorance, to what can and should have already been known, will be presented by Jan Willem Wieland. Taking new forms of slavery and our so-called slavery-footprint as an example, he will discuss the question of whether people who are willfully ignorant can be held responsible for it.