A Contractualist Approach to Moral Uncertainty

Abstract

Abstract People are often uncertain about morally relevant non-moral facts, but also often uncertain about fundamental moral facts or principles. How, if at all, does moral uncertainty affect what one morally ought to do? This chapter distinguishes between “global” approaches to moral uncertainty that appeal to independent, moral-theory-neutral principles such as maximizing expected choiceworthiness (MEC) and “local” approaches that appeal to principles that are part of particular first-order moral theories. It illustrates the latter option by developing a contractualist account of what one ought to do in situations of moral uncertainty: roughly, the correct principle is a moderate one that gives weight to the interests of both morally uncertain agents and the potential victims of actions under moral uncertainty, and which treats only some kinds of moral uncertainty as affecting what agents ought to do. The chapter also argues that contractualist moral uncertainty principles (and likely other local moral uncertainty principles) can avoid several important objections to global principles such as MEC and that they should not be rejected on the grounds that they fail to provide adequate action-guidance.