Uncertainty, Indeterminacy, and Agent-Centred Constraints

Abstract

Moral theories that accept agent-centred constraints face substantial challenges when it is unclear whether an action constitutes a constraint violation. While such uncertainty is often attributed to epistemic ignorance, it can also stem from metaphysical indeterminacy—such as causal indeterminism or counterfactual openness regarding an agent’s abilities. In these cases, there is simply no objective fact of the matter regarding whether a constraint was or would have been violated. Deontological frameworks struggle to evaluate the objective and subjective permissibility of such actions. Proposed non-teleological solutions, including knowledge-based requirements, fixed or sliding risk thresholds, and embedded act descriptions, produce counterintuitive results, unresolvable aggregation problems, or ad hoc infinite regresses because they treat deontological constraints as incommensurable with expected outcomes. By contrast, a teleological approach—which determines an action’s deontic status by ranking the desirability of its prospects relative to alternatives—systematically resolves these indeterminacies. By evaluating the balance of agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons within a unified prospect-ranking framework, teleology naturally accounts for constraint thresholds, risk distributions, and stringency variations. Consequently, teleological theories accommodate agent-centred constraints more coherently and plausibly than deontological alternatives. – AI-generated abstract.