Trying To Be Moral, Morally

Abstract

Moral-epistemic circumstances—an agent’s beliefs, credences, and evidence regarding moral norms—bear directly on moral obligations. Acting recklessly when navigating moral uncertainty and the fallibility of moral judgment constitutes an independent moral wrong, grounded in the requirement to treat potential victims of wrongdoing with respect and to ensure that preparatory duties for moral decision-making retain normative significance. Prominent objections against moral uncertaintism—such as claims that it endorses mistaken zealots or inappropriately exculpates moral ignorance—depend on the unwarranted assumptions that uncertaintism entails decision-theoretic expectation maximization and that moral-epistemic circumstances must govern all moral norms uniformly. These challenges can be resolved by distinguishing between procedural and substantive moral norms, analogous to the legal distinction between due process and substantive justice. Procedural oughts are higher-order norms governing how agents should navigate uncertainty and pursue moral rightness, making them sensitive to moral-epistemic circumstances. Substantive oughts are ordinary first-order norms that remain independent of those epistemic conditions. Consequently, agents who conscientiously follow sound deliberative procedures may still commit substantive moral wrongs, preventing unwarranted exculpation while providing actionable normative guidance that resists infinite regresses. – AI-generated abstract.