CONSEQUENTIALISM Brad Hooker

37 CONSEQUENTIALISM Brad Hooker The definition of consequentialism A consequentialist theory evaluates things exclusively in terms of consequences. For example, beliefs could be evaluated in terms of the consequences of holding them (an approach often called pragmatism). The most common forms of consequentialism, however, focus on the evaluation of acts and sets of rules. And the rest of this chapter will stick to that focus. The most familiar kind of consequentialism is the kind of utilitarianism maintaining that an act is morally right if and only if no alternative act has consequences containing greater welfare (or net benefit), impartially assessed. In uti- litarians’ impartial assessment of welfare, a benefit (i.e. addition to someone’s welfare) or harm (loss to welfare) to any one individual gets the same weight as the same size benefit or harm to anyone else. Thus, benefits and harms to everyone count equally, no matter what his or her ethnic group, religion, wealth, education, political views, talent, or conscientiousness; all that matters is the size of the benefits and harms. This kind of utilitarianism is maximizing in the sense that it calls for an act with unsurpassed consequences (anything less than the best isn’t good enough, according to act-utilitarianism). And this theory is direct in the sense that the acts are assessed solely and directly by their own consequences (not, for example, by whether the acts are allowed by the rules with the best consequences). Thus the theory is known as maximizing act-utilitarianism. While maximizing act-utilitarianism is the most familiar form of consequentialism, defining consequentialism so that this is the only form is a naive mistake. Many self-described consequentialists explicitly reject maximizing act- utilitarianism. Some consequentialists think welfare is not all that matters. Some reject utilitarian impartiality. Some reject a requirement to maximize. And some deny that acts are to be solely assessed directly by their consequences. Given the disputes among consequentialists, consequentialism must not be characterized in such a way as to imply that all forms of it are welfarist, impartial in the way specified, maximizing, and direct. How should it be characterized? What all consequentialists about the morality of acts agree on is that, where CONSEQUENTIALISM there are differences in the value of consequences, these are always, directly or indirectly, decisive in the moral evaluation of acts. What makes consequences better or worse? While the most familiar form of consequentialism is maximizing act-utilitarianism, the oldest form is probably maximizing act-egoism. Maximizing act-egoism evaluates acts in terms of nothing but the consequences for the agent. Such egoism is, in terminology made popular by Derek Parfit (1984:143) and Thomas Nagel (1986: 152–3), agent-relative in the special sense that the value of consequences depends on their relation (or connection) to the agent. Maximizing act-egoism claims that the only consequences that matter are the ones affecting the agent’s good. Just as egoistic evaluation of consequences is agent-relative, so is purely altruistic evaluation. Imagine Jack and Jill each evaluate consequences only in terms of what is most beneficial (or least harmful) overall to everyone else. In other words, Jack cares about the consequences for everyone else but not for himself, and Jill cares about the consequences for everyone else but not for herself. Their evaluations of consequences will sometimes diverge, since sometimes what will be best overall for everyone except Jack will be different from what will be best overall for everyone except Jill. (Such divergence is most obvious, of course, when what is most beneficial for Jack is not what is most beneficial for Jill and no one else’s welfare is affected.) Pure egoism seems to be very rare. Nearly everyone would accept that other people’s good matters morally to at least some extent. Pure altruism might be even rarer. Indeed, many people accept that each agent is (at least often if not always) allowed to attach greater importance to consequences for himself or herself than to consequences for others. On such a view, while everyone’s good matters, the agent’s evaluation of consequences may legitimately be somewhat biased in a self-serving direction. Such a view is certainly not purely egoistic, but it still contains a large agent-relative component, since this view allows the value of consequences to depend on their connection to the agent. Another view with a large agent- relative component is the view that possible benefits to the agent should be given some weight in the agent’s practical thinking but need not be given as much weight as the same size benefits to others. This view is altruistic but not purely so. The most common forms of altruism involve special concern for those with whom one has special connections. Consider a mother who attaches more value to benefits for her own child than she does to the same size benefits for any child that is not hers. The special concern, which again is agent-relative in Nagel’s and Parfit’s terminology, comes in the priority the mother gives to benefits for her child. Many people have such agent-relative concerns for their family, their friends, their colleagues, and members of their community or country. 445 BRAD HOOKER We have seen that one kind of agent-relativity involves a bias concerning the agent’s own good, and another kind comes in special concern for others with special connections with oneself, such as one’s family and friends. Yet another kind of agent-relativity focuses on the connection between the agents and their own actions, as the examples below illustrate. Suppose Jill is in an awkward situation where the only way she can prevent three other people from telling lies is to tell a lie herself. Suppose Stephanie can prevent four other people from stealing only by stealing something herself. Suppose Rae can prevent five other people from killing innocent others only by killing an innocent person herself. Each of Jill, Stephanie, and Rae thinks that her primary duty is not to commit acts of lying, or stealing, or killing, rather than to minimize the number of acts of lying, stealing, or killing in general. Each of them thinks of herself as having agent-relative duties focused on acts of her own doing. The opposite of agent-relativity (in Nagel’s and Parfit’s terminology) is agent- neutrality. Agent-neutral evaluation of consequences is not biased towards (or against) benefits to the agent or towards benefits to individuals with special connections to the agent. And agent-neutral evaluation of consequences is not biased towards (or against) acts with special connections with the agent (in par- ticular, acts of the agent’s doing). Therefore, agent-neutral evaluation should, in principle, be the same for everyone. The question of what makes consequences better or worse cannot be answered without determining whether the consequences are to be evaluated agent-neutrally or agent-relatively. Most discussions of consequentialism assume that consequences are to be evaluated agent-neutrally. But influential agent- relative forms of consequentialism have been advanced. On virtually every form of consequentialism yet advocated, at least a large part of what makes consequences better or worse is how much welfare, or net benefit, they contain. But what constitutes net benefit? There are three main views. Hedonists hold that net benefit consists in pleasure minus pain. Pleasures and pains, or at least the ones that constitute additions to or reductions in welfare, are introspectively discernible and either attractive or aversive to the person experiencing them. Suppose Jack’s life project turns out to be a failure but he never finds this out. Furthermore, suppose his pleasures are not reduced in some indirect way by this failure. Hedonists hold that failure of Jack’s life project does not reduce his welfare. This is because hedonists think that one’s welfare is determined solely by how one’s life feels from the inside, and that this depends on whether one believes one’s desires have been fulfilled, not on whether they really have been fulfilled. Another main view of welfare holds that a person’s welfare is constituted by the fulfillment of his or her desires, whether or not the person knows the desires have been fulfilled. This view is often called the desire-fulfillment (or preference- satisfaction) theory of welfare. 446 CONSEQUENTIALISM The main argument in favor of the desire-fulfillment theory over hedonism is that many people’s self-interested concern extends beyond their own pleasures and pains, enjoyments and frustrations. For example, many people have stronger self-interested concern for knowing the truth (especially about whether their other desires are fulfilled) than for blissful ignorance. The main argument against the desire-fulfillment theory is that some desires are so whacky that their fulfillment would not itself constitute a benefit for the people who have them (though whatever associated pleasure these people derived would constitute a benefit for them). Imagine someone who wants a saucer of mud for its own sake (Anscombe 1957: 70), or to count all the blades of grass in the lawns along a street (Rawls 1971: 432), or to turn on as many radios as possible (Quinn 1993: 236). A third theory of welfare holds that hedonism is right to hold that pleasure constitutes a benefit but wrong to hold that pleasure is the only thing to do so. This theory proposes that knowledge of important matters, friendship, and significant achievement (and perhaps other things) also constitute benefits. On this theory, a life contains more welfare to the extent that it contains pleasure, knowledge of important matters, friendship, significant achievement, and perhaps some other things.

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