Academic

Portmore on Objective Consequentialism

By Lawrence Solum

Douglas Portmore has a very interesting post on PEA Soup, discussing this hypo:

 The Safe: Imagine that the time is T-0 and that the fate of the world depends on your opening a safe by T-11. Suppose that the correct ten-digit combination is 205-513-9437. And suppose that although this ten-digit combination is unknown to you, you could dial it in the following sense. If you were to intend at T-1 to dial a ?2? for the first digit of the combination, you would then succeed in doing so. And if you were subsequently to intend at T-2 to dial a ?0? for the second digit of the combination, you would then succeed in doing that. And so on and so forth for the remaining eight digits. Thus, there is a sequence of actions, each of which you are capable of performing, that would result in your opening the safe by T-11. Let me stipulate, though, that given your ignorance of the correct combination you would in fact fail to open the safe by T-11 no matter what you intend at T-0 to do.*

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 04, 2010 (boomark / email).