10 Consequentialism Examples (2023) - helpfulprofessor.com Duty-based . 58 animated videos - 1 to 2 minutes each - define key ethics terms and concepts. 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,. Philosophers express this with greater precision: An action is morally right if and only if it does not violate the set of rules of behaviour whose general acceptance in the community would have the best consequences--that is, at least as good as any rival set of rules or no rules at all. 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. It suggests two distinct levels when assessing whether an action is morally permissible its immediate effects (rule) and long-term impact (state) (Goodman, 2017). One worry about the above argument is that it is not clear why we should think Premise 1 is true. But Jill had handled gold a few times before and could make a good guess about whether the lumps were really gold. (From 5 and 6), 8. (From 8), Plain Scalar Consequentialism is true. Even though a whole set of consequences has no further consequences, it might have further implications. It also detracts from the value of individuals and their own interests and projects, other than when those are in line with the interests of the group. 8 yr. ago What if I told you Kantians are also concerned about the consequences of their actions? If people can get where they are going more quickly, they will probably use the time they saved to do things that will add happiness to their lives or the lives of others. Generated with Avocode.Watch the Next Video Corporate Social Responsibility. The usual Consequentialist view is that a 50% chance of a certain good outcome is half as good as that good outcome itself, and a 10% chance is one tenth as good. and since my behaviour is based on my assessment of the consequences, should the rightness or wrongness of an act be assessed on what I thought was going to happen or what actually happened? (Premise), What is good for you is happiness for you and whatever promotes that. Since Double Consequentialism does not imply that you should estimate the consequences of your everyday actions, it seems to escape the objection that consequentialism requires inhuman and immoral thinking. Consequentialism can still tell you to give me resources or opportunities, or to help me with my projects, or to help improve the laws of our community. See Smart (1961). (Premise), An all-knowing impartial being would, overall, wish for the greatest possible balance of satisfaction of the desires of all people. Utilitarianism | Definition, Philosophy, Examples, Ethics, Philosophers 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. Perhaps most consequences of most actions we decide on are like that: not actual outcomes, but only probabilities of outcomes. So, an action may be deemed morally right even if it harms certain individuals or violates their rights as long as the overall outcome is beneficial. Den Uyl, Douglas, & Machan, Tibor R. Recent Work on the Concept of Happiness., Firth, Roderick. 1. A poor man will value $1000 dollars. It is in the spirit of consequentialism to look at goodness ultimately from an impartial, impersonal point of view. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3750884. One worry about the above argument is that its initial premise may be false. Children, mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers are non-combatants. 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. how do you compare a large quantity of happiness that lasts for a few minutes with a gentle satisfaction that lasts for years? No intentional action escapes its scope. Examples Of Consequentialism - 889 Words - Internet Public Library Hence, arguably, the consequence of your intentional action was a 50% chance of a cakenot a cake, not half a cake, but a 50% chance of a cake. Consequentialism, compassion and confidence Crooked Timber Further, institutions that secure basic external equalities, or that aim to protect whoever is poorest and weakest, tend to give everyone more security. Now, this objection does not directly apply to Plain Consequentialism or Plain Scalar Consequentialism, for these theories do not say that we should think about consequences. In other words, in the end, the outcome always justifies the means. Anyone who stops to calculate consequences before taking any step to fulfill a commitment is not a person of integrity. The University of Hong Kong In this article we will look at what act consequentialism is and whether it . The Consequentialist Perspective. In, Railton, Peter. In Section 2 we shall look at two initial reasons to think consequentialism is true and some worries about those reasons. You cannot know all that before you act (or after). So far as you can tell, heads and tails are equally likely, even if objectively there is a 100% chance of heads. See Bentham (1789); Den Uyl & Machan (1983). (From 1 and 3), The right action is the one that objectively ought to happen. For another example, suppose I am sick and you are a doctor. For example, perhaps we can do the most good overall if we forcibly stop people from wasting their time and energy on pointless or harmful things like driving SUVs, watching television, eating meat, following sports, and so on. Continued difficult deception uses up mental resources. Driver, J. (2021). (2010). If most people who live along a short river toss their garbage in the river, so that it is always full of garbage, then your tossing your own garbage in the river makes no difference to the river, and it saves the inconvenience of driving a few miles to the dump. Despite its flaws, consequentialism remains a valuable framework for ethical decision-making, especially when used in conjunction with other ethical theories and considerations. (From 3 and 4), Good and desirable are synonyms. McElwee, B. Bentham, Jeremy (J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart, eds.). Ethical altruism carries the opposite sentiment from ethical egoism. (From 1), It can never be right to choose something worse over something better, when nothing else is at stake. For general social opinion does not agree that the objectively right action is the one whose consequences are best. Results-based ethics plays a very large part in everyday life because it is simple and appeals to common sense: Act consequentialism looks at every single moral choice anew. For example, if a certain action would be good for the bank account but bad for the health, there is a financial reason for it and a health reason against it. Individuals are put in a position to make a choice between one life vs. multiple lives. Thus, a 'morally right' action would be concluded based on the achievement of the best possible outcome. Act consequentialism is flexible and can take account of any set of circumstances, however exceptional. It has a moral sense and an objective sense. A normative theory in moral philosophy, it became prominent after being put forth by the renowned philosopher, Immanuel Kant, in 1788. 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. Many ethical issues are of this sort. (i) The objectively right action is the action with the best consequences, and (ii) the morally right action is any action with the best reasonably expected consequences. Suppose you are on average just as happy as I am, but you live twice as long. Publicado en junio 16, 2022 por . As mentioned above, in consequentialism the consequences of an action are everything the action brings about, including the action itself. If you decide by looking to the overall consequences, you do not really love that person. Good and Bad Actions., Pettit, Philip. Thus, on a consequentialist account, a morally right action is an action which produces good consequences. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that suggests that the best actions are those that maximize utility. Email: hainesw@hkucc.hku.hk The picture is roughly as follows. See Foot (1985); Scanlon (1998). Reasonable estimates of consequences seem to involve a different kind of probability from that discussed in 1.b above. That is why the position of the hand matters to me. Your email address will not be published. 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. First published Tue May 20, 2003; substantive revision Mon Jun 3, 2019. Giving him the next available organ means Mr X, who was top of the list, will die - but it also means that thousands of people will be very happy with their new hips. However, she also loves to explore different topics such as psychology, philosophy, and more. Hence consequentialism tends to hold that in deciding what to do, you ought to give just as much weight to the needs of total strangers as to the needs of your friends, your family, and even yourself. Her expectation that it will produce or promote that good outcome is her reason for performing the action. Scheffler, S. (2009). V iewed from the outside, Catholicism's social teachings appear to be a perplexing gamut of unreasonably extreme positions lacking in any overall coherence. For not all implications are consequences. In practice people don't assess the ethical consequences of every single act (that's called 'act consequentialism') because they don't have the time. See Firth (1952); Hare (1981), Seanor and Fotion (1988). So if your action does vastly more good than what most other people would do in similar circumstances, but you could have chosen an action that would have done even a little more, Plain Consequentialism says that what you did was morally wrong. Hedonism is a form of consequentialism that approves of actions that produce pleasure and avoid pain. Differences Between Consequentialism And Kantianism A different kind of reply to the objection is to adjust consequentialism itself so that it is no longer impartial. He may or may not find consequentialism plausible, but in any case he knows he does not have a solid theoretical understanding of rightness; so he reasonably decides to trust his communitys confident view and does not pursue the scheme. Consequentialism and the Law in Medicine - Oxford Academic She holds a Masters degree in International Business from Lviv National University and has more than 6 years of experience writing for different clients. State consequentialism looks at how government laws and policies can affect citizens lives positively or negatively, depending on their outcome (Scheffler, 2009). Plain 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. Now, some kinds of thing do not suggest any standards of goodness: consider good pebble. Your email address will not be published. To say that a certain pebble is good is meaningless. (Before explaining this point, we should note that consequentialism on most versions is a theory about the moral quality of actions. This controversial line of thought is not only an objection to the above argument for consequentialism, it is also an argument against consequentialism. That would explain why fatal accidents are bad, since an early death means less life. The reasonable way to estimate consequences would involve at least glancing through the pamphlet, but I am not interested. (From 1 and 2), An action is good insofar as its consequences include the satisfaction of desire. These variations are themselves derived in the same way as the general rules. In other words, ethical judgments should be based on the outcome or consequence of a particular course of action rather than on ones intentions or beliefs. Further, if you have a big secret that would repel nice honest people, any nice honest person who learns your secret will not want to be your friend. Now, to find the goodness of the consequences of an action, simply take the total amount of happiness in those consequences. Consider the following argument for consequentialism adapted from Foot (1985). Communication. We need to see ourselves clearly in order to do good effectively in the long run. Behavioral and Brain Sciences Some examples of nonconsequentialist decisions Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010 Gerald M. Phillips Article Metrics Save PDF Cite Rights & Permissions Abstract An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Impartiality: The view that the identity of individuals is irrelevant to the moral value of an outcome. 7 Real Life Examples Of Deontology - StudiousGuy The term may also refer to pleasure or satisfaction that people derive from being somewhere. A Relatively Plausible Principle of Beneficence: Reply to Mulgan., Norcross, Alastair. And, it's a form of lying and cheating. Another reply to the extreme examples is to point out that although they rely on secrecy, they overlook secrecys consequential drawbacks. Although the next chapter was intriguing and urged me to read on. 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. Slote, M. A. Section 3 above presented several objections to consequentialism, arguing that consequentialism conflicts with one or another basic piece of common sense about morality. Of course, we cannot know the overall consequences of our actions. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. 3 says that she has another desirethe desire that all her other desires be fulfilled as much as possible. However, in letting the missile launch, thousands of people will die. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. Common-sense morality and consequentialism. 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. Instead they use ethical rules that are derived from considering the general consequences of particular types of acts. Hence consequentialism is opposed to common sense and so is probably wrong. Read more. On "Consequentialism" and the Capability Approach - Taylor & Francis Your intentional action was to toss the coin, not to toss the coin in the precise manner and position in which you ended up tossing it. Consequentialism is a theory that says whether something is good or bad depends on its outcomes. Or suppose you are on average twice as happy as I am, and we live equally long. It may be a benefit of a particular kind: a financial benefit, a heath benefit, entertainment or knowledge. The rules that should be adopted are the rules that would produce the best results if they were adopted by most people. However, when judging the idea solely on its results, as classic consequentialism does, then the end justifies the means.. To determine whether an action will produce the best overall outcome, one must consider all possible outcomes and weigh them against each other (Bufacchi, 2009). Utilitarian Morality and the Personal Point of View.. First, abstractly, to be moral is to do ones rational best to do what is objectively right. The Teleological Ethical Theories are also concerned about the consequences of actions talking about the choice of right or wrong based on the good or bad effects it generates. Such thinking would be action that has bad consequences. Consequentialism does not itself say what kinds of consequences are good. Consequentialism and the Law in Medicine - Philosophical Foundations of Why would two-level consequentialists punish only the guilty? Goodness and Utilitarianism., Williams, Bernard. 3. For if we can minimize the total amount of meddling in the long run by meddling today (perhaps by spying on terrorism suspects or by privately bombing the citizens of aggressive countries), this new theory tells us to do so. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/. So also are community religious leaders, community doctors, bakers, shoe-sales people, and the like. One reason is that, in general, external goods tend to produce more happiness or well-being when they go to people who have less of these goods than when they go to people who have more. Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. The term 'deontology' originates from the Greek words of 'deon', meaning duty, and 'logos', meaning science or the study of. 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. 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. This form of consequentialism suggests that following established rules, even when they may lead to negative outcomes, will produce more desirable results in the long run than acting without any rules at all (Hooker, 2002). For example, people often procrastinate from laziness or fear, knowing that they are hurting themselves in the long run. See Mill (1859). 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! If we take the above view that the good is happiness, and plug it into Plain Consequentialism, we get the view that the right action is the one that causes the most happinessmore than would have been caused by any of the available alternative actions. 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. According to Rule Consequentialism, the right thing for each person in the community near the river to do is to follow the rule, Throw garbage in the dump, not in the river. Even if nobody else is going to the dump, and your going to the dump causes only inconvenience and no benefit, Rule Consequentialism says to take your garbage to the dump because that is what the best set of community rules would require. So Expectable Consequentialism says my thoughtless selfish action was morally right. And since we ought to do what is rationally justifiable, we ought to do whatever does the most good overall. For one thing, consequentialism holds that actions do matter, because they are among their own consequences. Classical utilitarianism includes two further elements: hedonism and totalism. (2002). But a problem with setting a very low speed limit is that driving very slowly takes up time.
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