large-scale schematic beliefs about how to navigate tradeoffs are, in fact, a better guide than are folk moral intuitions about what a good friendship looks like
Not at all. Our ‘folk moral intuitions’ tell us right quick that we shouldn’t tile the light-cone with anything, and I’d need quite a bit of convincing to think otherwise. Similarly, considering aid to Africa can be dealt with entirely within our ‘folk moral intuitions’, and to think otherwise I’m pretty sure you’d have to beg the question in favor of ‘large-scale schematic beliefs about how to navigate tradeoffs’.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with (1) and (2). Part of the analysis of (1) involves the nature of observation. Intuitions are a sort of observation, and in really strange situations our observations can be confused and fail to match up with reality. While we can rely on our moral intuitions in situations we actually find ourselves facing every day, ‘desert island cases’ confuse our moral faculties so we shouldn’t necessarily trust our intuitions in them. Of course, this starts bleeding into (2).
considering aid to Africa can be dealt with entirely within our ‘folk moral intuitions’
This is an issue that our folk moral intuitions can get horribly wrong. It’s a lot easier to think “people in Africa are suffering, so it’s morally right to help them” than to ask “is X actually going to help them?” and harder still to figure out which intervention will help the most. The difference (from a consequentialist perspective) between efficient charity and average charity is probably much larger than the difference between average charity and no charity.
This is an issue that our folk moral intuitions can get horribly wrong. It’s a lot easier to think “people in Africa are suffering, so it’s morally right to help them” than to ask “is X actually going to help them?”
This is true, but in this case what is going wrong is our intuitions about instrumental values, not moral ones. I think thomblake was talking about whether our folk moral intuitions could determine whether it was a good or bad thing if we did something that resulted in less suffering in Africa. Our intuitions about how to effectively accomplish that goal are a whole different beast.
Not at all. Our ‘folk moral intuitions’ tell us right quick that we shouldn’t tile the light-cone with anything, and I’d need quite a bit of convincing to think otherwise. Similarly, considering aid to Africa can be dealt with entirely within our ‘folk moral intuitions’, and to think otherwise I’m pretty sure you’d have to beg the question in favor of ‘large-scale schematic beliefs about how to navigate tradeoffs’.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with (1) and (2). Part of the analysis of (1) involves the nature of observation. Intuitions are a sort of observation, and in really strange situations our observations can be confused and fail to match up with reality. While we can rely on our moral intuitions in situations we actually find ourselves facing every day, ‘desert island cases’ confuse our moral faculties so we shouldn’t necessarily trust our intuitions in them. Of course, this starts bleeding into (2).
This is an issue that our folk moral intuitions can get horribly wrong. It’s a lot easier to think “people in Africa are suffering, so it’s morally right to help them” than to ask “is X actually going to help them?” and harder still to figure out which intervention will help the most. The difference (from a consequentialist perspective) between efficient charity and average charity is probably much larger than the difference between average charity and no charity.
This is true, but in this case what is going wrong is our intuitions about instrumental values, not moral ones. I think thomblake was talking about whether our folk moral intuitions could determine whether it was a good or bad thing if we did something that resulted in less suffering in Africa. Our intuitions about how to effectively accomplish that goal are a whole different beast.
Yes exactly