… a term used in law to describe a situation in which a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting him or herself in a position where he or she will be unaware of facts that would render him or her liable.
Another Margaret Heffernan TED Talk based her book Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril. People sometimes avoid conflict by going out of their way not to know information that is ethically questionable. Whistleblowers are a unique breed of people who care so much about an institution they want to save it through their actions.
P.S. The other Heffernan TED Talk video I posted is Dare to disagree posted last week.