So if we take as given that I am at 53% and Alice is at 45% that gives me some reason to do longtermist outreach, and gives Alice some reason to try to stop me, perhaps by making moral trades with me that get more of what we both value. In this case, cluelessness doesn’t bite as Alice and I are still taking action towards our longtermist ends.
However, I think what you are claiming, or at least the version of your position that makes most sense to me, is that both Alice and I would be making a failure of reasoning if we assign these specific credence, and that we should both be ‘suspending judgement’. And if I grant that, then yes it seems cluelessness bites as neither Alice or I know at all what to do now.
So it seems to come down to whether we should be precise Bayesians.
Re judgment calls, yes I think that makes sense, though I’m not sure it is such a useful category. I would think there is just some spectrum of arguments/​pieces of evidence from ‘very well empirically grounded and justified’ through ‘we have some moderate reason to think so’ to ‘we have roughly no idea’ and I think towards the far right of this spectrum is what we are labeling judgement calls. But surely there isn’t a clear cut-off point.
So if we take as given that I am at 53% and Alice is at 45% that gives me some reason to do longtermist outreach, and gives Alice some reason to try to stop me, perhaps by making moral trades with me that get more of what we both value. In this case, cluelessness doesn’t bite as Alice and I are still taking action towards our longtermist ends.
However, I think what you are claiming, or at least the version of your position that makes most sense to me, is that both Alice and I would be making a failure of reasoning if we assign these specific credence, and that we should both be ‘suspending judgement’. And if I grant that, then yes it seems cluelessness bites as neither Alice or I know at all what to do now.
So it seems to come down to whether we should be precise Bayesians.
Re judgment calls, yes I think that makes sense, though I’m not sure it is such a useful category. I would think there is just some spectrum of arguments/​pieces of evidence from ‘very well empirically grounded and justified’ through ‘we have some moderate reason to think so’ to ‘we have roughly no idea’ and I think towards the far right of this spectrum is what we are labeling judgement calls. But surely there isn’t a clear cut-off point.