My basic worries are:
-Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
-Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
The views that I’m confident in are the ones that aren’t based on core ethical intuitions (although they overlap with my ethical intuitions), but can be deduced from things that aren’t ethical intuitions, as well as principles such as logical consistency and impartiality… I can extend on this if anyone wants me to
Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
I’d definitely be interested to hear more :)
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.
Thanks for that.
My basic worries are: -Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
-Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
I’d definitely be interested to hear more :)
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.