But this reason for favoring consequentialism seems confused. It is in the spirit of consequentialism to look at goodness ultimately from an impartial, impersonal point of view. But when you are deciding whom to spend your money on, common sense seems to hold that you are normally morally permitted to favor yourself over strangers and often morally required to favor your children over strangers. Web Accessibility, Copyright 2023 Ethics Unwrapped - McCombs School of Business The University of Texas at Austin, Being Your Best Self, Part 1: Moral Awareness, Being Your Best Self, Part 2: Moral Decision Making, Being Your Best Self, Part 3: Moral Intent, Being Your Best Self, Part 4: Moral Action, Ethical Leadership, Part 1: Perilous at the Top, Ethical Leadership, Part 2: Best Practices, Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research, Curbing Corruption: GlaxoSmithKline in China. 1. Arguably consequentialism is implicit in the very familiar conception of morality, shared by many cultures and traditions, which holds that moral perfection means loving all people, loving others as we love ourselves. (From 8), Plain Scalar Consequentialism is true. Consequentialism is a theory of normative ethics that states that the moral value of an action or decision should be judged based on its consequences. In this article we will look at what act consequentialism is and whether it . Act consequentialism is the belief that we have to consider - you guessed it - the consequences of our actions. Slote, M. A. Two Departures from Consequentialism., Brink, David. Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection., Jackson, Frank, and Pargetter, Robert. On the one hand, one might think it is an objection, since we are responsible for doing what is morally right and so we must be able to know what is morally right. Consequentialism might be used to argue that Mr X's human rights (and his and his family's happiness) should be ignored, in order to increase the overall amount of human well-being. how, for example, do you measure happiness? 6. 1. Researchers identify many criticisms of consequentialism, such as its lack of consideration for individual rights, reliance on calculation and prediction, and failure to consider certain values, such as justice or fairness. For example, a Consequentialist who thinks the kind of consequence that matters is happiness is unlikely to think that one persons happiness is more important than anothers (so long as the amounts of happiness in question are the same). Her expectation that it will produce or promote that good outcome is her reason for performing the action. See Singer (1972); Jackson (1991); Kidder (2003). Required fields are marked *, This Article was Last Expert Reviewed on April 3, 2023 by Chris Drew, PhD. As this example illustrates, what starts out as a defense of universal ethical egoism very often turns into an indirect defense of consequentialism: the claim is that everyone will be better off if each person does what is in his or her own interests. Consider the following argument for consequentialism adapted from Foot (1985). Now, one reply to the extreme examples is that such opportunities are extremely unusual. Utilitarianism suggests that the only item of intrinsic worth is happiness, but there are also other commodities that are worth considering. If we try to produce the greatest total benefit, then we are loving all people in the sense that we are being impartial, caring for people in general, promoting each persons well-being insofar as that is at stake in our actions and insofar as our helping one does not hurt others more. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. Learn more about our academic and editorial standards. 3. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. In one sense if can be argued that the practice of theory of consequentialism has practical value and application in criminal justice. Or suppose you are unhappy instead: on average just as unhappy as I am happy and for the same amount of time. If there is truth in the saying that we should love all people, perhaps it is simply that we should actively do what is good for people and not bad for them, as much as possible. The utilitarian theory focuses on an action that produces the greatest good which benefits the majority of individuals. On the contrary, if you think in the inhuman way described in the objection, your plans and your relationships are unlikely to go well, so Plain versions of consequentialism tend to oppose that way of thinking. The objection to this theory is the requirement of sacrifice. Another worry about the above argument is that it presupposes that the notion of overall benefit makes sense. The remaining arguments for consequentialism given here, like the argument from love, do not speak merely of good consequences overall. Rather they defend consequentialism by defending the importance of some particular kind of consequence, such as happiness, the satisfaction of desire, or the well-being of people. Suppose you are on average just as happy as I am, but you live twice as long. However, in letting the missile launch, thousands of people will die. Two examples of consequentialism are utilitarianism and hedonism. it's hard to predict the future consequences of an act, in almost every case the most we can do is predict the probability of certain consequences following an act. The purpose of this study was to examine everyday life situations in which mothers encounter difficulties encouraging healthy energy balance-related behavior in their school-age children. Consequentialism has many forms, including utilitarianism, hedonism, rule consequentialism, and many more, each emphasizing how to maximize net benefits or minimize harm. It is unclear, then, whether the standard to which we should hold theories of morality is that they must explain why morality is easy to know about or why morality is terribly hard to know about! While it may violate certain international humanitarian laws due to immediate risks associated with these activities (rule level), they ultimately benefit humanity if peace can be brought about (state level). One criticism of consequentialism is that it ignores individual rights in favor of collective outcomes (McElwee, 2010). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Cognitive film and media ethics. For purposes of Expectable Consequentialism, a 50% epistemic chance of a good result is half as good as a 100% probability of that same result. Hence another kind of theory has been suggested, which might or might not be regarded as a version of consequentialism. 3 The version most relevant to law, rule consequentialism, evaluates legal rules solely based on their consequences.Legal rules, on this view, may (or must) go into effect if and only if . One might propose, for example, that the consequences of an action are good insofar as they promote the total happiness and promote equality of happiness or of other goods. Rule Consequentialism: An action is morally right if and only if it does not violate the set of rules of behavior whose general acceptance in the community would have the best consequencesthat is, at least as good as any rival set of rules or no rules at all. When we are thinking about morality, that is usually because we are puzzled about some hard question. Campbell, Richmond, and Sowden, Lanning, eds. The University of Hong Kong Various nonconsequentialist views are that morality is all about doing ones duty, respecting rights, obeying nature, obeying God, obeying ones own heart, actualizing ones own potential, being reasonable, respecting all people, or not interfering with othersno matter the consequences. (Premise), The right action is whatever would promote the greatest possible balance of satisfaction of the desires of all people. Consequentialism is a theory of normative ethics that states that an actions value is determined by its consequences. Ideal code, real world: A rule-consequentialist theory of morality. This ignores the way in which that happiness is shared out and so would seem to approve of acts that make most people happy, and a few people very unhappy, or that make a few people ecstatically happy and leave the majority at best neutral. Famine, Affluence, and Morality., Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. While consequentialism has been applied to many contexts, from animal testing to war, it has also faced criticism for its lack of consideration of individual rights, reliance on prediction and calculation, and failure to consider values such as justice or fairness. But common sense may rebel against that idea as being unfair or unjust. (Boxing makes me worse at the piano.) Where Dual Consequentialism had said that the morally right action is any action with the best reasonably expected consequences, Double Consequentialism says the morally right action is the action one reasonably estimates to be objectively right. The philosophy of consequentialism is based on the belief that the moral and ethical value of one's action should be judged by the consequence of such action. It is relevant right across the piece. Note that if what matters is the total amount, then it does not matter whether the happiness belongs to you or your friend or a strangeror even a dog, if dogs can have happiness. The net outcome or consequence of this decision would be the time saved in taking the Uber, versus the cost and potential environmental impact of taking a car. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Consequentialism's underlying moral framework assumes that good outcomes are preferable to bad ones; that happiness is preferable to pain, and that consequences should be measured accordingly. One might propose, for example, that an action is good insofar as it decreases the amount of meddling in the world. And since we ought to do what is rationally justifiable, we ought to do whatever does the most good overall. Rule Consequentialism suggests that we should evaluate rules of behavior by asking what the consequences would be if everyone accepted this or that rule, but does not say that the rightness of actions has anything to do with the consequences of those actions themselves. For example, it can be formulated in terms of the good that actually results from rules or in terms of the rationally expected good of the consequences of rules . Oughts, Options, and Actualism., Mulgan, Tim, Two Conceptions of Benevolence., Murphy, Liam B. Simply, consequentialism means that the moral worth of an action is determined by the result it produces rather than by any predetermined principles of morality. Here are two simple examples of such theories: Egoistic Consequentialism: Of all the things a person might do at any given moment, the morally right action is the one that has the best consequences for that person. It teaches: Rule consequentialism bases moral rules on their consequences. (The name Rule Consequentialism is an established term for many variant theories similar to the above). protracted and demanding reflection: don't kill, don't steal, be honest, etc; these enable us to act efficiently in everyday life. Now in one sense your prescription was wrong, but in another sense it was morally right. Friendly Consequentialism: Of all the things a person might do at any given moment, the morally right action is the one that has the best consequences for that person and her friends. For example, in the first chapter the only real action as when she got picked up on the bus. An example of Consequentialism would be deciding whether or not to take an Uber to the airport instead of driving yourself. Good actions are the ones that produce the least harm. Results-based ethics produces this important conclusion for ethical thinking: This far-fetched example may make things clearer: The classic form of results-based ethics is called utilitarianism. When someone asks you a question, you should not stop to calculate the consequences before deciding whether to answer truthfully. Hence the fact that consequentialism disagrees with common sense about odd cases is no disproof of consequentialism. Ethics in Focus View All One-of-a-kind videos highlight the ethical aspects of current and historical subjects. However, she also loves to explore different topics such as psychology, philosophy, and more. Deontological ethics suggest that you should always do the right thing, no matter what. Fiet, J. O. The virtue ethics approach focuses on the " integrity" of the moral actor. The right act is the act which maximises well-being. Hence consequentialism is wrong. There is disagreement about how consequentialism can best be formulated as a precise theory, and so there are various versions of consequentialism. The "standard" Jehovah's Witness case Understanding Background The Patient's Perspective The Doctor's Perspective Trustworthiness Compassion Discernment Conclusion Case 2. The moral philosophy behind deontological ethics suggests that each person has a duty to always do the right thing. For example, when faced with multiple simultaneous patients in the emergency department it is important to have a way of reaching a decision quickly about which patient to attend to first. You cannot know all that before you act (or after). (2021). The most traditional view among Consequentialists is that the only kind of result that is good in itself is happiness. If the evil group was so cleverly deceptive that even the Better Business Bureaus web site said they do good work fighting malaria, then you may think the damage done by my money was not my fault. A Relatively Plausible Principle of Beneficence: Reply to Mulgan., Norcross, Alastair. From utilitarianism and hedonism to egoism and act consequentialism, each form seeks to maximize the net benefits or minimize the harm caused by a decision or action. In virtue ethics, one's character emerges from a " relevant moral community". For a more extreme example of meddling, suppose that by using your grandmothers pension to contribute to efficient and thoughtful charities you can develop permanent clean water supplies for many distant villages, thus saving hundreds of people from painful early deaths and permitting economic development to begin. See Sen (1982), Nagel (1986), Scheffler (1994), Bennett (1989), Scheffler (1989), Brink (1986), and Skorupski (1995). Almost all lack standard names, so the names used here are mostly invented here. And perhaps that is why common sense favors some partiality. And since your dollar can usually do more good for desperate refugees than for yourself or your friends, consequentialism seems to hold that you ought to spend most of your dollars on strangers. However, in support of consequentialism it might be argued that many of the things listed above do influence the good or bad consequences of an act, particularly when formulating ethical rules, and so they become incorporated in consequentialist ethical thinking; but only through the back door, not directly. We firmly agree, for example, that equality and rights are very important, that it is not wrong to favor our family and friends over strangers, that it is wrong to torture children, and so on. So consequentialism must be true. Although the majority of people would benefit from this idea, most would never agree to it. The term may also refer to pleasure or satisfaction that people derive from being somewhere. A sane person will decide on a project and then simply follow through, unless some new situation arises. Expectable Consequentialism: The morally right action is the action whose reasonably expectable consequences are best. See Foot (1985); Scanlon (1998). (Premise), An all-knowing impartial being would, overall, wish for the greatest possible balance of satisfaction of the desires of all people. If the greatest total can be created only by exploiting the miserable to make the happy even happier, then such consequentialism would seem to say that you should do it. One possible reply to this argument against consequentialism is that even if good overall consequences turns out to be meaningless, one might still think, for example, that the right action is the one that causes the most happiness. See Campbell and Sowden (1985). Perhaps our reason for each action is a combination of two things: the idea that the action will produce benefits and the idea that the action is morally permissiblethat it would not violate any principles of morality. Understanding Dentology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics Real-Life Examples of Virtue-Ethics 1. No intentional action escapes its scope. To see the difference in principle between these theories, suppose there is a somewhat reliable authority on what specific kinds of actions are objectively right.
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