Cluelessness

Abstract

The article addresses the extent to which consideration of consequences can guide either decisions or evaluations, arguing that simple cluelessness cases do not pose a threat to the subjective criterion of consequentialist betterness. Cluelessness due to the likelihood that the largest contribution to the objective value-difference is due to unforeseeable effects of these actions, while (however) that contribution is of unknown sign can be disregarded because such effects make zero contribution to the expected value-difference. However, cluelessness may still arise from a different kind of case, in which there are more specific reasons for suspecting particular systematic correlations between acts and ‘indirect’ effects, but the reasons are non-isomorphic and point in different directions. Such cases pose greater difficulties, and examination of these problems leads to a more thorough examination of the precise nature of cluelessness, the precise source of the associated phenomenology of discomfort in forced-choice situations, and alternative ways of addressing cluelessness in imprecise-credence models. – AI-generated abstract.