Antonia found an intervention that reduces overall animal suffering in the near-term, but she’s not sure which is true between
L) the long-term effects dominate, but I don’t know what they overall imply, and I can’t ignore them (so I’m clueless).
N) neartermism thanks to bracketing out the long-term effects (so I should intervene).
Brian comes along and says he agrees with the above and subdivides L, this way:
L) the long-term effects dominate, but he doesn’t know what they overall imply, and he can’t ignore them (so he’s clueless).
L1) same, but he trusts his longtermist best guess that the intervention is bad, assuming pure negative utilitarianism (so he should not intervene).
L2) same but assuming negative-leaning utilitarianism (so he should not intervene).
L3) he trusts his longtermist best guess that the intervention is good, assuming classical utilitarianism (so he should intervene).
N) neartermism thanks to bracketing out the long-term effects (so he should intervene).
Antonia shares Brian’s above best guesses and normative uncertainty. They both totally agree. The only difference is that Brian specified normative sub-views.
Now, say Nuutti joins the party, agrees with these two, but recategorizes things this way:
L1) stubborn precise EV despite imprecision arguments + negative utilitarianism (we should not intervene)
O) all other plausible normative views (in sum, we’re clueless)
The MNB sceptic would say that Antonia grouping L1-3 together to form L is just as arbitrary as Nuutti grouping L2, L3, and N together to form O.[1]
Is your response: The former seems less arbitrary because
L1-3 share key epistemic principles and/or decision theory that make L an actual normative view (even though the moral theory part is imprecise). In contrast, L2, L3, and N have nothing in common, normatively that justifies grouping them against L1. It’d be too arbitrary to consider N + L2 + L3 as a normative view.
Normative views seem to be the most legitimate units to bracket over (e.g., more legit than empirical views). Making a comprehensive case for/against this would be nice, but I give some reasons for, in this section.
(Tangential but I guess from the above that you think the following is not another example where MNB is sensitive to the individuation of normative views, and I’d like to understand why. Nw at all if you don’t have the time to reply, tho.)
Antonia found an intervention that reduces overall animal suffering in the near-term, but she’s not sure which is true between
L) the long-term effects dominate, but I don’t know what they overall imply, and I can’t ignore them (so I’m clueless).
N) neartermism thanks to bracketing out the long-term effects (so I should intervene).
Brian comes along and says he agrees with the above and subdivides L, this way:
L) the long-term effects dominate, but he doesn’t know what they overall imply, and he can’t ignore them (so he’s clueless).
L1) same, but he trusts his longtermist best guess that the intervention is bad, assuming pure negative utilitarianism (so he should not intervene).
L2) same but assuming negative-leaning utilitarianism (so he should not intervene).
L3) he trusts his longtermist best guess that the intervention is good, assuming classical utilitarianism (so he should intervene).
N) neartermism thanks to bracketing out the long-term effects (so he should intervene).
Antonia shares Brian’s above best guesses and normative uncertainty. They both totally agree. The only difference is that Brian specified normative sub-views.
Now, say Nuutti joins the party, agrees with these two, but recategorizes things this way:
L1) stubborn precise EV despite imprecision arguments + negative utilitarianism (we should not intervene)
O) all other plausible normative views (in sum, we’re clueless)
The MNB sceptic would say that Antonia grouping L1-3 together to form L is just as arbitrary as Nuutti grouping L2, L3, and N together to form O.[1]
Is your response: The former seems less arbitrary because
L1-3 share key epistemic principles and/or decision theory that make L an actual normative view (even though the moral theory part is imprecise). In contrast, L2, L3, and N have nothing in common, normatively that justifies grouping them against L1. It’d be too arbitrary to consider N + L2 + L3 as a normative view.
Normative views seem to be the most legitimate units to bracket over (e.g., more legit than empirical views). Making a comprehensive case for/against this would be nice, but I give some reasons for, in this section.
With the consequentist-bracketing version of the individuation problem I present here, the bracketer can appeal to a “only value locations that have been identified can be bracketed in” principle. This saves them if this principle is sound. Here, this doesn’t save them. The normative theories have been identified in both cases.