Very often, we’re uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We don’t know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, or how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into existence. But we still need to act. So how should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty? Though economists and philosophers have extensively studied the issue of decision-making in the face of uncertainty about matters of fact, the question of decision-making given fundamental moral uncertainty has been neglected. In this book, philosophers William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist and Toby Ord try to fill this gap. They argue that there are distinctive norms that govern how one ought to make decisions given moral uncertainty. They then defend an information-sensitive account of how to make such decisions according to which the correct way to act in the face of moral uncertainty depends on whether the moral theories in which one has credence are merely ordinal, cardinal, or both cardinal and intertheoretically comparable. They tackle the problem of how to make intertheoretic comparisons, discussing several novel potential solutions. Finally, they discuss implications of their view for metaethics and practical ethics, and show how their account can shed light on the value of moral enquiry.
An option therefore can include the action available to the decision-maker, as well as the decision-maker's intention, motive, the outcome of the action, and everything else that could be normatively relevant to the decision-maker's decision. 7 This assumption does some real work: for example, Bergström (1971), argues that which option-set is relevant, in a given decision-situation, is in part a normative question, which may therefore vary from theory to theory. (I thank an anonymous referee for pointing out this issue.) However, while this issue is interesting and important, it is one that I will have to leave to the side for the purposes of this paper. If one endorses Bergström's view, then one should assume that I am only discussing those situations where all theories in which the decision-maker has positive credence agree on what the relevant option-set is. 8 In defining normative theories this way I also assume that the decision-maker cannot be uncertain about what is entailed by a given normative theory. This, of course, is highly unrealistic, if we are using 'normative theory' within its usual meaning. (I thank an anonymous referee for pressing this point). However, I am using 'normative theory' in a technical sense. If a decision-maker is unsure about whether, according to Kantianism, A is more choice-worthy than B or vice-versa, then I would describe her as uncertain between two distinct normative theories: Kantianism', according to which A is more choiceworthy than B, and Kantianism'', according to which B is more choice-worthy than A. To my knowledge, nothing hangs on this.
This paper argues in favor of a particular account of decision-making under normative uncertainty: that, when it is possible to do so, one should maximize expected choice-worthiness. Though this position has been often suggested in the literature and is often taken to be the 'default' view, it has so far received little in the way of positive argument in its favor. After dealing with some preliminaries and giving the basic motivation for taking normative uncertainty into account in our decisionmaking, we consider and provide new arguments against two rival accounts that have been offered-the accounts that we call 'My Favorite Theory' and 'My Favorite Option'. We then give a novel argument for comparativism-the view that, under normative uncertainty, one should take into account both probabilities of different theories and magnitudes of choice-worthiness. Finally, we further argue in favor of maximizing expected choice-worthiness and consider and respond to five objections.
The term “effective altruism” has no official definition, meaning that different authors will inevitably understand the term in different ways. Since this harbours the potential for considerable confusion, William MacAskill, one of the leaders of the effective altruism movement, has contributed a chapter aimed at forestalling some of these potential confusions. In this chapter, MacAskill first outlines a brief history of the effective altruism movement. He then proposes his preferred definition of “effective altruism”, aiming to capture the central activities and concerns of those most deeply involved in the movement. Finally, he replies to various common misconceptions about the movement. These include the views that effective altruism is just utilitarianism, that it is purely about poverty alleviation, that it is purely about donations, and that it in principle ignores possibilities for systemic change.
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