Consequentialism, Cluelessness, Clumsiness, and Counterfactuals
Alan Hájek (Australian National University)
GPI Working Paper No. 4-2024
According to a standard statement of objective consequentialism, a morally right action is one that has the best consequences. More generally, given a choice between two actions, one is morally better than the other just in case the consequences of the former action are better than those of the latter. (These are not just the immediate consequences of the actions, but the long-term consequences, perhaps until the end of history.) This account glides easily off the tongue—so easily that one may not notice that on one understanding it makes no sense, and on another understanding, it has a startling metaphysical presupposition concerning counterfactuals. I will bring this presupposition into relief. Objective consequentialism has faced various objections, including the problem of “cluelessness”: we have no idea what most of the consequences of our actions will be. I think that objective consequentialism has a far worse problem: its very foundations are highly dubious. Even granting those foundations, a worse problem than cluelessness remains, which I call “clumsiness”. Moreover, I think that these problems quickly generalise to a number of other moral theories. But the points are most easily made for objective consequentialism, so I will focus largely on it.
Other working papers
Welfare and felt duration – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
How should we understand the duration of a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, insofar as its duration modulates how good or bad the experience is overall? Given that we seem able to distinguish between subjective and objective duration and that how well or badly someone’s life goes is naturally thought of as something to be assessed from her own perspective, it seems intuitive that it is subjective duration that modulates how good or bad an experience is from the perspective of an individual’s welfare. …
Evolutionary debunking and value alignment – Michael T. Dale (Hampden-Sydney College) and Bradford Saad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
This paper examines the bearing of evolutionary debunking arguments—which use the evolutionary origins of values to challenge their epistemic credentials—on the alignment problem, i.e. the problem of ensuring that highly capable AI systems are properly aligned with values. Since evolutionary debunking arguments are among the best empirically-motivated arguments that recommend changes in values, it is unsurprising that they are relevant to the alignment problem. However, how evolutionary debunking arguments…
Time discounting, consistency and special obligations: a defence of Robust Temporalism – Harry R. Lloyd (Yale University)
This paper defends the claim that mere temporal proximity always and without exception strengthens certain moral duties, including the duty to save – call this view Robust Temporalism. Although almost all other moral philosophers dismiss Robust Temporalism out of hand, I argue that it is prima facie intuitively plausible, and that it is analogous to a view about special obligations that many philosophers already accept…