To judge someone responsible for a bad action, one must think that at the time of action they knew they had decisive reason not to perform it, or that their ignorance resulted from a prior bad action done in full knowledge of every pertinent fact or norm
Prior bad action(in ethics and moral responsibility)
A wrong thing someone did earlier that caused them to be in the situation where they now lack important information.
Responsible(in ethics and moral philosophy)
Able to be fairly blamed or held accountable for something you did, usually because you had control over your actions and understood what you were doing.
ignorance('Abd al-Latif's characterization of ignorance as inhuman)
A life without the search for truth, in which man acts like a beast
knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.)
Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.
What must you think in order to judge that Bill, for example, is responsible for lying to his wife? You must think that at the time of action, either he knew that he had decisive reason not to lie, or if he did not know this, that his ignorance was the upshot of some prior bad action done in full knowledge of every pertinent fact or norm. You must think, in other words, that his bad action either is, or derives from, an episode of genuine, full-strength akrasia.