Thanks for this. I think that we should probably be investigating metaethics much more than it generally seems to be investigated (based on my view that conclusions in metaethics seem like they could be hugely important, mitigated by the fact that conclusions seem very hard to come by).
I’m not sure I fully understand the claim about population ethics. Is it that population ethics necessarily speculates about things outside of our experience, therefore it’s harder to make correct judgements? Or is it a stronger conclusion than that (perhaps, we can’t make any judgements at all?). Do you think we might be more likely than random to be right about population axiology, or do we have no guidance at all?
Yes, thanks for clarifying. I believe that it is necessarily harder to make correct judgements in the domain of population ethics. My stronger claim is that any such judgements, even if correct, only carry force as mediated through our ‘call to universality’ meta-emotion. Hence, even if we have the right population axiology, this likely should not over-ride our more mundane moral intuitions.
Thanks for this. I think that we should probably be investigating metaethics much more than it generally seems to be investigated (based on my view that conclusions in metaethics seem like they could be hugely important, mitigated by the fact that conclusions seem very hard to come by).
I’m not sure I fully understand the claim about population ethics. Is it that population ethics necessarily speculates about things outside of our experience, therefore it’s harder to make correct judgements? Or is it a stronger conclusion than that (perhaps, we can’t make any judgements at all?). Do you think we might be more likely than random to be right about population axiology, or do we have no guidance at all?
Yes, thanks for clarifying. I believe that it is necessarily harder to make correct judgements in the domain of population ethics. My stronger claim is that any such judgements, even if correct, only carry force as mediated through our ‘call to universality’ meta-emotion. Hence, even if we have the right population axiology, this likely should not over-ride our more mundane moral intuitions.