I’m not sure what you mean by “utilitarian metaethics”
It’s a form of consequentialism where the good consequences are a mathematical aggregate function of individual utilities.
but I’d say my post is mainly about axiology,
The title says it is about morality. Morality is about doing what is good , and doing what is objectively good, if there is such a thing. Axiology is just about maximising some value in general. They only coincide if you take a subjectivist view of ethics, but that’s begging a meta ethical question.
and any reasonable moral theory has a consequences-oriented axiology.
It’s seems intuitive to the rationalists that morality is consequentialist but it seems intuitive to Ayn Randians that morality is rightts based. Intuitions vary
Deontology and virtue ethics theories agree with consequentialism that it’s good for there to be more good stuff.
They also disagree sharply about how much bad stuff you are permitted fo you are permitted to do to achieve good stuff. That’s what the trolley problem is about
There can be different theories of what “good stuff” means, but a particular deontologist and a particular consequentialist might be in 100% agreement about that question.
So agreement about ethics is possible : the question is how likely it is. Basically, the more irreconcilable positions there are , the less likely a solution is. And reading rationalist writing , but nothing else, will give you an overly narrow view of the full panorama of views, since many are disregarded, or not known about in the first place … and that makes the whole subject look simpler than it is.
On the question of weighting experiences, I hadn’t thought about this much til you brought it up
So what is yout method of reducing fact to value,if not that? Most people accept that some ethical problems can be solved factually , but don’t round that up to Morality is Solveable. Because they don’t think enough are. A systematic way of reducing fact to value might change their mind, a few isolated examples won’t
Take chicken welfare as an example. Some theory of deontology might say that it’s wrong to factory-farm chickens if they experience any suffering, regardless of the degree of that suffering; whereas a utilitarian might say chicken farming is okay if their suffering is sufficiently low-level. So both care about chicken experiences, and therefore the fact of the matter about chicken experiences is relevant, but for that deontological theory it’s a binary question, not a weighting.
So they have some broad themes in common, but dont agree on the object level issue. As in the trolley problem. So you can’t casually equate then. You need to put in some work to show that absolutists deontology is always wrilong
Alternatively, a deontological theory might say that causing suffering is permissible if you get a sufficiently large benefit in exchange
Yes, but to solve ethics, you need to know whether the conveniently consequentialism-friendly approach, or the inconveniently absolutist approach, is right.
(as I understand, this view is popular among deontologist philosophers). That theory does want to know the magnitude of chicken suffering, because factory farming might be permissible if the level of suffering is low enough that it can be outweighted by the benefits to humans. (FWIW I find it pretty implausible that it would be, but I’m sure I could come up with some other example scenario where it’s more plausible.) My point being that deontologists probably also care about the (probably-)factual question of the magnitudes of experiences of different beings.
Unless they’re absolute deontologists. Then they’re not going to engage in utilitarian style quantitative trade offs.
I likewise suspect that there is a definitive answer to the hard problem,[5] and that we can, in principle, find that answer. Some people claim that there is no fact of the matter about the hard problem of consciousness. I find it hard to comprehend why anyone holds that view. There is, at minimum, a fact of the matter about whether I am conscious (and that fact is “I am conscious”).
But that’s not the same thing. The HP is the problem of explaining consciousness in physical terms .. it’s a “how” problem ,not a “whether” problem.
Dualism was (approximately) shown to be false through pure a priori reasoning, but nobody figured it out until the 1900s.
Dualism is more than one thing. You can make arguments against interactionist dualism, and epiphenomenalism, but that doesn’t cover all of them.
There are a variety of dualisms , including which some that rationalists haven’t heard of, and don’t suffer from the problems they point out.
And dualism being wrong doesn’t solve the HP because it only means monism is right by default ..it doesn’t provide an explanation.
Computational functionalism is IMO the sptrongest theory, but it wasn’t even possible to formulate this theory until we had a theory of computing
It’s a form of consequentialism where the good consequences are a mathematical aggregate function of individual utilities.
The title says it is about morality. Morality is about doing what is good , and doing what is objectively good, if there is such a thing. Axiology is just about maximising some value in general. They only coincide if you take a subjectivist view of ethics, but that’s begging a meta ethical question.
It’s seems intuitive to the rationalists that morality is consequentialist but it seems intuitive to Ayn Randians that morality is rightts based. Intuitions vary
They also disagree sharply about how much bad stuff you are permitted fo you are permitted to do to achieve good stuff. That’s what the trolley problem is about
So agreement about ethics is possible : the question is how likely it is. Basically, the more irreconcilable positions there are , the less likely a solution is. And reading rationalist writing , but nothing else, will give you an overly narrow view of the full panorama of views, since many are disregarded, or not known about in the first place … and that makes the whole subject look simpler than it is.
So what is yout method of reducing fact to value,if not that? Most people accept that some ethical problems can be solved factually , but don’t round that up to Morality is Solveable. Because they don’t think enough are. A systematic way of reducing fact to value might change their mind, a few isolated examples won’t
So they have some broad themes in common, but dont agree on the object level issue. As in the trolley problem. So you can’t casually equate then. You need to put in some work to show that absolutists deontology is always wrilong
Yes, but to solve ethics, you need to know whether the conveniently consequentialism-friendly approach, or the inconveniently absolutist approach, is right.
Unless they’re absolute deontologists. Then they’re not going to engage in utilitarian style quantitative trade offs.
But that’s not the same thing. The HP is the problem of explaining consciousness in physical terms .. it’s a “how” problem ,not a “whether” problem.
Dualism is more than one thing. You can make arguments against interactionist dualism, and epiphenomenalism, but that doesn’t cover all of them.
There are a variety of dualisms , including which some that rationalists haven’t heard of, and don’t suffer from the problems they point out.
And dualism being wrong doesn’t solve the HP because it only means monism is right by default ..it doesn’t provide an explanation.
Computationalism does nothing to address the HP.