consequentialism examples in everyday life

Act-Utilitarianism: Account of Right-Making Characteristics or Decision-Making Procedures?, Bennett, Jonathan. But whatever a person does, she does in order to produce some sort of benefit. Results-based ethics produces this important conclusion for ethical thinking: This far-fetched example may make things clearer: The classic form of results-based ethics is called utilitarianism. There is disagreement about how consequentialism can best be formulated as a precise theory, and so there are various versions of consequentialism. On the contrary, if you think in the inhuman way described in the objection, your plans and your relationships are unlikely to go well, so Plain versions of consequentialism tend to oppose that way of thinking. See Foot (1985); Scanlon (1998). If the greatest total can be created only by exploiting the miserable to make the happy even happier, then such consequentialism would seem to say that you should do it. (From 3). However, in letting the missile launch, thousands of people will die. For another thing, suppose this amazing being does lack all other concerns. For example, suppose there is a machine that tosses a fair coin with such precision that whenever you press the Toss button, the coin always comes up heads. The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect., Foot, Philippa. People disagree with each other about the morality of using human embryos for stem cell research, downloading copyrighted music, giving little to the poor, eating animals, having certain kinds of sex, and many other things. 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. He says that if he is given the next suitable organ he will fund 1000 hip-replacements a year for 10 years. For example, a Consequentialist who thinks the kind of consequence that matters is happiness is unlikely to think that one persons happiness is more important than anothers (so long as the amounts of happiness in question are the same). Negative consequentialism is the inverse of ordinary consequentialism. Consequentialism says you should do this; but moral common sense says that you should not. For example, Ralph Wedgwood suggests we picture the rational probability . Get custom essays. Unhappiness can be thought of as negative happiness, so that the total happiness we two have in this third case is zero. But if telling a lie would help save a persons life, consequentialism says its the right thing to do. (Premise), When we are choosing among such wholes, nothing else is at stake. There was something right about my not donating. Further, those near to you are counting on your help, so that if you stop helping them their plans will be disrupted, while strangers will not be hurt in that way if you do not spend money on them. For all these reasons it would seem that even a consequentialism that impartially counts each persons happiness or well-being as being of equal value would advise each of us to be somewhat partial to herself and those near to her, because in that way she can produce the best impartial results. Two examples of consequentialism are utilitarianism and hedonism. Now, serious inequality in external goods tends to reduce the total happiness. Virtue Ethics in Healthcare Case 1. 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. Act consequentialism is the belief that we have to consider - you guessed it - the consequences of our actions. See Mill (1859). Plain Scalar Consequentialism is different. This moral theory deals with the rightness and wrongness of actions, which . Seekprofessional input on your specific circumstances. See Rawls (1955). Many ethical issues are of this sort. It is often used as a moral tool for decision-making and emphasizes the importance of consequences to determine the morality of an action (Driver, 2014). how, for example, do you measure happiness? You might want to say that I fortunately did the right thing, but that my action was morally wrong. The more happiness there is, the better. A further worry about this new proposal is that it still does not directly tell us not to meddle. Read more. Another reply to the extreme examples is to point out that although they rely on secrecy, they overlook secrecys consequential drawbacks. (From 2 and 3), In choosing an action, one is choosing its whole set of consequences. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For instance, consequentialist theories are often cited when discussing the morality of euthanasia, capital punishment, and animal testing. One might suppose that if a person has two conflicting desires, it is rational for her to replace them with a single compromise desire. The phrase good whole set of consequences is no more communicative or meaningful than the phrase good pebble. Photo: Liz Fagoli, We cannot predict every outcome of an event. Section 3 above presented several objections to consequentialism, arguing that consequentialism conflicts with one or another basic piece of common sense about morality. There are many different forms of consequentialism depending on how one values outcomes. But in reply to most of these objections, Section 3 presented arguments to show that consequentialism supports those bits of common sense after all. Web Accessibility, Copyright 2023 Ethics Unwrapped - McCombs School of Business The University of Texas at Austin, Being Your Best Self, Part 1: Moral Awareness, Being Your Best Self, Part 2: Moral Decision Making, Being Your Best Self, Part 3: Moral Intent, Being Your Best Self, Part 4: Moral Action, Ethical Leadership, Part 1: Perilous at the Top, Ethical Leadership, Part 2: Best Practices, Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research, Curbing Corruption: GlaxoSmithKline in China. Shaver, R. (2019, January 15). It is argued that consequentialism relies heavily on calculation and prediction, which can be time-consuming and difficult. While the burglar only sought to benefit themselves, their robbery actually stopped the crime. following which will have the best consequences are the same as the non-consequentialist rules most of us apply in everyday life and in judging the hypothetical cases. Copyright 2023 Helpful Professor. https://helpfulprofessor.com/consequentialism-examples/, That the consequences of an act are what ultimately matter when assessing its moral worth. 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. Plain Consequentialism is a theory about which actions are right. One worry about the above argument is that its initial premise may be false. New York: Routledge. See Bentham (1789); Den Uyl & Machan (1983). One criticism of consequentialism is that it ignores individual rights in favor of collective outcomes (McElwee, 2010). A more general reply to the claim that consequentialism advises us to meddle in other peoples business is that even where secrecy would not be involved, there are Consequentialist reasons for you to avoid direct meddling with others private spheres and personal affairs. Anyone who stops to calculate consequences before taking any step to fulfill a commitment is not a person of integrity. Eventually you decide to toss the coin, you win, and I bake the cake. Sharp criticisms of laissez-faire capitalism and militarism sit side-by-side with denouncements of . 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. In Section 3 we shall discuss reasons to think consequentialism is false and some worries about those reasons. One is normally not even choosing the reasonably expectable consequences, because one has not formed any expectation about the actions likely overall consequences. For example, if you think that the whole point of morality is (a) to spread happiness and relieve suffering, or (b) to create as much freedom as possible in the world, or (c) to promote the survival of our species, then you accept consequentialism. Consequentialism would seem to say that you should do this, but moral common sense says that you should not. 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. 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. (2022). One worry about these arguments is that if it happens that the most efficient way for you to help people is to send as much money as possible to help desperately poor people you do not know, then your following consequentialism may involve thinking of the people you know mainly as potential sources of money. In short, utilitarianism is consequentialist and welfarist. I do not donate. Hence people can agree on consequentialism while disagreeing about what kind of outcome is good or bad. 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. For example, introducing a minimum wage law could potentially increase economic growth while reducing poverty levels if it is successful thus making it an effective policy from a state-consequentialist point of view. But that way of thinking about life is, one might think, inhuman and immoral. 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. that determine whether they are good or bad, right or wrong. Therefore, it is important to account for the moral agent's community or communities within which she operates. Consequentialism and Criminal Justice Practice. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0731129x.2017.1345221. Hence actions and policies that promote equality in external goods will cause more happiness by promoting a sense of community. To find out whether the action is rationally justifiable overall, one must look beyond these specific kinds of reason to find what overall reason there is. See Frey (1984). Almost all lack standard names, so the names used here are mostly invented here. When you press Toss, your action will have heads as a consequence, but you do not know that. It may be a short-run benefit or a long-run benefit. From utilitarianism and hedonism to egoism and act consequentialism, each form seeks to maximize the net benefits or minimize the harm caused by a decision or action. It says that among all the very many things we could do at any given time, only one or a very few of them are right. It was reasonable for him to rely on her imperfect judgment, even though neither of them knew quite what gold is. Arguably it was not. by Jason Blakely December 02, 2020. Presumably the stronger desires are to count for more. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. For example, if you think that the whole point of morality is (a) to spread happiness and relieve suffering, or (b) to create as much freedom as possible in the world, or (c) to promote the survival of our species, then you accept consequentialism. 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. An action that brings about more benefit than harm is good, while an action that causes more harm than benefit is not. [2] Communication. By contrast, the deontological theories of John Locke and Immanuel Kant are nonconsequentialist. Consequentialism. Reasonable Consequentialism says that for an action of mine to be right, I must actually come to a reasonable conclusion beforehand about the consequences. Consequentialism is a normative theory of ethics that offers a systematic approach to reaching ethical and moral conclusions. According to act utilitarianism, then, the right thing to do tomorrow is to go out and do charity work; it is wrong to stay home and watch television all day. Rule Consequentialism suggests that we should evaluate rules of behavior by asking what the consequences would be if everyone accepted this or that rule, but does not say that the rightness of actions has anything to do with the consequences of those actions themselves. So consequentialism must be true. Viktoriya is passionate about researching the latest trends in economics and business. One reply to this objection is that our intuitive sense of fairness is not mainly concerned with distributions of ultimate goods like happiness or well-being. I simply assume that this group fights tuberculosis, and I do not look at the pamphlet because I do not care. A documentary and six short videos reveal the behavioral ethics biases in super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's story. Bentham, Jeremy (J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart, eds.). Hence consequentialism is opposed to common sense and is probably wrong. Consequentialism seems to tell us to make all our decisions by thinking about overall consequences. Consequentialism might be used to argue that Mr X's human rights (and his and his family's happiness) should be ignored, in order to increase the overall amount of human well-being. Some people will be punished perhaps unfairly, but in total, less people will break the law, so the harshness of the punishment is justified. For what is meant by love here? 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. See Sen (1982), Nagel (1986), Scheffler (1994), Bennett (1989), Scheffler (1989), Brink (1986), and Skorupski (1995). "For example, you can hold the door open for someone, pick up trash that you see on. 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. The right act is the act which maximises well-being. Classical utilitarianism includes two further elements: hedonism and totalism. The utilitarian theory focuses on an action that produces the greatest good which benefits the majority of individuals. That assumption may be mistaken, because it is not true that an authority on whether something has a certain feature has to know exactly what that feature is. Two-level consequentialism combines elements from both rule and state consequentialist theories. Consequentialism is sometimes criticized because it can be difficult, or even impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes. That is, if As consequences are a little better than Bs, then A is morally a little better than B; and if As consequences are much better than Cs, then A is morally much better than C. This theory implies that the actions with the best consequences are morally best, but it does not say that if you do the second-best you are doing something morally wrong. Expectable Consequentialism says that an action can be right even if I do not think reasonably about it at all, so long as it is the action I would have estimated to have the best consequences if I had done a reasonable job of making an estimate. The theoretical world of entrepreneurship. . So if consequentialism agrees with common sense, that agreement is some reason to think that consequentialism is true. Hedonism is the view that one's well-being is determined by the balance of one's positive and negative conscious experiences. 6. See Sidgwick (1907); Brink (1986). 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. The Consequentialist Framework In the Consequentialist framework, we focus on the future effects of the possible courses of action, considering the people who will be directly or indirectly affected. Instead they use ethical rules that are derived from considering the general consequences of particular types of acts. Many of our actions are aimed at developing skill. Perhaps the most standard precise version of consequentialism is Plain Consequentialism. So far as you can tell, heads and tails are equally likely, even if objectively there is a 100% chance of heads. To say that a certain pebble is good is meaningless. Therefore consequentialism is an inhuman and immoral theory and must be wrong. 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. Ethical altruism carries the opposite sentiment from ethical egoism. For another example, suppose I am sick and you are a doctor. The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. This historically important and still popular theory embodies the basic intuition that what is best or right is whatever makes the world best . Goodman, C. (2017). Of course, once one introduces such a complex standard of goodness for consequences, questions arise about how to rate the relative importance of the parts of the standard and about how such a view can be given theoretical elegance. For example, if eating a certain food will bring an individual pleasure but harm others, it is considered moral according to this theory. Ethical egoism is a type of consequentialist theory that states that individuals should act out of self-interest and pursue what is best for their own well-being rather than considering what might benefit others or society (Shaver, 2019). For another example, suppose you are a surgeon with five patients, each about to die for lack of a certain medicine that you can obtain (in sufficient quantity) only by killing and grinding up a sixth patient. Before we check out these examples, you should note that a utilitarian considers all people to be of equal value to society. Yet there is not broad agreement on the abstract question, What is morality all about? Such thinking would be action that has bad consequences. It has a moral sense and an objective sense. Back to Series Consider this argument for Plain Scalar Consequentialism, which is based on one proposed in Mill (1861): One worry about this argument is that 1 seems false. (The name Rule Consequentialism is an established term for many variant theories similar to the above). For example, welfare consequentialism, or welfarism, maintains that all that matters or is good is welfare, or well-being. But he remembers that stealing is generally regarded as wrong. Pleasures pass by as quickly as actions. To keep a big secret, you must actively mislead and deceive people and keep them at a distance. 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). Learn more about our academic and editorial standards. Act consequentialism is flexible and can take account of any set of circumstances, however exceptional. (1981). Sen, Amartya, and Williams, Bernard, eds. Also, in certain situations, consequentialism can lead to decisions that are objectionable, even though the consequences are arguably good. A great example of this would be at the beginning of . C. Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior., Hart, H. L. A. For one thing, consequentialism holds that actions do matter, because they are among their own consequences. Utilitarianism suggests that the only item of intrinsic worth is happiness, but there are also other commodities that are worth considering. All articles are edited by a PhD level academic. If every action is taken to produce some benefit, that shows only that the benefit is part of the reason for every action, not that the benefit is the whole reason. A worry about the argument is that premise (5) may not be true. Also, if you have important secrets, you may find it hard to have ordinary trust for others; you may become somewhat paranoid and ineffective. protracted and demanding reflection: don't kill, don't steal, be honest, etc; these enable us to act efficiently in everyday life. See Brandt (1979); Hooker et al (2000). Consequentialism is the view that morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall consequences. So, they agree that consequentialism is true. See Sidgwick (1907). Another example of ethical egoism would be a person who invites a friend to a movie that she wants to . (From 3 and 4), Good and desirable are synonyms. One might object that if the objectively right action is the one whose consequences are best, then general social opinion cannot be an authority on objective rightness, even on those issues where the general opinion is clear. Den Uyl, Douglas, & Machan, Tibor R. Recent Work on the Concept of Happiness., Firth, Roderick. A different kind of reply to the objection is to propose that one of the ultimate standards for goodness of consequences should be equality. Then you will have had twice as much happiness as I had. Now, suppose that you do not happen to know whether this machine always yields heads or always tails. However, they are still important considerations when making moral decisions. Even in mathematics, crossing the same thing out of both sides of a true equation does not always yield a new true equation.
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