Lame parody.* My view is more like: we can reasonably expect that the inventor of the paperclip increased the number of paperclip-shaped structures that ever exist. Arguments to the contrary (according to which, e.g., nobody can reasonably expect new paperclip factories to more likely increase than decrease net paperclip production) rely on epistemic principles that would appear to rule out almost all contestable beliefs (including all philosophical beliefs).
* Edited to add: itās especially lame since I wrote an entire section distinguishing āepistemic difficultyā from cluelessness, which (if you bothered to read it) should have made clear both my sympathy for many everyday doubts, and why such doubts are no reason to embrace more radical claims of cluelessness.
Hi Richardāāit was a joke; my apologies. I enjoyed your post. The serious point is this: If someone asked us for advice on a project they felt clueless about, and then explained that the project involved determining which actions best promote a goal across the entire future, the common-sense reply would be āOh, well.ā Iād argue that if we turned out to be clueless about what the consequentialist part of morality requires of us, that should not come as a huge surprise. I agree that epistemic difficulty need not amount to cluelessness, but Iām less sure than you that it doesnāt here. There are good reasons to think that building paperclip factories increases paperclips locally; once we ask about the total across the long-run future, however, we can have a long and disturbing debate about where the balance of reasons points.
Lame parody.* My view is more like: we can reasonably expect that the inventor of the paperclip increased the number of paperclip-shaped structures that ever exist. Arguments to the contrary (according to which, e.g., nobody can reasonably expect new paperclip factories to more likely increase than decrease net paperclip production) rely on epistemic principles that would appear to rule out almost all contestable beliefs (including all philosophical beliefs).
* Edited to add: itās especially lame since I wrote an entire section distinguishing āepistemic difficultyā from cluelessness, which (if you bothered to read it) should have made clear both my sympathy for many everyday doubts, and why such doubts are no reason to embrace more radical claims of cluelessness.
Hi Richardāāit was a joke; my apologies. I enjoyed your post. The serious point is this: If someone asked us for advice on a project they felt clueless about, and then explained that the project involved determining which actions best promote a goal across the entire future, the common-sense reply would be āOh, well.ā Iād argue that if we turned out to be clueless about what the consequentialist part of morality requires of us, that should not come as a huge surprise. I agree that epistemic difficulty need not amount to cluelessness, but Iām less sure than you that it doesnāt here. There are good reasons to think that building paperclip factories increases paperclips locally; once we ask about the total across the long-run future, however, we can have a long and disturbing debate about where the balance of reasons points.