In other domains, when we combine different metrics to yield one frankenstein metric, it is because these different metrics are all partial indicators of some underlying measure we cannot directly observe. The whole point of ethics is that we are trying to directly describe this underlying measure of “good”, and thus it doesn’t make sense to me to create some frankenstein view.
The only instance I would see this being ok is in the context of moral uncertainty, where we’re saying “I believe there is some underlying view but I don’t know what it is, so I will give some weight to a bunch of these plausible theories”. Which maybe is what you’re getting at? But in that case, I think it’s necessary to believe that each of the views you are averaging over could be approximately true on its own, which IMO really isn’t the case with a complicated utilitarianism formula, especially since we know there is no formula out there that will give us all we desire. Though this is another long philosophical rabbit hole, I’m sure.
In other domains, when we combine different metrics to yield one frankenstein metric, it is because these different metrics are all partial indicators of some underlying measure we cannot directly observe. The whole point of ethics is that we are trying to directly describe this underlying measure of “good”, and thus it doesn’t make sense to me to create some frankenstein view.
The only instance I would see this being ok is in the context of moral uncertainty, where we’re saying “I believe there is some underlying view but I don’t know what it is, so I will give some weight to a bunch of these plausible theories”. Which maybe is what you’re getting at? But in that case, I think it’s necessary to believe that each of the views you are averaging over could be approximately true on its own, which IMO really isn’t the case with a complicated utilitarianism formula, especially since we know there is no formula out there that will give us all we desire. Though this is another long philosophical rabbit hole, I’m sure.