Making Moral Decisions under Epistemicism

In §3.4, I showed that epistemicism, applied to moral matters, is about not

knowing whether there is a moral fact in the world that Φ-ing is wrong (or right,

permissible, etc.).109 I have also shown that, under epistemicism, unknown moral

facts would fail to be action-guiding, and epistemicists cannot rely on their credence.

109 _{We can draw the parallel between epistemicism and actualism that E. Harman suggests. Actualism is, in} Harman’s (2015: 59) words, when “a person’s moral beliefs and moral credences are usually irrelevant to how she (subjectively) should act. […] What makes it the case, according to Actualism, that Barbara should refrain from shooting is simply that she’d be taking a risk of killing someone, not that she’d be doing something that she knows is taking a risk of doing something objectively morally wrong—though that is also true in this case.”

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In this section, I argue unknown moral facts can still be action-guiding. I suggest a way for epistemicists to make decisions which would be not running any risk morally.

First, I want to limit the moral cases that a moral agent faces to the sorites cases. Sorites cases run from a moral situation that is definitely permissible to a situation that is definitely not permissible. The beginning and the end of the sorites series is also known to the agent. What she does not know is where the cut-off point lies in this series. In this situation, what should she do?

Let’s go back to the example that I have constructed in §3.4. You are walking

down the street, and you see a ten-pound note. Assume that it is definitely permissible to pick up a five-pound note off the ground, and it is definitely impermissible to pick up a twenty-pound note off the ground. The agent knows this. What should she do when she sees a ten-pound note? If one is an epistemicist moral agent, I think that the decision she should make is not picking up the ten-pound note because there is no risk of doing something morally wrong. Even though her credence might motivate her to pick up the ten-pound note, an epistemicist moral agent would not want to risk anything morally. She would want to avoid doing something morally wrong all the time because she does not know where the cut-off point lies.

It is important to analyse the reasoning process that an epistemicist moral agent goes through here. At first, an epistemicist making such a conservative decision appears to be unreasonable. It is because the chance of a cut-off point being anywhere between 6 and 19 is 1/14 (if we only count the whole numbers). However, the cut-off point is not a single point. It is a range from the cut-off point to the end. Here’s an analogy. You must imagine a number between 1 and 10. You win if you imagine a number that is lower than the number that I choose. Which number would

you choose? It is safest to bet on the lowest number which is 1.110 _{Likewise, an}

epistemicist moral agent would always want to choose to make the safest, the most conservative decision to avoid doing something morally wrong.

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Some might argue that it is a bad cost of accepting epistemicism. Here are some examples of epistemicist moral agents who demonstrate questionable moral conservatism.

ABORTION: Assume that getting an abortion is definitely permissible at 20-weeks

of pregnancy and not permissible at 24-weeks of pregnancy. Given that abortion could be impermissible at any time between 20-weeks and 24-weeks, Abi decides to not get an abortion at 21-weeks of pregnancy even though she wants to.

EUTHANASIA: Assume that performing euthanasia is definitely permissible to the

terminal cancer patients who are expected to live less than one month and not permissible to the patients who are expected to live for more than three months. Given that a patient is expected to live two months, the doctor decides to not perform euthanasia even though the patient wants her to perform euthanasia.

WINE SHARING: Assume that drinking one glass of wine from a shared bottle of

wine is definitely permissible and drinking the whole bottle all by oneself is not permissible. When offered a second glass of wine, Waldo rejects the offer.

These decisions are questionable because the most conservative moral choices

appear to conflict with one’s prudential benefit. In the ABORTION case, the rest of

Abi’s life might be less well-off than life without her child. In the EUTHANASIA case,

the patient might be suffering unnecessarily for another month. In the WINE SHARING

case, Waldo might be seen as bad-mannered. If so, these decisions do not seem to be morally praiseworthy.

In response to this point, I say that making a conservative moral decision is still a decision. In these soritical cases, I have shown that unknown moral facts do not fail to be action-guiding. One can say that it is the limit of making an epistemicism- inspired moral decision that such decisions might not be prudentially good. I believe that it is a small bullet to bite. If one is an epistemicist moral realist, she would think that making a conservative moral decision is still better than risking doing something that is morally wrong. Avoiding doing what is morally wrong is still better than taking chances. As long as unknown moral facts guide our action and morally wrong decisions are not made, this is only a small cost to pay.

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To recap, in chapter 4, I suggested the ways that moral realists can explain indeterminacy without violating any of the tenets of moral realism. First, I argued that moral realists can use the multi-range theory of vagueness to explain why moral terms are semantically indeterminate. Second, I argued that Barnes’ model of metaphysical indeterminacy is better at explaining metaphysical indeterminacy than Shafer-Landau’s model. Lastly, I argued that moral agents can make moral decisions under epistemicism because unknown moral facts can be action-guiding. In chapter 5, I conclude the thesis by showing that moral realists have better explanatory power than anti-realists in the moral disagreement debate. It is because moral realists are now able to explain different types of disagreement with three types of indeterminacy whereas anti-realists can only appeal to semantic indeterminacy.