I plan to link to it heavily in an upcoming piece for my moral anti-realism sequence.
On X., Passive and active ethics:
Rather, what I’m trying to point at is a way that importing and taking for granted a certain kind of realist-flavored ethical psychology can result in an instructive sort of misfire. Something is missing, in these cases, that I expect the idealizing subjectivist needs. In particular: these agents, to the end, lack an affordance for a certain kind of direct, active agency — a certain kind of responsibility, and self-creation. They don’t know how to choose, fully, for themselves.
Yeah, I think there’s a danger for people who expect that “having more information,” or other features of some idealized reflection procedure, would change the phenomenology of moral reasoning, such that once they’re in the reflection procedure, certain answers will stick out to them. But, as you say, this point may never come! So instead, it could continue to feel like one has to make difficult judgment calls left and right, with no guarantee that one is doing moral reasoning “the right way.”
(In fact, I’m convinced such a phase change won’t come. I have a draft on this.)
In a sense, what I’m saying here is that idealizing subjectivism is, and needs to be, less like “realism-lite,” and more like existentialism, than is sometimes acknowledged.
I’ve also used the phrase “more like existentialism” in this context. :)
On IX., Hoping for convergence, tolerating indeterminacy:
This is an excellent strategy for people who find themselves without strong object-level intuitions about their goals/values. (Or people who only have strong object-level intuitions about some aspects of their goals/values, but not the details. E.g., being confident that one would want to be altruistic, but unsure about population ethics or different theories of well-being. [In these cases, perhaps with a guarantee for the reflection procedure to not to change the overarching objective – being altruistic, or finding a suitable theory of well-being, etc.])
Some people would probably argue that “Hoping for convergence, tolerating indeterminacy” is the rational strategy in the light of our metaethical uncertainty. (I know you’re not necessarily saying this in your post.) For example, they might argue as follows:
”If there’s convergence among reflection procedures, I miss out if I place too much faith in my object-level intuitions and already formed moral convictions. By contrast, if there’s no convergence, then it doesn’t matter – all outcomes would be on the same footing.”
I want to push back against this stance, “rationally mandated wagering on convergence.” I think it only makes sense for people whose object-level values are still under-defined. By contrast, if you find yourself with solid object-level convictions about your values, then you not only stand something to gain from wagering on convergence. You also stand things to lose. You might be giving up something you feel is worth fighting for to follow the kind-of-arbitrary outcome of some reflection procedure.
My point is, the currencies are commensurable: What’s attractive about the possibility of many reflection procedures converging is the same thing that’s attractive to people who already have solid object-level convictions about their values (assuming they’re not making one of the easily identifiable mistakes, i.e., assuming that, for them, there’d be no convergence among reflection procedures that are open-ended enough to get them to adopt different values). Namely, when they reflect to the best of their abilities, they feel drawn to certain moral principles or goals or specific ways of living their lives.
In other words, the importance of moral reflection for someone is exactly proportional to their credence in it changing their thinking. If someone feels highly uncertain, they almost exclusively have things to gain. By contrast, the more certain you already are in your object-level convictions, the larger the risk that deferring to some poorly understood reflection procedure would lead you to an outcome that constitutes a loss, in a sense relevant to your current self. Of course, one can always defer to conservative reflection procedures, i.e., procedures where one is fairly confident that they won’t lead to drastic changes in one’s thinking. Those could be used to flesh out one’s thinking in places where it’s still uncertain (and therefore, possibly, under-defined), while protecting convictions that one would rather not put at risk.
I’m glad you liked it, Lukas. It does seem like an interesting question how your current confidence in your own values relates to your interest in further “idealization,” of what kind, and how much convergence makes a difference. Prima facie, it does seems plausible that greater confidence speaks in favor”conservatism” about what sorts of idealization you go in for, though I can imagine very uncertain-about-their-values people opting for conservatism, too. Indeed, it seems possible that conservatism is just generally pretty reasonable, here.
I think this post is brilliant!
I plan to link to it heavily in an upcoming piece for my moral anti-realism sequence.
On X., Passive and active ethics:
Yeah, I think there’s a danger for people who expect that “having more information,” or other features of some idealized reflection procedure, would change the phenomenology of moral reasoning, such that once they’re in the reflection procedure, certain answers will stick out to them. But, as you say, this point may never come! So instead, it could continue to feel like one has to make difficult judgment calls left and right, with no guarantee that one is doing moral reasoning “the right way.”
(In fact, I’m convinced such a phase change won’t come. I have a draft on this.)
I’ve also used the phrase “more like existentialism” in this context. :)
On IX., Hoping for convergence, tolerating indeterminacy:
This is an excellent strategy for people who find themselves without strong object-level intuitions about their goals/values. (Or people who only have strong object-level intuitions about some aspects of their goals/values, but not the details. E.g., being confident that one would want to be altruistic, but unsure about population ethics or different theories of well-being. [In these cases, perhaps with a guarantee for the reflection procedure to not to change the overarching objective – being altruistic, or finding a suitable theory of well-being, etc.])
Some people would probably argue that “Hoping for convergence, tolerating indeterminacy” is the rational strategy in the light of our metaethical uncertainty. (I know you’re not necessarily saying this in your post.) For example, they might argue as follows:
”If there’s convergence among reflection procedures, I miss out if I place too much faith in my object-level intuitions and already formed moral convictions. By contrast, if there’s no convergence, then it doesn’t matter – all outcomes would be on the same footing.”
I want to push back against this stance, “rationally mandated wagering on convergence.” I think it only makes sense for people whose object-level values are still under-defined. By contrast, if you find yourself with solid object-level convictions about your values, then you not only stand something to gain from wagering on convergence. You also stand things to lose. You might be giving up something you feel is worth fighting for to follow the kind-of-arbitrary outcome of some reflection procedure.
My point is, the currencies are commensurable: What’s attractive about the possibility of many reflection procedures converging is the same thing that’s attractive to people who already have solid object-level convictions about their values (assuming they’re not making one of the easily identifiable mistakes, i.e., assuming that, for them, there’d be no convergence among reflection procedures that are open-ended enough to get them to adopt different values). Namely, when they reflect to the best of their abilities, they feel drawn to certain moral principles or goals or specific ways of living their lives.
In other words, the importance of moral reflection for someone is exactly proportional to their credence in it changing their thinking. If someone feels highly uncertain, they almost exclusively have things to gain. By contrast, the more certain you already are in your object-level convictions, the larger the risk that deferring to some poorly understood reflection procedure would lead you to an outcome that constitutes a loss, in a sense relevant to your current self. Of course, one can always defer to conservative reflection procedures, i.e., procedures where one is fairly confident that they won’t lead to drastic changes in one’s thinking. Those could be used to flesh out one’s thinking in places where it’s still uncertain (and therefore, possibly, under-defined), while protecting convictions that one would rather not put at risk.
I’m glad you liked it, Lukas. It does seem like an interesting question how your current confidence in your own values relates to your interest in further “idealization,” of what kind, and how much convergence makes a difference. Prima facie, it does seems plausible that greater confidence speaks in favor”conservatism” about what sorts of idealization you go in for, though I can imagine very uncertain-about-their-values people opting for conservatism, too. Indeed, it seems possible that conservatism is just generally pretty reasonable, here.