Second Thoughts about My Favourite Theory

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (3):448-470 (2022)
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Abstract

A straightforward way to handle moral uncertainty is simply to follow the moral theory in which you have most credence. This approach is known as My Favourite Theory. In this paper, I argue that, in some cases, My Favourite Theory prescribes choices that are, sequentially, worse in expected moral value than the opposite choices according to each moral theory you have any credence in. In addition this, problem generalizes to other approaches that avoid intertheoretic comparisons of value, such as My Favourite Option, the Borda Rule, Variance Normalization, and the Principle of Maximizing Expected Normalized Moral Value.

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Author's Profile

Johan E. Gustafsson
University of Texas at Austin

References found in this work

Moral Uncertainty.William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist & Toby Ord - 2020 - Oxford University Press.
Rationality and Dynamic Choice: Foundational Explorations.Edward Francis McClennen - 1990 - Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Moral uncertainty and its consequences.Ted Lockhart - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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