OK thanks. I’m going to attempt a summary of where I think things are:
In trying to assess moral weights, you can get two-envelope problems for both empirical uncertainty and normative uncertainty
Re. empirical uncertainty, you argue that there isn’t a two-envelope problem, and you can just treat it like any other empirical uncertainty
In my other comment thread I argue that just like the classic money-based two-envelope problem, there’s still a problem to be addressed, and it probably needs to involve priors
Re. normative uncertainty, you would tend to advise approaches which help to dodge facing two-envelope problems in the first place, alongside dodging facing a bunch of other issues
I’m sympathetic to this, although I don’t think it’s uncontroversial
You argue that a lot of the uncertainty should be understood to be empirical rather than normative — but you also think quite a bit of it is normative (insofar as you recommend people allocating resources into buckets associated with different worldviews)
I kind of get where you’re coming from here, although I feel that the lines between what’s empirical and what’s normative uncertainty are often confusing, and so I kind of want action-guiding advice to be available for actors who haven’t yet worked out how to disentangle them. (I’m also not certain that the “different buckets for different worldviews” is the best approach to normative uncertainty, although as a pragmatic matter I certainly don’t hate it, and it has some theoretical appeal.)
(I wouldn’t pick out the worldview bucket approach as the solution everyone should necessarily find most satisfying, given their own intuitions/preferences, but it is one I tend to prefer now.)
Ok great. In that case one view I have is that it would be clearer to summarize your position (e.g. in the post title) as “there isn’t a two envelope problem for moral weights”, rather than as presenting a solution.
OK thanks. I’m going to attempt a summary of where I think things are:
In trying to assess moral weights, you can get two-envelope problems for both empirical uncertainty and normative uncertainty
Re. empirical uncertainty, you argue that there isn’t a two-envelope problem, and you can just treat it like any other empirical uncertainty
In my other comment thread I argue that just like the classic money-based two-envelope problem, there’s still a problem to be addressed, and it probably needs to involve priors
Re. normative uncertainty, you would tend to advise approaches which help to dodge facing two-envelope problems in the first place, alongside dodging facing a bunch of other issues
I’m sympathetic to this, although I don’t think it’s uncontroversial
You argue that a lot of the uncertainty should be understood to be empirical rather than normative — but you also think quite a bit of it is normative (insofar as you recommend people allocating resources into buckets associated with different worldviews)
I kind of get where you’re coming from here, although I feel that the lines between what’s empirical and what’s normative uncertainty are often confusing, and so I kind of want action-guiding advice to be available for actors who haven’t yet worked out how to disentangle them. (I’m also not certain that the “different buckets for different worldviews” is the best approach to normative uncertainty, although as a pragmatic matter I certainly don’t hate it, and it has some theoretical appeal.)
Does that seem wrong anywhere to you?
This all seems right to me.
(I wouldn’t pick out the worldview bucket approach as the solution everyone should necessarily find most satisfying, given their own intuitions/preferences, but it is one I tend to prefer now.)
Ok great. In that case one view I have is that it would be clearer to summarize your position (e.g. in the post title) as “there isn’t a two envelope problem for moral weights”, rather than as presenting a solution.