Decision Making under Moral Uncertainty

Abstract

In this chapter, Andrew Sepielli evaluates “moral uncertaintism,” the view that decision making in the face of moral uncertainty can and should be treated much like decision making under empirical or nonmoral uncertainty. Sepielli examines three primary challenges to this position and develops resources to address them. First, regarding the worry that intermediate probabilities cannot properly attach to moral propositions, he argues that such credences are best framed as mind-independent epistemic probabilities rather than merely subjective degrees of belief. Second, addressing the problem of inter-theoretic value comparisons—in which competing moral theories seem to lack a common evaluative scale—he critiques exogenous constraints as well as previous endogenous models, suggesting instead that the moral theories agents entertain often contain structural features that inherently specify how their value differences compare to one another. Third, confronting the threat of an infinite regress posed by higher-order normative uncertainty, Sepielli argues that multi-level normative conflicts do not generate practical dilemmas from the deliberating agent’s own perspective, as subjective normativity reflects the agent’s “best try” at acting on reasons. Moreover, he notes that iterating higher-order norms tends to converge on practical recommendations or circumscribed sets of permissible actions, thereby preserving their utility for action-guidance. Sepielli concludes that while debates concerning these foundations remain open, moral uncertaintism possesses viable theoretical resources to withstand these prominent concerns. – AI-generated abstract.