(I’ll reply to the point about arbitrariness in another comment.)
I think it’s generally helpful for conceptual clarity to analyze epistemics separately from ethics and decision theory. E.g., it’s not just EV maximization w.r.t. non-robust credences that I take issue with, it’s any decision rule built on top of non-robust credences. And I worry that without more careful justification, “[consequentialist] EV-maximizing within a more narrow “domain”, ignoring the effects outside of that “domain”″ is pretty unmotivated / just kinda looking under the streetlight. And how do you pick the domain?
(Depends on the details, though. If it turns out that EV-maximizing w.r.t. impartial consequentialism is always sensitive to non-robust credences (in your framing), I’m sympathetic to “EV-maximizing w.r.t. those you personally care about, subject to various deontological side constraints etc.” as a response. Because “those you personally care about” isn’t an arbitrary domain, it’s, well, those you personally care about. The moral motivation for focusing on that domain is qualitatively different from the motivation for impartial consequentialism.)
So I’m hesitant to endorse your formulation. But maybe for most practical purposes this isn’t a big deal, I’m not sure yet.
To be clear: The “domain” thing was just meant to be a vague gesture of the sort of thing you might want to do. (I was trying to include my impression of what eg bracketed choice is trying to do.) I definitely agree that the gesture was vague enough to also include some options that I’d think are unreasonable.
(I’ll reply to the point about arbitrariness in another comment.)
I think it’s generally helpful for conceptual clarity to analyze epistemics separately from ethics and decision theory. E.g., it’s not just EV maximization w.r.t. non-robust credences that I take issue with, it’s any decision rule built on top of non-robust credences. And I worry that without more careful justification, “[consequentialist] EV-maximizing within a more narrow “domain”, ignoring the effects outside of that “domain”″ is pretty unmotivated / just kinda looking under the streetlight. And how do you pick the domain?
(Depends on the details, though. If it turns out that EV-maximizing w.r.t. impartial consequentialism is always sensitive to non-robust credences (in your framing), I’m sympathetic to “EV-maximizing w.r.t. those you personally care about, subject to various deontological side constraints etc.” as a response. Because “those you personally care about” isn’t an arbitrary domain, it’s, well, those you personally care about. The moral motivation for focusing on that domain is qualitatively different from the motivation for impartial consequentialism.)
So I’m hesitant to endorse your formulation. But maybe for most practical purposes this isn’t a big deal, I’m not sure yet.
To be clear: The “domain” thing was just meant to be a vague gesture of the sort of thing you might want to do. (I was trying to include my impression of what eg bracketed choice is trying to do.) I definitely agree that the gesture was vague enough to also include some options that I’d think are unreasonable.