If ethical questions are limited to determining criteria for normative evaluation, then your claim that we receive feedback on ethical issues appears false. We receive feedback on the instrumental questions (e.g. what makes people feel good), not the ethical ones.
On the other hand, adopting my broader sense of what constitutes an ethical question seems to falsify my claim that we do not get feedback on “rightness”. We do, for the reasons you explain.* (Actually, I think your virtue ethics example is weak, but the consequentialist one is enough to make your point.)
I would still claim that ethical feedback is generally weaker than in the baseball case, particularly once you’re thinking about trying to help dispersed groups of individuals with whom you do not have direct contact (e.g. future generations). But my claim that there is no feedback whatsoever was overstated.
Another question: If we define ethics as being just about criteria, is there any reason to think Bayesian reasoning, which is essentially instrumental, should help us reach answers even in principle? (I guess you might be able to make an Aumann-style agreement argument, but it’s not obvious it would work.)
* It looks like we both illegitimately altered our definition of “ethical” half way through our comments. Mmmm… irony.
EDIT:
[what to do about global warming] seems to turn entirely on questions of what steps would be most effective to producing the desired effect.
It turns pretty seriously on what you think the desired effect is as well. Indeed, much of the post-Stern debate was on exactly that issue.
If ethical questions are limited to determining criteria for normative evaluation, then your claim that we receive feedback on ethical issues appears false. We receive feedback on the instrumental questions (e.g. what makes people feel good), not the ethical ones.
On the other hand, adopting my broader sense of what constitutes an ethical question seems to falsify my claim that we do not get feedback on “rightness”. We do, for the reasons you explain.* (Actually, I think your virtue ethics example is weak, but the consequentialist one is enough to make your point.)
I would still claim that ethical feedback is generally weaker than in the baseball case, particularly once you’re thinking about trying to help dispersed groups of individuals with whom you do not have direct contact (e.g. future generations). But my claim that there is no feedback whatsoever was overstated.
Another question: If we define ethics as being just about criteria, is there any reason to think Bayesian reasoning, which is essentially instrumental, should help us reach answers even in principle? (I guess you might be able to make an Aumann-style agreement argument, but it’s not obvious it would work.)
* It looks like we both illegitimately altered our definition of “ethical” half way through our comments. Mmmm… irony.
EDIT:
It turns pretty seriously on what you think the desired effect is as well. Indeed, much of the post-Stern debate was on exactly that issue.