Me: Some wide views make the permissibility of pulling both levers depend on whether the levers are lashed together. That seems implausible. It shouldn’t matter whether we can pull the levers one after the other.
Interlocutor: But lever-lashing doesn’t just affect whether we can pull the levers one after the other. It also affects what options are available. In particular, lever-lashing removes the option to create both Amy and Bobby, and removes the option to create neither Amy nor Bobby. So if a wide view has the permissibility of pulling both levers depend on lever-lashing, it can point to these facts to justify its change in verdicts. These views can say: it’s permissible to create just Amy when the levers aren’t lashed because the other options are on the table; it’s wrong to create just Amy when the levers are lashed because the other options are off the table.
Me: (Side note: this explanation doesn’t seem particularly satisfying. Why does the presence or absence of these other options affect the permissibility of creating just Amy?). If that’s the explanation, then the resulting wide view will say that creating just Amy is permissible in the four-button case. That’s against the spirit of wide PAVs, so wide views won’t want to appeal to this explanation to justfiy their change in verdicts given lever-lashing. So absent some other explanation of some wide views’ change in verdicts occasioned by lever-lashing, this implausible-seeming change in verdicts remains unexplained, and so counts against these views.
Ah, I should have read more closely. I misunderstood and was unnecessarily harsh. I’m sorry.
I think your response to Risberg is right.
I would still say that permissibility could depend on lever-lashing (in some sense?) because it affects what options are available, though, but in a different way. Here is the view I’d defend:
Ahead of time, any remaining option or sequence of choices that ends up like “Just Amy” will be impermissible if there’s an available option or sequence of choices that ends up like “Just Bobby” (assuming no uncertainty). Available options/sequences of choices are otherwise permissible by default.
Here are the consequences in your thought experiments:
In the four button case, the “Just Amy” button is impermissible, because there’s a “Just Bobby” button.
In the lashed levers case, it’s impermissible to pull either, because this would give “Just Amy”, and the available alternative is “Just Bobby”.
In the unlashed levers case,
Ahead of time, each lever is permissible to pull and permissible to not pull, as long as you won’t pull both (or leave both pulled, in case you can unpull). Ahead of time, pulling both levers is impermissible, because that would give “Just Amy”, and “Just Bobby” is still available. This agrees with 1 and 2.
But if you have already pulled one lever (and this is irreversible), then “Just Bobby” is no longer available (either Amy is/will be created, or Bobby won’t be created), and pulling the other is permissible, which would give “Just Amy”. “Just Amy” is therefore permissible at this point.
As we see in 3.b., “Just Bobby” gets ruled out, and then “Just Amy” becomes permissible after and because of that, but only after “Just Bobby” is ruled out, not before. Permissibility depends on what options are still available, specifically if “Just Bobby” is still available in these thought experiments. “Just Bobby” is still available in 2 and 3.a.
In your post, you wrote:
Pulling both levers should either be permissible in both cases or wrong in both cases.
This is actually true ahead of time, in 2 and 3.a, with pulling both together impermissible. But already having pulled a lever and then pulling the other is permissible, in 3.b.
Maybe this is getting pedantic and off-track, but “already having pulled a lever” is not an action available to you, it’s just a state of the world. Similarly, “pulling both levers” is not an action available to you after you pulled one; you only get to pull the other lever. “Pulling both levers” (lashed or unlashed) and “pulling the other lever, after already having pulled one lever” have different effects on the world, i.e. the first creates Amy and prevents Bobby, while the second only does one of the two. I don’t think it’s too unusual to be sensitive to these differences. Different effects → different evaluations.
Still, the end state “Just Amy” itself later becomes permissible/undominated without lever-lashing, but is impermissible/dominated ahead of time or with lever lashing.
Here’s my understanding of the dialectic here:
Me: Some wide views make the permissibility of pulling both levers depend on whether the levers are lashed together. That seems implausible. It shouldn’t matter whether we can pull the levers one after the other.
Interlocutor: But lever-lashing doesn’t just affect whether we can pull the levers one after the other. It also affects what options are available. In particular, lever-lashing removes the option to create both Amy and Bobby, and removes the option to create neither Amy nor Bobby. So if a wide view has the permissibility of pulling both levers depend on lever-lashing, it can point to these facts to justify its change in verdicts. These views can say: it’s permissible to create just Amy when the levers aren’t lashed because the other options are on the table; it’s wrong to create just Amy when the levers are lashed because the other options are off the table.
Me: (Side note: this explanation doesn’t seem particularly satisfying. Why does the presence or absence of these other options affect the permissibility of creating just Amy?). If that’s the explanation, then the resulting wide view will say that creating just Amy is permissible in the four-button case. That’s against the spirit of wide PAVs, so wide views won’t want to appeal to this explanation to justfiy their change in verdicts given lever-lashing. So absent some other explanation of some wide views’ change in verdicts occasioned by lever-lashing, this implausible-seeming change in verdicts remains unexplained, and so counts against these views.
Ah, I should have read more closely. I misunderstood and was unnecessarily harsh. I’m sorry.
I think your response to Risberg is right.
I would still say that permissibility could depend on lever-lashing (in some sense?) because it affects what options are available, though, but in a different way. Here is the view I’d defend:
Here are the consequences in your thought experiments:
In the four button case, the “Just Amy” button is impermissible, because there’s a “Just Bobby” button.
In the lashed levers case, it’s impermissible to pull either, because this would give “Just Amy”, and the available alternative is “Just Bobby”.
In the unlashed levers case,
Ahead of time, each lever is permissible to pull and permissible to not pull, as long as you won’t pull both (or leave both pulled, in case you can unpull). Ahead of time, pulling both levers is impermissible, because that would give “Just Amy”, and “Just Bobby” is still available. This agrees with 1 and 2.
But if you have already pulled one lever (and this is irreversible), then “Just Bobby” is no longer available (either Amy is/will be created, or Bobby won’t be created), and pulling the other is permissible, which would give “Just Amy”. “Just Amy” is therefore permissible at this point.
As we see in 3.b., “Just Bobby” gets ruled out, and then “Just Amy” becomes permissible after and because of that, but only after “Just Bobby” is ruled out, not before. Permissibility depends on what options are still available, specifically if “Just Bobby” is still available in these thought experiments. “Just Bobby” is still available in 2 and 3.a.
In your post, you wrote:
This is actually true ahead of time, in 2 and 3.a, with pulling both together impermissible. But already having pulled a lever and then pulling the other is permissible, in 3.b.
Maybe this is getting pedantic and off-track, but “already having pulled a lever” is not an action available to you, it’s just a state of the world. Similarly, “pulling both levers” is not an action available to you after you pulled one; you only get to pull the other lever. “Pulling both levers” (lashed or unlashed) and “pulling the other lever, after already having pulled one lever” have different effects on the world, i.e. the first creates Amy and prevents Bobby, while the second only does one of the two. I don’t think it’s too unusual to be sensitive to these differences. Different effects → different evaluations.
Still, the end state “Just Amy” itself later becomes permissible/undominated without lever-lashing, but is impermissible/dominated ahead of time or with lever lashing.