Rationality and moral risk: A moderate defense of hedging

Abstract

This dissertation explores the question of how an agent should act when facing uncertainty about both the consequences of actions and the very principles of morality itself. It challenges the view that an agent should always follow the dictates of the single most probable moral theory, arguing instead that it is sometimes rational to hedge for moral uncertainties. The dissertation defends this claim by appealing to the enkratic conception of rationality, which posits that practical rationality derives from an agent’s beliefs about the objective value of their options. The dissertation then proposes a novel theory of rational choice under moral uncertainty that emphasizes “content-based aggregation,” where the principles for comparing and aggregating rival moral theories are grounded in their underlying content, including their metaethical and non-surface-level propositions. This approach avoids the arbitrariness of intertheoretic comparisons and offers a more robust framework for navigating moral uncertainty.