One reason to doubt DiGiovanniās unawareness argument (specifically, his empirical premise) is that it is unclear where the line is between A) myunderstanding of a decision problem isfine-grained enough for me to trust my best guess, and B) it is too coarse-grained (and I must suspend judgment). While DiGiovanni does not object to this and recognizes some version of the problem, he suggests that the line must come before āpromoting the impartial goodā.
I do not think there is a fact of the matter about the location of the line separating A) and B). I would say it depends on the operationalisation of the claim under assessment, which should be falsifiable. Relatedly, I agree with Brian Tomasik that:
It doesnāt make sense to ask questions like, Does a computer program of a mind really instantiate consciousness? That question reifies consciousness as a thing that may or may not be produced by a program. Rather, the particles constituting the computer just moveāand thatās it. The question of whether a given physical operation is āconsciousā is not a factual dispute but a definitional one: Do we want to define consciousness as including those sorts of physical operations?
In the context of consciousness, I think the right move is i) considering all systems have more than exactly 0 moral value instead of ii) separating systems into ones that have exactly 0 moral weight, and ones that have more than exactly 0 moral weight. In the context of cluelessness, I believe the right move is i) considering the expected value (EV) of any 2 actions is comparable more or less robustly instead of ii) separating actions into ones whose EV is comparable, and ones whose EV is not comparable.
Hi Jim. Great post.
I do not think there is a fact of the matter about the location of the line separating A) and B). I would say it depends on the operationalisation of the claim under assessment, which should be falsifiable. Relatedly, I agree with Brian Tomasik that:
In the context of consciousness, I think the right move is i) considering all systems have more than exactly 0 moral value instead of ii) separating systems into ones that have exactly 0 moral weight, and ones that have more than exactly 0 moral weight. In the context of cluelessness, I believe the right move is i) considering the expected value (EV) of any 2 actions is comparable more or less robustly instead of ii) separating actions into ones whose EV is comparable, and ones whose EV is not comparable.