I read most of this post with a furrowed brow, wondering what you were getting at, until I got to the point on free will, which I think makes some sense.
If good choices are relative to states of knowledge and abilities, then how are not all choices good choices, given that these things are beyond our control?
I think, yes, in order to have the concept of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ choices in hindsight, one has to assume the person could have acted differently, even though in a very strict free-will sense, they couldn’t have.
However there are fundamental limits to how differently they could have acted — nobody can predict the outcome of a lottery for example. So I suppose we draw the line at what reasonable expectations for a human being are. But we still make individual exceptions — if you were to find out someone had a cognitive disability, you’re not going to judge them as harshly for making a bad decision. This is different to saying it’s not a bad decision — it is — it’s just you’re not going to hold them responsible for it. It still should not be emulated, as Protagoras put it.
I’m also pretty convinced that large scale random events are more often than not quantum random (that is, quantum randomness, though initially small in classical systems, is amplified by classical chaos such that different Everett branches get different lottery results and coin flips). So if you ask yourself “If I were in that persons position, should I have bought the lottery ticket?”, well, the outcome is actually totally not predetermined. Not that I think any argument here should rely on the quantum vs classical randomness distinction, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
But it seems like it’s not even a coherent concept, to judge based on actual results rather than expected, so apart from the free will angle and pointing out that some people might have badly calculated expectations, I don’t think it’s an idea worth putting too much thought into, and I think that those interpreting consequentialist ethics in this way must be very confused people indeed.
If good choices are relative to states of knowledge and abilities, then how are not all choices good choices, given that these things are beyond our control?
I read most of this post with a furrowed brow, wondering what you were getting at, until I got to the point on free will, which I think makes some sense.
If good choices are relative to states of knowledge and abilities, then how are not all choices good choices, given that these things are beyond our control?
I think, yes, in order to have the concept of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ choices in hindsight, one has to assume the person could have acted differently, even though in a very strict free-will sense, they couldn’t have.
However there are fundamental limits to how differently they could have acted — nobody can predict the outcome of a lottery for example. So I suppose we draw the line at what reasonable expectations for a human being are. But we still make individual exceptions — if you were to find out someone had a cognitive disability, you’re not going to judge them as harshly for making a bad decision. This is different to saying it’s not a bad decision — it is — it’s just you’re not going to hold them responsible for it. It still should not be emulated, as Protagoras put it.
I’m also pretty convinced that large scale random events are more often than not quantum random (that is, quantum randomness, though initially small in classical systems, is amplified by classical chaos such that different Everett branches get different lottery results and coin flips). So if you ask yourself “If I were in that persons position, should I have bought the lottery ticket?”, well, the outcome is actually totally not predetermined. Not that I think any argument here should rely on the quantum vs classical randomness distinction, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
But it seems like it’s not even a coherent concept, to judge based on actual results rather than expected, so apart from the free will angle and pointing out that some people might have badly calculated expectations, I don’t think it’s an idea worth putting too much thought into, and I think that those interpreting consequentialist ethics in this way must be very confused people indeed.
In the same way that not all CPUs do arithmetic right.
Yep. “Good” is normative.