Part two of the “Just Ask” challenge finds this (from Daniel B.):
I immediately thought of a softball question, such as “Derrida: great philosophy, or greatest philosopher?” Instead, I will test your mettle: What are the moral implications of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?
First, let me take the softball: great philosophy and great philosopher. My evidence for this answer: Derrida’s 2005 Rogues. Q.E.D.
Now for the harder stuff… I must confess that I had no clue what the “many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics” was. So, what does a person do? You guessed it… Wikipedia! The basic gist of it is this: all paradoxes of quantum theory can be resolved by allowing for the possibility of many worlds–with distinct and (presumably) equally-real “histories.” Multimple world interpretations (MWI) allegedly reconcile how we can perceive non-deterministic events with the determinstic equations of quantum physics. Can’t figure out the random decay of the radioactive atom? No worries! It’s all about the decoherence, man.
So, Daniel’s question is: what are the moral implications of MWI? Hmmmm… I suppose this is, at heart, just a variant on the general theme of questioning the moral implcations of relativism. That is, if we reject some form of epistemological, metaphysical or ethical objectivism, then how can we presume to make moral decisions or moral judgments in the absence of a universally applicable standard?
So, I will give the short-hand version of my “relativism-still-implies-responsibility” argument. The fact that there is no universal, ahistorical, or absolute standard by which we can judge does not necesarily imply that there are thus no standards by which we can judge. In fact, just the opposite. Without the crutch of something like a divine moral code or the Categorical Imperative, we are forced to be responsible for our own standards of judgment. And those standards can be measured against one another–even if not in any absolute way. If we want to generalize the MWI, we could say that one person might seriously contend that the Holocaust didn’t happen (in his world, in his memory, in his history), while another might maintain that it did. Both will have “evidence” to support their claims, and those standards of judgment can be measured against one another. To risk overstating my position here, I’m not sure that what is at stake is some claim about what really happened–though this is usually how such arguments get played out–but rather what it means to say that the Holocaust is or is not a part of our history. Even if we can imagine a parallel world in which the Holocaust did not happen, one that is equally “real,” that does not relieve one of the responsibility of justifying one’s moral judgments and moral actions to a person in a world in which the Holocaust did happen.