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. And, it's a form of lying and cheating. Additionally, predicting the future can be difficult due to unforeseen circumstances or changes in context. The pros and cons of consequentialism. Evaluating each decision would take too long. Reasonable Consequentialism may be too simple. how do you compare a large quantity of happiness that lasts for a few minutes with a gentle satisfaction that lasts for years? Goodness and Utilitarianism., Williams, Bernard. It has a moral sense and an objective sense. Ethics Defined (Glossary) View All 58 animated videos - 1 to 2 minutes each - define key ethics terms and concepts. Similarly, if a certain action would be good for me but bad for you, there is a reason for it and a reason against it. (From 1), What will satisfy each persons desire is her own happinessand whatever promotes that. This article describes different versions of consequentialism. See Sen (1982), Nagel (1986), Scheffler (1994), Bennett (1989), Scheffler (1989), Brink (1986), and Skorupski (1995). (From 2), X is desirable means If X occurs, X will help satisfy desire. (Premise), What is ultimately desirable for each person is her own happinessand whatever promotes that. And perhaps that is why common sense favors some partiality. First, abstractly, to be moral is to do ones rational best to do what is objectively right. (Or perhaps you do not even know that it is a precision machine.) Internet Encyclopedia of Philisophy: Consequentialism. These are good because of the further goods that they tend to produce. And if someone thinks of the people she knows that way, it seems a stretch to call her a loving or even a caring person. Consider the following argument for consequentialism adapted from Foot (1985). Good and Bad Actions., Pettit, Philip. This makes the crime much, much worse. So Expectable Consequentialism says my thoughtless selfish action was morally right. Triage rules are potentially justified by a form of rule utilitarianism that enables rapid intuitive decisions. . In virtue ethics, one's character emerges from a " relevant moral community". That is, one must look to see whether financial benefit outweighs the health drawback, and whether the benefit to me outweighs the harm to you. Publicado en junio 16, 2022 por . Although those three views disagree about which kinds of consequences matter, they agree that consequences are all that matters. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a plain and simple definition of consequentialism: Of all the things a person might do at any given moment, the morally right action is the one with the best overall consequences. Suppose you are on average just as happy as I am, but you live twice as long. One reply to this objection is that since you know better how to help yourself and those near to you, you will get better results if you focus on them rather than people strange to you or out of view. This course of action is justified only if their actions can be proven to be a threat to society, regardless of their intentions or potential benefits. She cares only about whether it actually succeededeven though, as explained above, the success, when it happens, is arguably not a consequence of your intentional action at all. If only permanent things mattered, then your happiness and misery in this life would not matter at all; but surely they do matter. 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. For consequentialism, the simplest way to conceive of the goodness of consequences is in terms of how much they contain of something that is considered good, such as happiness or personal well-being, regardless of who gets it. Classical utilitarianism includes two further elements: hedonism and totalism. But this objection assumes that an authority on the question whether an action is objectively right would have to know exactly what objective rightness is. A normative theory in moral philosophy, it became prominent after being put forth by the renowned philosopher, Immanuel Kant, in 1788. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40926832. See Bales (1971), Railton (1994). The resulting confusion is defused by showing that whether Sen's CA . But consequentialism is still controversial. (Premise), An action is good insofar as it helps to satisfy desire. A similar argument might be made regarding almost any scheme that would horrify nice honest people. For another example, suppose I am sick and you are a doctor. Other versions of consequentialism may be generated by making small changes in this theory, as we shall see, so long as the new theory stays faithful to the broad idea that morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall consequences. But if I desire something slightly and then intensely, which counts? Read more. At such times we might overlook the fact that the aspects of morality that we agree on as obvious cover so much territory that they sketch the basic shape of civilized life. For instance, obeying highway speed limits might cause some individuals to miss their destination on time. 3. The philosophy also fails to consider certain values, such as justice or fairness, in determining the morality of an action. (The name Rule Consequentialism is an established term for many variant theories similar to the above). When your boss says she cares only about results, that commonly means she does not care whether your gamble had a 1% or a 99% chance of succeeding. See Foot (1985); Scanlon (1998). 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. Foot (1967). (From 7, crossing for you out of both sides of the equation), An action is good insofar as its overall consequences contain happiness. Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. However, once one introduces such a complex standard of goodness for consequences, questions arise as to how to rate the relative importance of the parts of the standard and about how such a view can be given theoretical elegance. (Before explaining this point, we should note that consequentialism on most versions is a theory about the moral quality of actions. Campbell, Richmond, and Sowden, Lanning, eds. In Section 4 we shall return to more complex reasons to think consequentialism is true and some worries about those reasons. So when an individual has a moral choice to make they can ask themselves if there's an appropriate rule to apply and then apply it. That is a reason to think that promoting equality in external goods will tend to do more total good than promoting inequality. But this reason for favoring consequentialism seems confused. We need them for practical help, for mental health, and to help us see ourselves clearly. Also, if you have important secrets, you may find it hard to have ordinary trust for others; you may become somewhat paranoid and ineffective. 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. An example of ethical egoism would be a person who owes money to a friend and decides to pay the friend back not because that person owes money, but because it is in his best interest to pay his friend back so that he does not lose his friend. Therefore, it is necessary to advocate . 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. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But Jill had handled gold a few times before and could make a good guess about whether the lumps were really gold. 2 Such thinking would be action that has bad consequences. (From 4 and 5), What objectively ought to happen, what is objectively desirable, is whatever would be wished for by a spectator with full knowledge and no bias; that is, someone who knows everything and is equally sympathetic with everyone. In one sense if can be argued that the practice of theory of consequentialism has practical value and application in criminal justice. Good actions are the ones that produce the least harm. Duty-based . Moral common sense is shaped by and for the demands of ordinary moral life and so common sense may not be very reliable in odd cases. Goodman, C. (2017). Your email address will not be published. Hedonism is a form of consequentialism that approves of actions that produce pleasure and avoid pain. A billionaire needs an organ transplant. And what moves you to spend an hour with your friend or spouse or child should not be impartial calculations about the overall impact on the world at large. For if good consequences is meaningless, then it cannot be correct to define right action in terms of good consequences, as consequentialism normally does. Copyright 2023 Helpful Professor. For example when faced with a difficult situation in your life, you can use ethical theories to assist you in making the right decision. Hence the reasonable expectation is that harvesting the healthy patient would have bad consequences. See Jackson (1991). If the outcome is good, how one achieved the outcome is not that important. No intentional action escapes its scope. Act utilitarianism often shows "the end justifies the means" mentality. For example, an extra dollar does more good for a poor person than for a rich person. What then, do these two kinds of consequence have in common, that makes them both consequences? 3. protracted and demanding reflection: don't kill, don't steal, be honest, etc; these enable us to act efficiently in everyday life. 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. Consequentialism is a normative theory of ethics that offers a systematic approach to reaching ethical and moral conclusions. Deontological ethics is best understood through the contrast of utilitarianism which is based on consequentialism, or the idea that the morality of an action is valued based on its consequences,. This philosophy states that the morality of an action is best judged by the utility or usefulness of such an action. Sharp criticisms of laissez-faire capitalism and militarism sit side-by-side with denouncements of . Egoism. For example, people often procrastinate from laziness or fear, knowing that they are hurting themselves in the long run. 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. (i) The objectively right action is the action with the best consequences, and (ii) the morally right action is any action one reasonably estimates to be objectively right. All the advice on this site is general in nature. That is called 'rule consequentialism'. (Premise), One ought always to choose an action whose overall consequences are at least as good as the overall consequences of any of the alternative actions; in other words, consequentialism is true. This Double Consequentialism differs from the Dual Consequentialism of 1.e above only in point (ii), on the morally right action. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. You might want to say that I fortunately did the right thing, but that my action was morally wrong. If you decide by looking to the overall consequences, you do not really love that person. But whatever a person does, she does in order to produce some sort of benefit. Individuals are put in a position to make a choice between one life vs. multiple lives. If that is right, then consequentialism itself must be wrong because consequentialism is at root the idea that we ought to bring about good consequences. Utilitarianism theory (or universal hedonism) refers to an ethical theory that determines the morality of the actions of an individual based on their outcome. 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. Consequentialism suggests that to set a speed limit rightly, you must balance such considerations accurately. Choosing different time periods may produce different consequences, for example, using cheap energy may produce good short-term economic results, but in the long-term it may produce bad results for global climate, choosing different groups of people may produce different consequences, an act that produces a good result for group X may at the same time produce a bad result for group Y, or for society in general, so the ethical choices people make are likely to be different according to which group they use for their moral calculations, the most common solution to this problem is to look at the consequences for a large group such as 'society in general', alternatively, ethicists can try to look at things from the standpoint of an 'ideal', fully informed and totally neutral observer, results-based ethics is only interested in the consequences of an act, the intentions of the person doing the act are irrelevant, so an act with good results done by someone who intended harm is as good as if it was done by someone who intended to do good, the past actions of the person doing the act are irrelevant, the character of the person doing the act is irrelevant, the fairness of the consequences are not directly relevant. Back to Series Suppose that by killing X, an entirely innocent person, we can save the lives of 10 other innocent people, A consequentialist would say that killing X is justified because it would result in only 1 person dying, rather than 10 people dying, It seems sensible to base ethics on producing happiness and reducing unhappiness, It seems sensible to base ethics on the consequences of what we do, since we usually take decisions about what to do by considering what results will be produced. For not all implications are consequences. The moral philosophy behind deontological ethics suggests that each person has a duty to always do the right thing. Photo: Liz Fagoli, We cannot predict every outcome of an event. The implication is that the rest of them are wrong. This moral theory deals with the rightness and wrongness of actions, which . These variations are themselves derived in the same way as the general rules. The true answer would presumably have some sort of simplicity and would presumably support most of the concrete moral views that seem most obvious to our common sense. 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. It follows the thought that actions can be judged entirely on the result of the act in question. This historically important and still popular theory embodies the basic intuition that what is best or right is whatever makes the world best . (Premise), It can never be right to choose a worse whole set of consequences over a better. Also, when you are about to follow through on a project you have started, you should not stop to calculate the overall consequences anew before you proceed. There is disagreement about how consequentialism can best be formulated as a precise theory, and so there are various versions of consequentialism. And it does not matter whether the happiness will happen today or next year. Now, different kinds of benefits yield different kinds of reasons. Ethical altruism carries the opposite sentiment from ethical egoism. One could produce more overall happiness in the world by doing charity work tomorrow than by watching television all day tomorrow. One key theory is consequentialism, which says that an individual's correct moral response is related to the outcome/ consequence of the act and not its intentions/ motives. Hence actions and policies that promote equality in external goods will cause more happiness by promoting a sense of community. 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. Act consequentialism is flexible and can take account of any set of circumstances, however exceptional. Ethical egoism advises that both parties actively pursue what they want. 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. This says that the ethically right choice in a given situation is the one that produces the most happiness and the least unhappiness for the largest number of people. For example, suppose God, who knows all the consequences, has announced that certain kinds of things are right. "Many people can incorporate altruism into their everyday life with small acts of kindness," says Myszak. 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 looking for a range of 'realistic' - real life, true to life, matter of fact, everyday, &c. - situations to which it applies misses its totally general applicability. See Singer (1972); Jackson (1991); Kidder (2003). An example of Consequentialism would be deciding whether or not to take an Uber to the airport instead of driving yourself. Still, it will help reduce car accidents, potentially saving many lives. An action can show what kind of person I am even if it does not make me be that kind of person. For example, in situations where the goal is to maximize overall happiness or minimize overall suffering, consequentialism may be the most effective method. Further, it is important that people be free to make decisions for themselves, even poor decisions, because that is the only way that people develop strength of character and because constant experimentation is the only way humanity learns about the various possibilities of life. Most of the best recent work on consequentialism is collected in the following anthologies. On this view, a problem with setting a very high speed limit is that it causes early deaths, which reduce the amount of life and thus reduce the amount of happiness there will be. All utilitarian theories share four key elements: consequentialism, welfarism, impartiality, and aggregationism. Consequentialism says that right or wrong depend on the consequences of an act, and that the more good consequences are produced, the better the act. Reasonable estimates of consequences seem to involve a different kind of probability from that discussed in 1.b above. Another worry is that it is unclear exactly how 7 is supposed to imply 8. But he remembers that stealing is generally regarded as wrong. This controversial line of thought is not only an objection to the above argument for consequentialism, it is also an argument against consequentialism. This removes many of the problems of act consequentialism. Understanding Dentology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics Real-Life Examples of Virtue-Ethics 1. Act consequentialism is a moral theory that tells us the morally right action is always the one that will produce the best overall outcome in the world. Results: Five themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: (a) each child's individual experiences and quality of life; (b) linked to home, school, and community life; (c) child or youth. Violence and social justice. 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. (If there is no one best action because several actions are tied for best consequences, then of course any of those several actions would be right.). Two examples of consequentialism are utilitarianism and hedonism. Hence, one might think, in the long run only the results remain, so the only thing that really matters about an action is its results. Having life is something that provides value to people. For example, it's a bad thing for a man to rape and beat a woman (regardless of consequences), but it's even worse if as a result of the brutality, her unborn daughter is killed and the rape victim who survives gets AIDS. universal seat belt latch,
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