Willful ignorance

Willful ignorance is the practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs; deliberately restricting one's knowledge due to an aversion to particular facts. In law, when knowledge of a certain fact is an element of a crime, the jury may find that someone who is willfully ignorant of that fact has the requisite knowledge of it. Willful ignorance is to be distinguished from rational ignorance, which is simply a decision not to acquire certain knowledge because the cost of acquiring such knowledge is believed to outweigh the benefit of such knowledge

## See also[edit]

* Deliberate ignorance
* Fallacy of invincible ignorance