tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post6428809936526472026..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Marginally Beneficial Rule-breakingRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-13152296129241381972009-10-02T18:55:56.220-04:002009-10-02T18:55:56.220-04:00Sorry to make a belated reply, but I've been i...Sorry to make a belated reply, but I've been interested in this kind of question recently.<br /><br />Your explanation is unpersuasive to me. We are unsure about a lot of things. Why are promises special? We can simply take the expected value (based on an efficient amount of effort spent calculating)--why impose the additional burden of being sure?<br /><br />I have an alternate explanation, and it's pretty simple. Promise breaking is rife with external costs. Basically, not only is your own credibility diminished, but the entire institution of trust is diminished. It's very hard to measure exactly how much damage you do to the general ability of people to trust each other by breaking a promise, but just like anything else, you can estimate it. Breaking any promise will likely do surprisingly substantial damage (in comparison to gains). The best comparison I can see is global warming, with lies paralleling greenhouse gases.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13774705010608065001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-64730256104574301262009-09-28T18:42:47.895-04:002009-09-28T18:42:47.895-04:00Hi Brad, I'm not so inclined to formulate Act ...Hi Brad, I'm not so inclined to formulate Act Consequentialism in terms of the folk concept of 'permissibility'. That concept strikes me (and, I suspect, many other consequentialists) as somewhat vague, and certainly not fundamental. We would sooner use the notion of 'ought', or of 'decisive normative reasons', to formulate our views; and we might further note that these core normative concepts come in more or less objective senses.<br /><br />So let's first consider the 'objective' or 'fact-based' ought: the sense in which it might be said that one objectively ought to duck if there's a stone flying towards the back of your head, regardless of whether or not you're aware of this fact. (This is obviously a technical term that's not particularly closely linked to the ordinary notion of permissibility!) We can ask: is it counterintuitive to hold that we have most <i>objective reason</i> to break the rules when this would be marginally beneficial on net? That doesn't seem at all counterintuitive to me. (This may be partly because I don't have any independent sense of the 'objective ought' besides that of what's most <i>desirable</i>, or what God would advise us to do. So it may not be a particularly helpful concept.)<br /><br />There's no objection here in terms of the 'objective ought'. That's why I instead discussed the 'rational ought', or what it would be <i>reasonable</i> for an act consequentialist to do. Far from "changing the subject", it seems to me that this is the only way that the objection can get any real traction in the first place.<br /><br />P.S. I agree that it would be counterintuitive to identify the ordinary notion of 'permissibility' with the technical notion of 'objective oughts', but that's a separate issue.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-38675694922638448312009-09-28T16:36:58.715-04:002009-09-28T16:36:58.715-04:00I think this is quite satisfactory; sorry I have a...I think this is quite satisfactory; sorry I have apparently not done a good job of keeping track of your views (since in a comment on a recent thread, I said something like this, but said it in such a way as to imply that I was disagreeing with you, when evidently I wasn't).Protagorashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12645042531440559735noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-43575021743885474262009-09-28T15:43:20.647-04:002009-09-28T15:43:20.647-04:00Would a well-programed act-consequentialist break ...Would a well-programed act-consequentialist break a rule where the benefit would be marginal? Probably not. Does this show act-consequentialism isn't so counter-intuitive? Act-consequentialism, as a theory about which acts are morally required, holds that the morally required act is to break the rule whenever the net increase in good from doing so is massive or even merely marginal. Talking about the decision procedures of act-consequentialist agents changes the subject.<br /><br />The view that act-consequentialists would virtually never have sufficient evidence for the net advantage of breaking common moral rules was espoused by G. E. Moore. He argued for strict rule-following by act-consequentialist agents.Brad Hookerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989027149657409734noreply@blogger.com