The motivation remains the same regardless of whether your first ‘if’ is just an if, but at least it would answer part of the question.
My motivation is to elicit further communication about the potential interesting chains of reasoning behind it, since I’m more interested in those than in the original question itself. If it turns out that it’s just an ‘if’ without further interesting reasoning behind it, then at least I’ll know that.
“Ought implies can” in that linked article is about the present and future, not the past. There is nothing in that principle to disallow having a preference that the past had not been as it was, and to have regret for former actions. The past cannot be changed, but one can learn from one’s past errors, and strive to become someone who would not have made that error, and so will not in the future.
[edited]
I’m confused. What does anthropics have to do with morality?
[edited]
Is this just postulating that whatever did happen (historically) should have happened (morally)?
Mostly that it’s a very big “if”. What motivates this hypothesis?
[edited]
The motivation remains the same regardless of whether your first ‘if’ is just an if, but at least it would answer part of the question.
My motivation is to elicit further communication about the potential interesting chains of reasoning behind it, since I’m more interested in those than in the original question itself. If it turns out that it’s just an ‘if’ without further interesting reasoning behind it, then at least I’ll know that.
You’ll find it helpful to ignore that aspect for now.
“Ought implies can” in that linked article is about the present and future, not the past. There is nothing in that principle to disallow having a preference that the past had not been as it was, and to have regret for former actions. The past cannot be changed, but one can learn from one’s past errors, and strive to become someone who would not have made that error, and so will not in the future.
It only implies that you can have no moral imperative to change the past. It has no consequences whatsoever for morally evaluating the past.