Sounds pretty close to my view on these distinctions. My preferred metaphor is three guys who work out. Andy wants to be as swole as he possibly can be at all times. Bob wants to make sure he always stays above some particular threshold of measurable fitness. Carlos generally works out quite a bit, but goes through waves where he does it more or less.
Consequentialist morality is analogous to the physiological facts about diet and exercise, which are the same for all three guys. The difference between them is just a personality difference, not a difference in theory of the underlying physiology.
This makes a lot of sense to me. It also seems related to "ought implies can" and compatibilism. We shouldn’t expect people to be appropriately sensitive to reasons that aren't salient to them.
But I also wonder if pointing out moral demands to people (like how much their donations could help and the consequences of their diets on animals) actually raises the salience enough that normal acts and inaction don't satisfice anymore, and they become "blameworthy". Then we'd be back at fairly demanding morality again, although still probably much less demanding than anything less than maximizing being blameworthy. To be clear, I am pretty sympathetic to this.
Also, maybe it gives a pass to people who are bad at recognizing moral reasons, which could include people who cause harm. This often or usually makes sense for nonhuman animals, but we might wonder if this is too soft on basically rational humans. Or, maybe the response to them should really be similar: prevention, deterrence and teaching/training, not judgements of blameworthiness.
Sounds pretty close to my view on these distinctions. My preferred metaphor is three guys who work out. Andy wants to be as swole as he possibly can be at all times. Bob wants to make sure he always stays above some particular threshold of measurable fitness. Carlos generally works out quite a bit, but goes through waves where he does it more or less.
Consequentialist morality is analogous to the physiological facts about diet and exercise, which are the same for all three guys. The difference between them is just a personality difference, not a difference in theory of the underlying physiology.
This makes a lot of sense to me. It also seems related to "ought implies can" and compatibilism. We shouldn’t expect people to be appropriately sensitive to reasons that aren't salient to them.
But I also wonder if pointing out moral demands to people (like how much their donations could help and the consequences of their diets on animals) actually raises the salience enough that normal acts and inaction don't satisfice anymore, and they become "blameworthy". Then we'd be back at fairly demanding morality again, although still probably much less demanding than anything less than maximizing being blameworthy. To be clear, I am pretty sympathetic to this.
Related: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QXpxioWSQcNuNnNTy/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics
Also, maybe it gives a pass to people who are bad at recognizing moral reasons, which could include people who cause harm. This often or usually makes sense for nonhuman animals, but we might wonder if this is too soft on basically rational humans. Or, maybe the response to them should really be similar: prevention, deterrence and teaching/training, not judgements of blameworthiness.