On Cluelessness

Abstract

This thesis explores the significance of our cluelessness for the general project of moral philosophy. In the first chapter I continue a tradition which uses the facts of our cluelessness to argue against consequentialist accounts of right action. In the second chapter I develop a new cluelessness argument against recently popular relevance approaches to claims aggregation, approaches under which agents are required to maximise the strength-weighted satisfaction of relevant claims upon their conduct. In the third chapter I respond to the Paralysis Argument, a novel objection developed by Andreas Mogensen & William MacAskill which uses the facts of our cluelessness to undercut the traditional non-consequentialist distinction between reasons for doing versus allowing harm. In responding to the Paralysis Argument, I offer a refined version of the doctrine of doing and allowing harm, one which gives intuitively plausible verdicts in cases of risk and uncertainty. In the fourth chapter I examine whether we might sometimes interpret cluelessness arguments as action-guidingness objections: under action-guidingness objections, a particular moral principle is said to be incorrect insofar as that principle cannot be used by suitably motivated agents in regulating their conduct. I argue against the general merits of action-guidingness objections. I suggest that cluelessness arguments against consequentialism, for instance, can instead be given a more fruitful epistemic reading, a reading I defend in closing.