Journal article
Aggregation in an infinite, relativistic universe
- Abstract:
- Aggregative moral theories face a series of devastating problems when we apply them in a physically realistic setting. According to current physics, our universe is likely infinitely large, and will contain infinitely many morally valuable events. But standard aggregative theories are ill-equipped to compare outcomes containing infinite total value. So, applied in a realistic setting, they cannot compare any outcomes a real-world agent must ever choose between. This problem has been discussed extensively, and non-standard aggregative theories proposed to overcome it. This paper addresses a further problem of similar severity. Physics tells us that, in our universe, how remotely in time an event occurs is relative. But our most promising aggregative theories, designed to compare outcomes containing infinitely many valuable events, are sensitive to how remote in time those events are. As I show, the evaluations of those theories are then relative too. But this is absurd; evaluations of outcomes must be absolute! So we must reject such theories. Is this objection fatal for all aggregative theories, at least in a relativistic universe like ours? I demonstrate here that, by further modifying these theories to fit with the physics, we can overcome it.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s10670-022-00650-7
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Erkenntnis More from this journal
- Volume:
- 89
- Issue:
- 7
- Pages:
- 2753–2781
- Publication date:
- 2022-12-24
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-12-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1572-8420
- ISSN:
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0165-0106
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1337984
- Local pid:
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pubs:1337984
- Deposit date:
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2023-12-07
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Hayden Wilkinson
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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