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nonalt's avatar

A big idea:

It seems to me that once you get away from utilitarianism, it's almost inevitable that you're gonna end up being moral particularist to some degree.

So far, moral-particularist theories were basically intractable to "analyze". But, in principle, AI might eventually offer tools to explicitly represent (at least approximations to) ultra-complex moral-particularist theories. How would such models be trained? I guess using experimental philosophy questionnaires to elicit people's intuitions.

The tech is not there yet, but could it ever get there? I'd like to hear from the Wittgenstein-Anscombe-inspired particularists.

e.g. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/43987/chapter-abstract/371424801?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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nonalt's avatar

Regarding 2 (as well as 3 and 5), I'd be interested to hear more how your ideas relate to the ideas of "conequentialization" of moral theories and "scalar ethics".

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Richard Y Chappell's avatar

I'm generally suspicious of the "consequentializing" project insofar as it involves collapsing the distinction between consequentialism and deontology. I think the latter is a significant distinction!

Telic ethics (as in #2) is meant to be compatible with maintaining the traditional distinction. Roughly speaking, we might think of deontologists as having some distinctively "deontologically"-flavoured fundamental goals (e.g. to avoid violating rights in each instance), whereas I think consequentialist goals are more apt to be characterized without essential reference to moral concepts (instead invoking broader normative concepts like that of well-being). That's not a strict analysis or anything, just a rough first pass.

I say a bit more about scalar ethics if you follow the 'Deontic Pluralism' link. I think it's (broadly speaking) the right way for consequentialists to go, at least insofar as our *reasons for action* are concerned. But attention to fittingness, and especially blameworthiness, can give us the resources to make some more "binary" distinctions. I just don't think we should focus *excessively* on the resulting deontic binary (as that minimal standard seems antithetical to the sort of moral ambition urged in #2).

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