A Royal Road to Consequentialism?

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2018

Philip Pettit has been one of the pioneering figures in the contemporary development of consequentialism toward an approach to ethical theory more adequate to our understanding of ourselves and of our lives together. He has shown how consequentialism has resources for contending with many of the most serious criticisms that have been levelled against it. Two fundamental elements of this development make an appearance in ‘Three Mistakes’. The first element is broadening the base of intrinsic goods in terms of which consequentialism makes its fundamental evaluations of acts and outcomes. At the outset of ‘Three Mistakes’, Pettit urges that consequentialists should go beyond the hedonic concerns of Benthamite utilitarianism to include among fundamental intrinsic goods friendship, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and the kind of respect for others shown when we impose upon ourselves limits on how we are willing to treat them. So sensible is this recommendation, that pluralism about intri...

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 2013

That many values can be consequentialized – incorporated into a ranking of states of affairs – is often taken to support the view that apparent alternatives to consequentialism are in fact forms of consequentialism. Such consequentializing arguments take two very different forms. The first is concerned with the relationship between morally right action and states of affairs evaluated evaluator-neutrally, the second with the relationship between what agents ought to do and outcomes evaluated evaluator-relatively. I challenge the consequentializing arguments for both forms of consequentialism. The plausibility of the evaluator-neutral consequentializing of certain values, I argue, in fact establishes the implausibility of an evaluator-neutral consequentialist account of such values. The problems that beset this evaluator-neutral consequentializing argument do not beset its evaluator-relative counterpart. But I demonstrate that evaluator-relatively consequentialized theories can also readily be ‘deontologized’, located within an alternative evaluative framework that is congenial to the articulation of nonconsequentialist moral theories. Such an alternative framework can accommodate what is compelling in consequentialists’ ‘Compelling Idea,’ and what is attractive in their Explanatory Thought. This alternative, moreover, can function as a shared evaluative framework within which the merits of consequentialist and nonconsequentialist alternatives can be considered without begging the question either way.

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2007

Philosophical Perspectives, 1992

The most common way to choose among moral theories is to test how well they cohere with our intuitions or considered judgments about what is morally right and wrong, about the nature or ideal of a person, and about the purpose(s) of morality.1 Another kind of intuition is often overlooked. We also have intuitions about principles of practical and moral reasoning, such as those captured by deontic logic. In order to be principles of reasoning rather than substance, these principles must be consistent with all substantive moral theories. But consistency is not enough. We want the deeper kind of coherence that comes only with explanation. A moral theory that simply reports the principles behind common moral reasoning but cannot explain why these principles are so common or so plausible is inferior in this respect to another moral theory which not only includes the principles but also explains why they are true. Why is the explanatory theory better? Because we want a moral theory to help us understand moral reasoning, and such understanding is gained only when our principles are explained. Without such understanding, our intuitions do not seem justified, and we cannot know whether or how to extend our principles to new situations. These are reasons to prefer a moral theory that explains our principles of moral reasoning. This preference for explanation provides a new method for choosing among competing moral theories. I will illustrate and apply this method in this paper. First, I will argue that a certain principle holds for reasons for action in general and for moral reasons in particular. Next, I will argue that this principle of moral reasoning cannot be explained by deontological moral theories or by traditional forms of consequentialism. Finally, I will outline a new kind of consequentialism that provides a natural explanation of this principle of moral reasoning. Its explanatory power is a reason to prefer this new version of consequentialism. I will call this 'the general principle of substitutability' (or just 'general substitutability'), since it specifies conditions when 'Y' can be substituted for 'X' within the scope of the operator 'there is a reason'. I will also call Y a 'necessary enabler' of X. Some more conditions might be needed,3 but some

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews , 2020

In this fine collection, Christian Seidel has brought together innovative new work on consequentialism, with a special focus on the theoretical strategy of "consequentializing" agent-centered (deontological) moral theories. It is an excellent resource for anyone seeking to better understand and evaluate the conceptual foundations of consequentialism.

Theoria, 2008

there is no separate entry for "consequentialism"; the reader is referred to "utilitarianism", and this is in turn explained as "the moral theory that an action is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much good (utility) for all people affected by the action as any alternative action the person could do instead". 2 This is a sufficient starting point for my purposes in this paper. It indicates, for example, that the kind of theory I have in mind is "act consequentialism", rather than "rule consequentialism". A well-known consequentialist theory would be the hedonistic utilitarianism described in the first two chapters of G.E. Moore's Ethics; another example would be Moore's own nonhedonistic "ideal" utilitarianism proposed in the same book. 3 Moore takes (hedonistic) utilitarianism to contain the "principle" that "a voluntary action is right, whenever and only when the agent could not, even if he had chosen, have done any other action instead, which would have caused more pleasure than the one he did do". 4 Notice, however, that, for Moore, utilitarianism does not only say "that the producing of a maximum of pleasure is a characteristic, which did and will belong, as a matter of fact, to all right voluntary actions (actual or possible)", it also says that "it is because they possess this characteristic that such actions are right". 5 I follow Moore here. I take consequentialism to be an explanatory theory of moral rightness; it is neither a statement of a mere correlation between rightness and a certain empirical and/or evaluative property, nor a decision procedure to be followed in actual situations of choice. The distinction between theories of rightness and practical decision procedures is probably quite old. It appears to go back at least to Henry Sidgwick. 6 It is quite clearly

The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Philosophy, eds. Barry Dainton and Howard Robinson, London: Bloomsbury), 2015

Morality is demanding; this is a platitude. It is thus no surprise when we find that moral theories too, when we look into what they require, turn out to be demanding. However, there is at least one moral theory—consequentialism—that is said to be beset by this demandingness problem. This calls for an explanation: Why only consequentialism? This then leads to related questions: What is the demandingness problematic about? What exactly does it claim? Finally, there is the question of what we do if we accept that there is a demandingness problem for consequentialism: How can consequentialists respond? The present chapter sets out to answer these questions (or at least point to how they could be answered).

Beyond Consequentialism, 2009

The focus of this book is consequentialism, the moral theory upon which an action is morally right just in case its performance leads to the best state of affairs. The theory can with some plausibility claim a status as the default alternative in contemporary moral philosophy; moreover, its pervasive deployment in spheres such as economics, public policy, and jurisprudence is one of the striking developments of the last 150 years. It is the thesis of this book that debates concerning the challenge of consequentialism tend to overlook a fundamental challenge to consequentialism, an unresolved tension between the theory and many of its most fundamental presuppositions. An appreciation of the nature of this tension grounds the articulation of a fundamental challenge to the theory from within. This challenge is developed and sharpened through the first 4 chapters of the book. Development of this challenge to consequentialism in turn reveals that the apparent force of the challenge of consequentialism is largely illusory. Chapter 5 demonstrates that many traditional rationales offered in its support draw upon systematic misappropriations of intuitions linking rightness of actions and goodness of actions, treating them as intuitions concerning rightness of actions and goodness of overall states of affairs. Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate that one remaining rationale, a rationale grounded in the appeal to the impartiality of morality, does not provide support for the theory; indeed, that attempts to respond to the tension within consequentialism suggest a fundamental role for an alternative to the consequentialist’s impersonal conception of impartiality, an interpersonal rather than an impersonal conception of equal concern. Unlike the consequentialist’s impersonal conception, such interpersonal impartiality can allow for the ordinary moral convictions that actions that do not promote about the best overall state of affairs are often morally permitted, and sometimes morally required.

I argue that we should reject all traditional forms of act-consequentialism if moral rationalism is true. (Moral rationalism, as I define it, holds that if S is morally required to perform x, then S has decisive reason, all things considered, to perform x.) I argue that moral rationalism in conjunction with a certain conception of practical reasons (viz., the teleological conception of reasons) compels us to accept act-consequentialism. I give a presumptive argument in favor of moral rationalism. And I argue that act-consequentialism is best construed as a theory that ranks outcomes, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason each agent has to desire that they obtain.