(I’m posting this as a separate comment for clarity)
I think it is important to state just how different CHA is from impartial consequentialism. I read your text as claiming that this is obviously what impartial consequentialism is under constraint (for example based on your “There is no option to avoid making choices, so complaining about having to do it imperfectly would go nowhere.” and “we are not so much given a possibility to be (kind of) rational in our choices as forced to apply the limited degree of rationality that’s available.”) The problem is if (1) that’s still the thing we cared about, (2) if it actually works and (3) if we are actually forced into it.
Limiting impartial consequentialism to a subset is fundamentally different from true impartial consequentialism, not just an imperfect way of doing it. Going from “Increasing welfare on balance” to “increasing welfare in a proper subset while knowing that the effect is indeterminate on balance” is a huge leap to me. I’m sympathetic to the latter one too but that requires independent motivations (like virtue). The whole deal with impartial consequentialism is doing good on balance so losing that is significant.
I don’t think it works as cleanly as you state it. See my other comment on bracketing.
There definitely are places to go besides nowhere (that is to say that we are not forced into CHA to get action guidance): other normative views and limited versions of impartial consequentialism motivated by reasons besides “nowhere else to go”. See TDB (very similar concept to CHA but in the overview Clifton is clear that it is a distinct theory from consequentialism as opposed to just obviously what clueless consequentialists are supposed to do), MNB, LF and possibly some other entries in the competition.
(I’m posting this as a separate comment for clarity)
I think it is important to state just how different CHA is from impartial consequentialism. I read your text as claiming that this is obviously what impartial consequentialism is under constraint (for example based on your “There is no option to avoid making choices, so complaining about having to do it imperfectly would go nowhere.” and “we are not so much given a possibility to be (kind of) rational in our choices as forced to apply the limited degree of rationality that’s available.”) The problem is if (1) that’s still the thing we cared about, (2) if it actually works and (3) if we are actually forced into it.
Limiting impartial consequentialism to a subset is fundamentally different from true impartial consequentialism, not just an imperfect way of doing it. Going from “Increasing welfare on balance” to “increasing welfare in a proper subset while knowing that the effect is indeterminate on balance” is a huge leap to me. I’m sympathetic to the latter one too but that requires independent motivations (like virtue). The whole deal with impartial consequentialism is doing good on balance so losing that is significant.
I don’t think it works as cleanly as you state it. See my other comment on bracketing.
There definitely are places to go besides nowhere (that is to say that we are not forced into CHA to get action guidance): other normative views and limited versions of impartial consequentialism motivated by reasons besides “nowhere else to go”. See TDB (very similar concept to CHA but in the overview Clifton is clear that it is a distinct theory from consequentialism as opposed to just obviously what clueless consequentialists are supposed to do), MNB, LF and possibly some other entries in the competition.