Could you have taken precautions against a risk you were unaware of? This question lies at the heart of debates in ethics and legal philosophy concerning whether it's justifiable to blame or punish those who cause harm inadvertently or out of ignorance. But the question is crucially ambiguous, depending on what is understood to be inside or outside the scope of the ‘could’. And this ambiguity undermines a number of arguments purporting to show that inadvertent wrongdoers cannot justifiably be blamed or punished. While not all opposition to blaming or punishing inadvertent wrongdoers rests on this ambiguity, some certainly does. And getting clear on this ambiguity is important if we're to sort good arguments against blaming and punishing inadvertent wrongdoers—if there are any—from bad ones.

中文翻译：

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您能否采取预防措施来应对您没有意识到的风险？这个问题是伦理学和法学哲学辩论的核心，关于责备或惩罚那些无意或无知造成伤害的人是否合理。但这个问题非常模棱两可，这取决于人们理解为在“可能”范围之内或之外的内容。而这种模棱两可的性点削弱了许多论点，这些论点旨在表明，无意的过错者不能被合理地指责或惩罚。虽然并非所有反对指责或惩罚无意中的过错者都基于这种模棱两可，但有些人肯定是这样。如果我们要区分好的论点来反对指责和惩罚无意的过错者（如果有的话）和坏的论点，那么弄清楚这种歧义是很重要的。