Book ReviewsMichael Zimmerman, . \textitLiving With Uncertainty: the Moral Significance of Ignorance .Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. 218. $72.00 (cloth).

Abstract

Under conditions of uncertainty regarding the empirical outcomes and ethical weight of actions, moral obligation must be evaluated in relation to an agent’s epistemic limitations. A prominent framework defends a prospective or evidentialist account, asserting that moral duty is determined by what the available evidence objectively indicates to be best—typically formalized via expected value—rather than by what is in fact best (the objective view) or what the agent sincerely believes to be best (the subjective view). This prospective standard entails that rights are relativized to the evidence possessed by other agents, sequential obligations depend on the actions an agent can reasonably attempt, and blameworthiness is substantially curtailed because non-culpable ignorance frequently exculpates wrongdoers. However, maintaining this prospective middle ground generates significant theoretical difficulties. In particular, the demand that agents follow what their evidence actually warrants, even when they misinterpret that evidence, creates a conflict for first-personal action guidance. When distinguishing between an internal decision-procedure and an external, post hoc assessment of actions, evidentialist prescriptions risk either collapsing into an agent-centered subjectivism or misapplying the retrospective standard proper to objectivism. – AI-generated abstract.