It’s inconsistent to assert that I must have perfect knowledge about something while acting as though I exist when you have no way of verifying that.
there are ethical systems that can exist even if we don’t. kantian ethics require only that you decide what should be universal law and act accordingly. that doesn’t require that you know anything outside of yourself. by contrast, utilitarianism is fraught with epistemic problems.
Every set of axioms is independent of reality by definition. Deontology isn’t special in that way; consequentialist systems are also axiom sets. Furthermore, every ethical system has the same problem when putting it into practice; if you don’t know anything about the world, your ethics system might as well be empty.
Consequentialist axioms impose an ordering on world-states, almost all of which will never exist. I don’t understand how you can think the axioms themselves depend on future events; by definition they wouldn’t be axioms.
Every ethical system requires knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of the world includes knowledge of the probability of future world states.
Future world states are subject to doubt.
Present world states are also subject to doubt.
There is no fundamental difference between the degrees of uncertainty about present and future events.
We can know with a high degree of certainty that without intervention, the sun will be destroyed. I can know with a high degree of certainty that your arguments come from a mind that is not part of a mind that I am part of. I can know with a high degree of certainty that the place I am currently located will not be subject to an event that will destroy me.
Privileging the certainty of nearer-term events is fallacious. It is true that any particular chosen event becomes more probable as its proximity to us increases, because there are fewer ways to avert it, but that does not mean all further-future events are less probable than all nearer-future events.
there are ethical systems that can exist even if we don’t. kantian ethics require only that you decide what should be universal law and act accordingly. that doesn’t require that you know anything outside of yourself. by contrast, utilitarianism is fraught with epistemic problems.
Every set of axioms is independent of reality by definition. Deontology isn’t special in that way; consequentialist systems are also axiom sets. Furthermore, every ethical system has the same problem when putting it into practice; if you don’t know anything about the world, your ethics system might as well be empty.
i suppose so, but if your axioms depend on the future, which by definition is unknowable, then it is empty.
Consequentialist axioms impose an ordering on world-states, almost all of which will never exist. I don’t understand how you can think the axioms themselves depend on future events; by definition they wouldn’t be axioms.
if you must do what will cause the most pleasure (or least displeasure), then your axiom depends on knowing the future.
No, acting upon the axiom requires “knowing the future” as you put it.
even knowing how to act requires knowledge of the future in such a paradigm.
Every ethical system requires knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of the world includes knowledge of the probability of future world states.
Future world states are subject to doubt.
Present world states are also subject to doubt.
There is no fundamental difference between the degrees of uncertainty about present and future events.
We can know with a high degree of certainty that without intervention, the sun will be destroyed. I can know with a high degree of certainty that your arguments come from a mind that is not part of a mind that I am part of. I can know with a high degree of certainty that the place I am currently located will not be subject to an event that will destroy me.
Privileging the certainty of nearer-term events is fallacious. It is true that any particular chosen event becomes more probable as its proximity to us increases, because there are fewer ways to avert it, but that does not mean all further-future events are less probable than all nearer-future events.
probability is never 100%, but the categorical imperative is always 100% certain.