Interesting idea. That would imply that there is a fact out there that, once known, would change my ethical beliefs, which I take to be a large part of my utility function, AND would do so in such a way that afterward, I would assent to acting on the new utility function.
But one of the things that Me(now) values is updating my beliefs based on information. If there is a fact that shows that my utility function is misconstrued, I want to know it. I don’t expect such a fact to surface, but I don’t have a problem imagining such a fact existing. I’ve actually lost things that Me(past) valued highly on the basis of this, so I have some evidence that I would rather update my knowledge than maintain my current utility function. Even if that knowledge causes me to update my utility function so as not to prefer knowledge over keeping my utility function.
So I think I might still pick the truth. A more precise account for how much utility is lost or gained in each scenario might convince me otherwise, but I am still not sure that I am better off letting my map get corrupted as opposed to letting my values get corrupted, and I tend to pick truth over utility. (Which, in this scenario, might be suboptimal, but I am not sure it is.)
Interesting idea. That would imply that there is a fact out there that, once known, would change my ethical beliefs, which I take to be a large part of my utility function, AND would do so in such a way that afterward, I would assent to acting on the new utility function.
But one of the things that Me(now) values is updating my beliefs based on information. If there is a fact that shows that my utility function is misconstrued, I want to know it. I don’t expect such a fact to surface, but I don’t have a problem imagining such a fact existing. I’ve actually lost things that Me(past) valued highly on the basis of this, so I have some evidence that I would rather update my knowledge than maintain my current utility function. Even if that knowledge causes me to update my utility function so as not to prefer knowledge over keeping my utility function.
So I think I might still pick the truth. A more precise account for how much utility is lost or gained in each scenario might convince me otherwise, but I am still not sure that I am better off letting my map get corrupted as opposed to letting my values get corrupted, and I tend to pick truth over utility. (Which, in this scenario, might be suboptimal, but I am not sure it is.)