I have been thinking about this for a while, but I was having a conversation with my uncle who is some sort of an executive for a real estate bank, mainly concerned with buying securities.

I was talking with him about the economic collapse and he said something along the lines of "in no way was the financial collapse caused by the banking sector" (government and poor people ldo). I didn't say it, but I was thinking that he is willfully ignorant. Meaning, rather than accept the truth (that his sector should accept some responsibility for the recession), he chose to believe something comforting to him, i.e. that it is all someone else's fault.

I don't know if that is a good definition of "willfully ignorant," but I've heard the term batted around a bit lately, and have been wondering if it really exists at all, or if there is a difference between willfully ignorant and just regular old ignorant.

I'd say the amount it is real is shown in personal relationships extremely well. How often have you known a friend, yourself, etc., becoming so entrenched in ideals about their spouse/friends/family despite knowing that its not true.
The love they feel overwhelms any bad feelings.
Maybe its not universal but i know i've done it, and I know many couples who live under the delusion.

Case in point- in a couple i knew the wife was in a long term affair, but still loved her husband and wanted to stay in the relationship. She was bat**** terrible at keeping it secret though- the husband clearly knew it was going on; he'd make up excuses to avoid arguments where he knew the truth would come out for example. Then one day he caught them at it (luckily they were just in a restaurant... not doing the dirty) but then the situation was too obvious to avoid. A divorce later and much unhappiness followed.

Willful ignorance has a lot of truth.
I see no problem in translating it into non personal relationships. See it happening all the time. Do need to make a difference between willful ignorance and flat out stubborn people who know they are wrong, but hold the opinion for all debates and actions in life.
Big difference imho

Co

I think the exact term is confirmation bias. Or it could be selective perception.

Yes, willful ignorance exists.

It is a bit different than what you are describing though. You are describing making a questionable interpretation of the data.

Willful ignorance is purposefully refusing to look at the data at all. Ostrich head in sand technique, basically.

Regular old ignorance is just not knowing something.

What your uncle is doing is interpreting the data in a way that you disagree with. That is a completely different thing.

So a willfully ignorant person chooses to inform himself (hate to use any examples now) with, say, Alex Jones, or whatever, and a regular ignorant person just doesn't inform himself at all?

Should have left example out of op. It had just happened so it was fresh in my mind.

Examples are always good. It makes it easier to understand what you are trying to say.

Being willfully ignorant has a very special meaning. It isn't choosing sources (fox vs. msbc) or even refusing to consider oposing ideas.

It is just refusing to look at data that is readily available that would force you to act or change your mind if you had looked.

A classic example would be making sure to not come home early if you had reason to suspect that that your wife were doing the milk man. You are making sure (willfully) that you don't see the data (wife doing milk man).

Refusing to consider an argument is a different thing.

So then wouldn't all ignorant people be willfully ignorant as well, being as almost everyone has internet access--access to near all of the worlds information?

"Willful" implies more than that.

It requires that you are going out of your way to avoid the data on purpose just to avoid knowledge that would be inconvenient for you.

Maybe he was implying that generalizing the guilt from the real perps to the sector of economy is not the best thing?

I don't know what you are trying to say, but again, why I shouldn't have tried to use an example.

I think the problem is your op asks a question in such a way that I thought the emphasis was on your uncle.
If this is not the case, several google searches have a answer you need. example:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Willful_ignorance

yes. lots of people lie to themselves all the time and live in a fantasy world. i know many such people and they piss me off.

Let say your in smallish friendly Bridge tournament where people do not as a rule bother the director much.

Your deep into defending a Bridge hand.

You need partner to have the settling trick in hearts or diamonds, however you don't know which. If you guess wrong declare will clear up the rest of the tricks.

Your partner started with 4 hearts and five diamonds. So there is arguable a slightly better chance you he has a big diamond. However you have a hunch he has the winning heart, what do you do?

The ethical approach would be to consider the situation more deeply, realise your feeling is due to the way partner hesitated when hearts were lead earlier in the hand. Now you can't take advantage of illegal information from partner, so you resignedly lead a diamond.

The cheating approach would be to consider the situation more deeply, realise your feeling is due to the way partner hesitated when hearts were lead earlier in the hand. Now knowing what is happening you can lead the heart with confidence.

The wilful ignorance approach is to quickly lead a heart and not think too deeply about it, in case you realise something you would rather not know. However you have been here many times before, so you could have a pretty good guess as to what is going on.

It is my current view that religion is an example of willful ignorance. Quite a lot of people are religious, so yes... willful ignorance is a real thing.

Edit: by "religion" I guess I mean "believing in supernatural things to do with religion" (e.g. God, reurrection of Jesus etc)

That is just wishful thinking. Or, to be more kind and reasonable, just a different interpretation of things that includes a bit of wishful thinking.

Of course a person who believes in supernatural things can also exhibit willful ignorance. I think for it to be willful ignorance, you have requirements that (1) you'd believe differently if you looked at the data, (2) you know that (1) is true, and (3) don't look at the available information because of (1) and (2).

Not being smart enough to think about things, or getting your understanding of the world from the wrong sort of people, or simply being ignorant of available information isn't sufficient.

It has to be a conscious decision to be willful.