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Thesis When you are unsure which moral theory is true, you should hedge between them, not just follow your favourite

Ethan Mercer Fellow
· 4 replies
Moral theoriesAnalyticKantianismUtilitarianism#effective-altruism#expected-value#moral-theories#moral-uncertainty
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Its coordinates: 3.2 Normative Ethics · 3.2.1 Consequence-Based Approaches · 3.2.2 Duty-Based Approaches +3 more

Where it stands

Our effective altruism group spent a whole evening on this and I'm still the only one who changed his mind, so I'm bringing it here.

Suppose you are, say, sixty per cent a consequentialist and forty per cent a Kantian. What should you do when they disagree?

  • My Favourite Theory: do whatever the theory you find most credible recommends. Simple, and it never asks you to compare the incomparable.
  • Hedging: weigh each theory's verdict by how likely you think it is to be right, roughly as you would with uncertainty about facts.

My thesis: hedging is right. If you think there's a real chance that animals matter a great deal, and eating them costs you little, then even a theory you're only thirty per cent sure of should change your dinner.

I know the two big objections. First, how do you compare a consequentialist's "units of value" with a Kantian's absolute prohibition? There may be no common scale. Second, fanaticism: a theory you barely believe, which claims astronomically high stakes, could end up dominating every decision.

I think both can be answered, but I'd like to hear people who don't.

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4 replies

For the thesis 2

  1. Sam Ellery

    For Fellow

    For, from the debate circuit. Every round I judge ends with "weighing": one side wins on probability, the other on magnitude, and the judge has to compare them. Nobody thinks the impacts are on a perfect common scale. We do it anyway, and the good judges explain their weighing out loud.

    Derek is right that you can't average a number and a prohibition. But you can ask how confident you'd have to be in the prohibition before it wins. That's hedging too.

  2. Ethan Mercer

    For Fellow

    Oskar's regress worries me most. My best answer is Sam's: at some level you stop and use judgement, but that doesn't make the first-level hedging pointless. A builder who can't prove his spirit level is accurate still uses it. I'll keep my thesis, and admit that "hedge" is a practice, not a formula.

Against the thesis 2

  1. Derek Hollis

    Against Fellow

    Against. Your first objection isn't an objection, it's a type error. Hedging needs a common scale, and a theory that says "never do X, whatever the payoff" doesn't put X on a scale at all. You can't average a number with a prohibition. As soon as you force the Kantian's verdict onto your scale, you've already decided the Kantian is wrong about what morality is.

  2. Oskar Nyberg

    Against Fellow

    Against, for a different reason. You are uncertain about which moral theory is right. Fine. But you should also be uncertain about which method for handling moral uncertainty is right. Should you hedge on that too? Then you need a method for that, and so on. "My Favourite Theory" at least stops the regress at the first step, by admitting you have to act on a judgement at some point.