What to do when you don't know what to do when you don't know what to do...

Abstract

Solomon is uncertain about whether to jail Norman, a murderer, for retribution, even though he thinks retribution is probable. The author of a moral uncertainty book advises Solomon to free Norman based on Solomon’s uncertainty about retribution. However, Solomon jails Norman instead. Two answers are proposed for what our author should say about this situation: 1) It is more rational to free Norman because the difference in moral value between doing B and doing A is greater than the difference between A and B is, in the supposition that B is better, than the difference between doing A and doing B is, in the supposition that A is better; 2) It is more rational to jail Norman because Solomon thinks it is right to do so. However, both answers face several problems. We argue instead that (A) there are two conceptions of rationality at play in the intuitions above: perspectival and systemic, and also that (B) neither is rational in the perspectival sense for Solomon to either jail or free Norman, and (C) it is quite plausible that there is no one thing it is systemically rational to do; rather, there may be incommensurable “orders” of systemic rationality and these orders may disagree about what to do. – AI-generated abstract.