Honestly, the biggest failure in ethics is not focusing on uncertainty. Thought experiments are less than useless because you can never have full knowledge of outcomes in reality. Ethics often presupposes deductive reasoning, making it inapplicable to our uncertain reality. You cannot prove anything about reality, only about the forms that we made the fuck up to approximate it. All of those formal systems are built on induction, meaning they are always uncertain.
Uncertainty is inevitable, fundamental, and unavoidable. If we want ethical theories to apply to real life, they must deal with uncertainties at every level. Reject deduction, accept epistemological solipsism. I just don’t see how we can ever be certain, but that’s ok. We can build far more if we accept that limitation from the get go.
It took a while to type this out so the commenter above may have already responded but:
I think their point is for example: in the scenario with Sally’s father’s nuclear bomb
It’s constructed to have people evaluate the extremities of their moral convictions. Some philosophers argue that it is never moral to lie or to break a promise. Some argue that it’s never moral to torture a person. I reckon the thought experiment is designed to get people to consider whether torture is actually absolutely morally wrong.
What I think the commenter above you was saying is: In reality, how could we become convinced this scenario was unfolding before us. What experiences could a person actually have that would give them adequate confidence in the story to actually decide that it was justified to torture Sally.
Like if a person walked up to you on the street IN REAL LIFE and said:
My name is Sally, and I promised my father not to tell anyone where he had buried an atomic bomb that will kill 1 million people when it explodes in half an hour, but I concede I would be convinced to break my promise through torture.
Would you feel justified in torturing her? What if you were the chief of police? I hope you don’t think so, because this is clearly a person having delusions related to some form of a psychotic episode.
Even if she was telling the truth and you did succeed in torturing the information out of her, how quickly could you do it, and how quickly could you act on the information in a way that would save lives?
Actual real world moral reasoning must account for people’s skepticism of the premises of the thought experiment.
If we’re trying to construct some sort of useful ethical system, it has to accommodate the uncertainty humans have to navigate. This is probably why the classic trolley problem is so divisive. Some people are intuitively accounting for their uncertainty in the premise’s stated ‘known’ outcomes.
You’re spot on. Uncertainty makes a huge difference, especially in regards to utilitarianism. With certainty of the full outcomes, act utilitarianism is probably the best theory. Unfortunately for act utilitarians, that certainty is impossible, making it a shit theory in practice. That’s where virtue, contract, and rule based theories shine. They can balance uncertain outcomes with probable consequences. They will lead to the worse outcome some percentage of the time, but that’s life. You can try your best and still lose.
You’re probably aware of this inherent contradiction by for the sake of any third parties reading:
TotallynotJessica is advocating for virtue, contract, and rule based ethical paradigms based on the hypothesis that they will, in general, more effectively lead to outcomes preferred by utilitarianism.
I think this contradiction is only important to people that are entrenched on one side or the other (or the other, or the other). For people that just want to understand how to make good decisions in their lives it’s a bit of a moot point.
It certainly helps with the annoying parts of ethics. It made it more accessible to know that most past philosophers wasted time chasing the unobtainable and ignoring what is useful.
Honestly, the biggest failure in ethics is not focusing on uncertainty. Thought experiments are less than useless because you can never have full knowledge of outcomes in reality. Ethics often presupposes deductive reasoning, making it inapplicable to our uncertain reality. You cannot prove anything about reality, only about the forms that we made the fuck up to approximate it. All of those formal systems are built on induction, meaning they are always uncertain.
Uncertainty is inevitable, fundamental, and unavoidable. If we want ethical theories to apply to real life, they must deal with uncertainties at every level. Reject deduction, accept epistemological solipsism. I just don’t see how we can ever be certain, but that’s ok. We can build far more if we accept that limitation from the get go.
Just change the thought experiment set up to: “you suspect x will happen,” instead of “x will happen.”
Am I missing your point?
It took a while to type this out so the commenter above may have already responded but:
I think their point is for example: in the scenario with Sally’s father’s nuclear bomb
It’s constructed to have people evaluate the extremities of their moral convictions. Some philosophers argue that it is never moral to lie or to break a promise. Some argue that it’s never moral to torture a person. I reckon the thought experiment is designed to get people to consider whether torture is actually absolutely morally wrong.
What I think the commenter above you was saying is: In reality, how could we become convinced this scenario was unfolding before us. What experiences could a person actually have that would give them adequate confidence in the story to actually decide that it was justified to torture Sally.
Like if a person walked up to you on the street IN REAL LIFE and said:
Would you feel justified in torturing her? What if you were the chief of police? I hope you don’t think so, because this is clearly a person having delusions related to some form of a psychotic episode.
Even if she was telling the truth and you did succeed in torturing the information out of her, how quickly could you do it, and how quickly could you act on the information in a way that would save lives?
Actual real world moral reasoning must account for people’s skepticism of the premises of the thought experiment.
If we’re trying to construct some sort of useful ethical system, it has to accommodate the uncertainty humans have to navigate. This is probably why the classic trolley problem is so divisive. Some people are intuitively accounting for their uncertainty in the premise’s stated ‘known’ outcomes.
You’re spot on. Uncertainty makes a huge difference, especially in regards to utilitarianism. With certainty of the full outcomes, act utilitarianism is probably the best theory. Unfortunately for act utilitarians, that certainty is impossible, making it a shit theory in practice. That’s where virtue, contract, and rule based theories shine. They can balance uncertain outcomes with probable consequences. They will lead to the worse outcome some percentage of the time, but that’s life. You can try your best and still lose.
You’re probably aware of this inherent contradiction by for the sake of any third parties reading:
TotallynotJessica is advocating for virtue, contract, and rule based ethical paradigms based on the hypothesis that they will, in general, more effectively lead to outcomes preferred by utilitarianism.
I think this contradiction is only important to people that are entrenched on one side or the other (or the other, or the other). For people that just want to understand how to make good decisions in their lives it’s a bit of a moot point.
It certainly helps with the annoying parts of ethics. It made it more accessible to know that most past philosophers wasted time chasing the unobtainable and ignoring what is useful.