Sure you can: a classic XOR one-time pad has no authentication and it's the definition of confidentiality-preserving.
It's true that malleability makes it easier to attack certain protocols which can then result in a loss of the confidentiality property. Your padding oracle example is a case in point, and there's seldom a reason to avoid an authenticated encryption mode for a message that's sitting inside a TCP packet.
On the other hand, sometimes malleability is a desirable property, and authentication is harmful. The APCO Project 25 radio standard, intended for use in the mobile radio world, has encryption as an option. The priority is to maintain confidentiality and to degrade gracefully in a hostile RF environment.
Encryption is applied after error-correcting codes using OFB mode, and so effects of interference apply bitwise within the data stream on decryption. An authenticating mode would be a disaster as a single bit error would result in the loss of an entire transmission.