Consequentialism and Consequentialists

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Consequentialism

            Good and evil are two of the most over used words in the English language, as are the words right and wrong, and yet, these concept are not even fully understood. How can one differentiate between good and evil, or decide what is right and wrong? How is it possible to know whether one’s actions are just? Are these judgments based simply on preference and partiality, or rather, is there valid rationale behind these decisions? Are there foundations for either side of such controversial issues such as euthanasia, or are these opinions based merely on self-interest? These questions are generally associated with the ideas of moral philosophy, more commonly known as ethics. As something ethical is the equivalent of something good and just, the prior questions can be rephrased simply as, “how do we know, if at all, that our behaviour is ethical?” There are several approaches to answering this question, all based principally on reason, most often falling into the categories of consequentialist, duty-based, and virtue based theories, but the question remains, do these theories answer all ethical questions? As well, there seems to be an inherent tendency in all of these methods towards preference vs. logic, which would defeat the purpose of ethics itself, since ethics seem to be a basis for deciding between right and wrong, and if there is no set method, only bias, then how can one know for sure what is right and wrong?

        Consequentialist’s, as the name implies, deal with the consequences of an action in order to determine if it is ethical or not. As such, the effects of a deed will determine whether it is right or wrong. The two major twists of consequentialism are utilitarianism, and negative utilitarianism. The first is based on the concept of hedonism, which theorizes that the aim of life is pleasure, whereas the latter focus’ more on a lack of pain, as opposed to the presence of happiness. It is possible to further separate these theories by looking at who is affected, ethical egoism being where right is determined by the consequences to the person performing the action, and ethical altruism being where right is determined by the consequences to everyone but the person performing the action. Nevertheless, utilitarianism defines right as the action that will bring about the most happiness, whereas negative utilitarianism defines right as the action that brings about the least unhappiness, since the amount of happiness can be hard to gauge. Both these theories can be very useful at times, for if you have to decide whether it is right to kill the next door neighbour on impulse, seeing that it would not give anyone happiness since it is just a whim, and realizing that it would provide great pain, makes the action clearly wrong on both accounts. However, when it comes to more complicated situations, such as child labour, the water becomes rather murky. Thus the major counter claim for both becomes how can one judge the degree of happiness/pain appropriately? Does this not turn into preference? For can one person not prefer one type of happiness to another, perhaps in terms of spiritual, and material? Or is it not possible for one person to view something as pain, and another to view it as pleasure? As well, a very convincing counter claim for negative utilitarianism, is to say that the ultimate ethical action would be to eradicate all life, as it would eliminate all future pain, even though it would provide a little to begin. This is entirely nonsensical as to do this, one would have to kill millions of living things, and in the overwhelming majority of theories, murder is entirely immoral. In addition, as duty based theory points out, it is not entirely possible to control or predict all the consequences of your actions.

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        As consequentialism seems to have its faults, why not look at another theory. Duty based theory is quite the opposite of consequentialism, as it does not even deal with the consequences of an action, but rather bases right and wrong on certain duties, that all human beings must act upon. The lack of emphasis on consequences can be understood by the fact that it is not always possible to control the effects of your actions, therefore, it is the intentions that must be given the most clout. The most common form of duty based theory, is religious ethics, or in ...

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