Living with Uncertainty: The Moral Significance of Ignorance (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
Michael J. Zimmerman
Language: English
Pages: 236
ISBN: 0521171717
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Every choice we make is set against a background of massive ignorance about our past, our future, our circumstances, and ourselves. Philosophers are divided on the moral significance of such ignorance. Some say that it has a direct impact on how we ought to behave - the question of what our moral obligations are; others deny this, claiming that it only affects how we ought to be judged in light of the behaviour in which we choose to engage - the question of what responsibility we bear for our choices. Michael Zimmerman claims that our ignorance has an important bearing on both questions, and offers an account of moral obligation and moral responsibility that is sharply at odds with the prevailing wisdom. His book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ethics.
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risky, since it is certain to render him permanently incurable. Rescher 1983, p. 5. Social scientists frequently, and philosophers sometimes, restrict use of the term “risk” to (idealized) situations in which the risk-taker has full information about the probabilities of the outcomes of alternative courses of action, and they use the term “uncertainty” for situations in which such information is lacking. (See, e.g., Knight 1921, pp. 19 f., 233 f.; Luce and Raiffa 1957; Kahneman and Tversky 1979.)
explain. To begin with, notice that the answer just given to the conscientious person’s inquiry suggests the possibility of a further question, namely, “What ought I to do when I don’t know what I ought2 to do?” One might answer in turn, “When you don’t know what you ought2 to do, you ought3 to do so-and-so.” But this answer simply suggests yet another question, with yet another answer, and so on and on. Thus a regress looms, a series of obligations of different orders generated by repeated
light of the arguments that I made in section 1.3 against the Subjective View, it may appear that it is the correct position. I reject it, however. I reject it because I reject the Objective View. For reasons given in the last chapter, I subscribe to the Prospective View, which in the present case implies that (given that my evidence concerning the actual values at stake is accurate) my obligation is to do that which will most probably result in your receiving the book by Friday, whether or not
him. But it doesn’t imply that she ought to kill him intentionally. In attempting to give John drug C, Jill would not be attempting to kill him. Presumably she could attempt this, and so her doing so is part of the core of some maximal course of action performable by her. But this core does not include either her attempting to give John drug C or her giving him the drug, and so it is prospectively worse than the core of C*; thus the 137 Living with Uncertainty Prospective View, far from
in “just after” appears in the formulation of PW2.) When I learned on Wednesday of the author’s impending visit, my obligation to return the book unsigned was overridden by the obligation to return it signed. However, if I had subsequently discovered that you would have preferred to present the book in person to the author for signing at a later date, my obligation to return it to you unsigned would have been restored. Neither of these shifts in obligation, as I intend them to be understood,
