The next passage confirms that this is the author’s interpretation as well:
Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found out.
And clearly what he is guilty of (or if you prefer, blameworthy) is rationalizing away doubts that he was obligated to act on. Given the evidence available to him, he should have believed the ship might sink, and he should have acted on that belief (either to collect more information which might change it, or to fix the ship). Even if he’d gotten lucky, he would have acted in a way that, had he been updating on evidence reasonably, he would have believed would lead to the deaths of innocents.
The Ethics of Belief is an argument that it is a moral obligation to seek accuracy in beliefs, to be uncertain when the evidence does not justify certainty, to avoid rationalization, and to help other people in the same endeavor. One of his key points is that ‘real’ beliefs are necessarily entangled with reality. I am actually surprised he isn’t quoted here more.
The next passage confirms that this is the author’s interpretation as well:
And clearly what he is guilty of (or if you prefer, blameworthy) is rationalizing away doubts that he was obligated to act on. Given the evidence available to him, he should have believed the ship might sink, and he should have acted on that belief (either to collect more information which might change it, or to fix the ship). Even if he’d gotten lucky, he would have acted in a way that, had he been updating on evidence reasonably, he would have believed would lead to the deaths of innocents.
The Ethics of Belief is an argument that it is a moral obligation to seek accuracy in beliefs, to be uncertain when the evidence does not justify certainty, to avoid rationalization, and to help other people in the same endeavor. One of his key points is that ‘real’ beliefs are necessarily entangled with reality. I am actually surprised he isn’t quoted here more.