I defend normative externalism from the objection that it cannot account for the wrongfulness of moral recklessness. The defence is fairly simple—there is no wrong of moral recklessness. There is an intuitive argument by analogy that there should be a wrong of moral recklessness, and the bulk of the paper consists of a response to this analogy. A central part of my response is that if people were motivated to avoid moral recklessness, they would have to have an unpleasant sort (...) of motivation, what Michael Smith calls “moral fetishism”. (shrink)

Defenders of deontological constraints in normative ethics face a challenge: how should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain whether some course of action would violate a constraint? The most common response to this challenge has been to defend a threshold principle on which it is subjectively permissible to act iff the agent's credence that her action would be constraint-violating is below some threshold t. But the threshold approach seems arbitrary and unmotivated: what would possibly determine where (...) the threshold should be set, and why should there be any precise threshold at all? Threshold views also seem to violate ought agglomeration, since a pair of actions each of which is below the threshold for acceptable moral risk can, in combination, exceed that threshold. In this paper, I argue that stochastic dominance reasoning can vindicate and lend rigor to the threshold approach: given characteristically deontological assumptions about the moral value of acts, it turns out that morally safe options will stochastically dominate morally risky alternatives when and only when the likelihood that the risky option violates a moral constraint is greater than some precisely definable threshold (in the simplest case, .5). I also show how, in combination with the observation that deontological moral evaluation is relativized to particular choice situations, this approach can overcome the agglomeration problem. This allows the deontologist to give a precise and well-motivated response to the problem of uncertainty. (shrink)

One of the perennial challenges of ethical theory has been to provide an answer to a number of views that appear to undermine the importance of ethical questions. We may refer to such views collectively as “deflationary ethical theories.” These include theories, such as nihilism, according to which no action is better than any other, as well as relativistic theories according to which no ethical theory is better than any other. In this article I present a new response to such (...) deflationary ethical views. Drawing a distinction between acceptance and rejection, on the one hand, and belief and disbelief, on the other, I argue that we have strong reason to reject these theories, even if we do not have reason to disbelieve them. In Section I, I clarify the question of what ethical theory we should accept, and I argue for the central importance of this question. In Section II, I discuss what I call “absolutely deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters not at all what we do or not at all what ethical theory we accept. I argue that it is generally rational to reject any theory of this kind. In Section III, I discuss what I call “relatively deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters little what we do or what ethical theory we accept. I argue that we have strong pro tanto reason to reject theories of this kind. And then, in Sections IV and V, I reply to some common objections to my arguments. Throughout, I will be arguing not that deflationary ethical theories are false but only that we should reject them from the practical point of view as a basis for guiding our actions. (shrink)

We introduce a St. Petersburg-like game, which we call the ‘Pasadena game’, in which we toss a coin until it lands heads for the first time. Your pay-offs grow without bound, and alternate in sign (rewards alternate with penalties). The expectation of the game is a conditionally convergent series. As such, its terms can be rearranged to yield any sum whatsoever, including positive infinity and negative infinity. Thus, we can apparently make the game seem as desirable or undesirable as we (...) want, simply by reordering the pay-off table, yet the game remains unchanged throughout. Formally speaking, the expectation does not exist; but we contend that this presents a serious problem for decision theory, since it goes silent when we want it to speak. We argue that the Pasadena game is more paradoxical than the St. Petersburg game in several respects. We give a brief review of the relevant mathematics of infinite series. We then consider and rebut a number of replies to our paradox: that there is a privileged ordering to the expectation series; that decision theory should be restricted to finite state spaces; and that it should be restricted to bounded utility functions. We conclude that the paradox remains live. (shrink)

It has been argued by several philosophers that a morally motivated rational agent who has to make decisions under conditions of moral uncertainty ought to maximize expected moral value in his choices, where the expectation is calculated relative to the agent's moral uncertainty. I present a counter-example to this thesis and to a larger family of decision rules for choice under conditions of moral uncertainty. Based on this counter-example, I argue against the thesis and suggest a reason for its failure (...) – that it is based on the false assumption that inter-theoretical comparisons of moral value are meaningful. (shrink)

In “Rejecting Ethical Deflationism,” Jacob Ross argues that a rational decision maker is permitted, for the purposes of practical reasoning, to assume that nihilism is false. I argue that Ross’s argument fails because the principle he relies on conflicts with more plausible principles of rationality and leads to preference cycles. I then show how the infectiousness of nihilism, and of incomparability more generally, poses a serious problem for the larger project of attempting to incorporate moral uncertainty into expected value maximization (...) style reasoning. (shrink)

We are often uncertain how to behave morally in complex situations. In this controversial study, Ted Lockhart contends that moral philosophy has failed to address how we make such moral decisions. Adapting decision theory to the task of decision-making under moral uncertainly, he proposes that we should not always act how we feel we ought to act, and that sometimes we should act against what we feel to be morally right. Lockhart also discusses abortion extensively and proposes new ways to (...) deal with the ethical and moral issues which surround it. (shrink)

We typically have to act under uncertainty. We can be uncertain about the relevant descriptive facts, but also about the relevant normative facts. However, the search for a theory of decision-making under normative uncertainty is doomed to failure. First, the most natural proposal for what to do given normative uncertainty faces two devastating problems. Second, the motivations for wanting a theory of what to do given descriptive uncertainty do not carry over to normative uncertainty. Descriptive facts may be inaccessible even (...) in principle, and ignorance of them excuses one from blame, but normative facts are in principle accessible, and ignorance of them arguably is no excuse. Normative facts differ from descriptive facts: normative facts affect what we ought to do no matter what, while descriptive facts affect what we ought to do only insofar as we are aware of them. (shrink)

Suppose you believe you’re morally required to φ‎ but that it’s not a big deal; and yet you think it might be deeply morally wrong to φ‎. You are in a state of moral uncertainty, holding high credence in one moral view of your situation, while having a small credence in a radically opposing moral view. A natural thought is that in such a case you should not φ‎, because φ‎ing would be too morally risky. The author argues that this (...) natural thought is misguided. If φ‎ing is in fact morally required, then you should φ‎, and this is so even taking into account your moral uncertainty. The author argues that if the natural thought were correct, then being caught in the grip of a false moral view would be exculpatory: people who do morally wrong things thinking they are acting morally rightly would be blameless. But being caught in the grip of a false moral view is not exculpatory. So the natural thought is false. The author develops the claim that you should act as morality actually requires as a candidate answer to the question “how should one act in the face of moral uncertainty?” This answer has been dismissed in discussion up to this point. The author argues that not only is this answer a serious contender; it is the correct answer. (shrink)

One of the principles on how to act under moral uncertainty, My Favourite Theory, says roughly that a morally conscientious agent chooses an option that is permitted by the most credible moral theory. In defence of this principle, we argue that it prescribes consistent choices over time, without relying on intertheoretic comparisons of value, while its main rivals are either plagued by moral analogues of money pumps or in need of a method for making non-arbitrary intertheoretic comparisons. We rebut the (...) arguments that have been levelled against My Favourite Theory and offer some arguments against intertheoretic comparisons of value. (shrink)

A major focus of ethical argumentation is determining the relative merits of proposed ethical systems. Nevertheless, even the demonstration that a given ethical system was the one most likely to be correct would not establish that an agent should act in accord with that system. Consider, for example, a situation in which the ethical system most likely to be valid is modestly supportive of a certain action, whereas a less plausible system strongly condemns the same action. Should the agent perform (...) the action, arguing that the most plausible system supports doing so, or avoid the action, being conservative about the strong condemnation of it from a less plausible system? I argue that, in general, different ethical frameworks see the ethical world in fundamentally different ways, rendering the comparison of degrees of support and opposition of actions between systems intrinsically invalid. One should indeed choose to act in accord with the most defensible system. I believe that this important topic needs more attention than it has gotten to date. (shrink)

How should deontological theories that prohibit actions of type K — such as intentionally killing an innocent person — deal with cases of uncertainty as to whether a particular action is of type K? Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, who raise this problem in their paper "Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty" (2006), focus on a case where a skier is about to cause the death of ten innocent people — we don’t know for sure whether on purpose or not — (...) by causing an avalanche; and we can only save the people by shooting the skier. One possible deontological attitude towards such uncertainty is what Jackson and Smith call the threshold view, according to which whether or not the deontological constraint applies depends on our degree of (justified) certainty meets a given threshold. Jackson and Smith argue against the threshold view that it leads to implausible paradoxical moral dilemmas in a special kind of case. In this response, we show that the threshold view can avoid these implausible moral dilemmas, as long as the relevant deontological constraint is grounded in individualistic patient-based considerations, such as what an individual person is entitled to object to. (shrink)

How should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain not just about morally relevant empirical matters, like the consequences of some course of action, but about the basic principles of morality itself? This question has only recently been taken up in a systematic way by philosophers. Advocates of moral hedging claim that an agent should weigh the reasons put forward by each moral theory in which she has positive credence, considering both the likelihood that that theory is (...) true and the strength of the reasons it posits. The view that it is sometimes rational to hedge for one's moral uncertainties, however, has recently come under attack both from those who believe that an agent should always be guided by the dictates of the single moral theory she deems most probable and from those who believe that an agent's moral beliefs are simply irrelevant to what she ought to do. Among the many objections to hedging that have been pressed in the recent literature is the worry that there is no non-arbitrary way of making the intertheoretic comparisons of moral value necessary to aggregate the value assignments of rival moral theories into a single ranking of an agent's options. -/- This dissertation has two principal objectives: First, I argue that, contra these recent objections, an agent's moral beliefs and uncertainties are relevant to what she rationally ought to do, and more particularly, that agents are at least sometimes rationally required to hedge for their moral uncertainties. My principal argument for these claims appeals to the enkratic conception of rationality, according to which the requirements of practical rationality derive from an agent's beliefs about the objective, desire-independent value or choiceworthiness of her options. Second, I outline a new general theory of rational choice under moral uncertainty. Central to this theory is the idea of content-based aggregation, that the principles according to which an agent should compare and aggregate rival moral theories are grounded in the content of those theories themselves, including not only their value assignments but also the metaethical and other non-surface-level propositions that underlie, justify, or explain those value assignments. (shrink)

Nobody's going to object to the advice "Do the right thing", but that doesn't mean everyone's always going to follow it. Sometimes this is because of our volitional limitations; we cannot always bring ourselves to make the sacrifices that right action requires. But sometimes this is because of our cognitive limitations; we cannot always be sure of what is right. Sometimes we can't be sure of what's right because we don't know the non-normative facts. But sometimes, even if we were (...) to know all of the non-normative facts, we'd still not be sure about what's right, because we're uncertain about the normative reasons those facts give us. In this dissertation, I attempt to answer the question of what we're to do when we must act under fundamentally normative uncertainty. It's tempting to think that, in such circumstances, we should do what we regard as most probably right. I argue that this view is mistaken, for it is insensitive to how degrees of actions' values compare across different normative hypotheses; if an action is probably right, but, if wrong, is terribly, terribly, wrong, it may be rational not to do that action. A better answer is that we should do the action with the highest expected value. I spend the first part of the dissertation providing arguments for and rebutting arguments against this view of action under normative uncertainty. I spend the next part of the dissertation explaining what degrees of value are, and showing how they can be compared across normative hypotheses. In the remaining parts of the dissertation, I consider two questions related to our primary question -- first, what is one required, or obligated, to do under normative uncertainty; and second, what is it rational for one to do when one is not only normatively uncertain in the way we've been discussing, but also uncertain about what it is rational to do under this sort of normative uncertainty. (shrink)

We are often unsure about what we ought to do. This can be because we lack empirical knowledge, such as the extent to which future generations will be harmed by climate change. It can also be because we lack normative knowledge, such as the relative moral importance of the interests of present people and the interests of future people. However, though the question of how one ought to act under empirical uncertainty has been addressed extensively by both economists and philosophers---with (...) expected utility theory providing the standard formal framework---the question of how one ought to act under normative uncertainty is comparatively neglected. My thesis attempts to address this gap. -/- In my thesis I develop a view that I call metanormativism: that there are second-order norms that govern action that are relative to a decision-maker's uncertainty about first-order norms. -/- In the first part of the thesis, I defend one specific metanormative view: that under normative uncertainty decision-makers should maximise expected choice-worthiness, treating normative uncertainty analogously with empirical uncertainty. Drawing on the analogy between decision-making under normative uncertainty and social choice theory, I defend this view at length in response to the problem of merely ordinal theories and the problem of intertheoretic value comparisons. -/- In the second part of the thesis, I explore the implications of metanormativism for other philosophical issues. I argue that it has important consequences regarding the theory of rational action in the face of incomparable values, the causal/evidential debate in decision-theory, and our assessment of the value of moral philosophy. (shrink)