  One of the goals of epistemologies of ignorance is to understand the complexity of the relations of ignorance and knowledge, mapping out various kinds of ignorances and developing normative frameworks to help understand when ignorances are problematic, and when epistemic agents should be held epistemically responsible for their ignorances. Dotson notes that the ignorances to be concerned about are those that are both reliable and pernicious (harmful) (Dotson 2011). Clearly, not all forms of ignorance will be pernicious, nor will they all be avoidable. Cynthia Townley has also argued for the positive value of ignorance in our epistemic practices, recognizing that our rich relations of epistemic dependence require trust, which itself requires ignorance and a commitment to refrain from remedying it (2011, 23).  Furthermore, the specific epistemic relationships we develop with others require that certain forms of knowledge be shared with some, but not others, calling into question any idea that the only epistemic value is the acquisition of knowledge for oneself and others (Townley 2003, 2011; Grasswick 2011). Feminists have also noted the importance of “strategic ignorance” through which the oppressed can use “dominant misconceptions as a basis for active creative responses to oppression” (Bailey 2007, 88). For example, the oppressed may act in ways that conform to the expectations of their dominators, pretending to lack intelligence perhaps, allowing access to information and resources that may help them either resist or at least survive. Or the oppressed may engage in strategic “refusals to understand” when such understanding would conform to dominant constructions of their experience that undermine their agency (Pohlhaus 2011). Such work that draws attention to the complex roles of ignorance in our epistemic practices broadens the range of epistemic values under consideration beyond the acquisition of truth to include consideration of how our ignorances can at times be well placed. At the same time, it emphasizes the ethical dimensions of the epistemic relationships with others that are so crucial to our knowing capacities.