Simplifying cluelessness

Abstract

Given the radical uncertainty associated with the long-run consequences of our actions, consequentialists are sometimes “clueless”. Informally, this is the position of having no idea whatsoever what to do. In particular, it is not the position of facing actions that merely take on wide distributions of possible value. Existing efforts to formalize cluelessness generally frame the phenomenon as a consequence of having imprecise credences. Even if some such framing is ultimately correct, however, it appears, at the moment, not to be particularly effective at communicating the seriousness of the problem clueless agents face. It is not obvious what it means to “have some (or no) idea what to do” when one’s credences are imprecise, as the variety of theories of rational choice under imprecise credences testifies. Furthermore, anecdotally, it appears that some people find it difficult to grasp the motivation behind existing theories of imprecise credence, or are not satisfied that imprecise credences could give rise to importantly different decision-theoretic situations from those a rational Bayesian consequentialist faces when his actions merely take on wide distributions of possible value. In this article, therefore, I present a brief sketch of a formal treatment of cluelessness that does not depend on a theory of imprecise credences. In doing so, I do not hope to provide an accurate account of the phenomenon in full detail, but only to convince the reader that there is a real and important fact of consequentialist life which the tools of orthodox epistemology and decision theory cannot handle.