Consequentialism

DR. CB. Kusmaryanto, SCJ

The ends justify the means
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GADJAH MADA UNIVERSITY
Center for religious & cross-cultural studies

LOGO
Terminology: Consequentialism
.Consequentialism is an ethical theories holding that the
consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any
judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.
.term of Consequentialism was coined by Elizabeth Anscombe (1919
-2001) in her 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy", as a pejorative
description of what she saw as the central error of certain moral
theories (she was a Virtue Ethicist). It then came to be adopted by
both sides of the argument.

LOGO
Terminology: Consequentialism
.The Morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall
consequences.
.Here the phrase overall consequences of an action means
everything the action brings about, including the action itself:
1.to spread happiness and relieve suffering,
2.to create as much freedom as possible in the world,
3.to promote the survival of our species,

If so, then you accept consequentialism.

LOGO
Terminology: Consequentialism
.Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or
omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or
consequence.
.In another words: Consequentialism is based on two principles:
.Whether an act is right or wrong depends only on the
consequences (results) of that act
.The more good consequences an act produces, the better or
more right that act
.Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or
omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or
consequence.

LOGO
Terminology: Consequentialism
.What is the meaning of consequence? The consequences of an
action include (a) the action itself, and (b) everything the action
causes. Example: Both A itself and the things A causes are things
that happen if you do A rather than the alternatives to A.
.In an extreme form, the idea of consequentialism is commonly
encapsulated in the English saying, "the ends justify the means ,
meaning that if a goal is morally important enough, any method of
achieving it is acceptable

LOGO
Terminology
.Consequentialism, in general approach can be applied at different
levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things,
but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the
moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally
right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something
related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general
rule requiring acts of the same kind.

LOGO
Consequentialism
.Consequentialism is usually distinguished from:
.Deontological ethics (or deontology), in that deontology derives
the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character
of the behavior itself rather than the outcomesof the conduct.
.Virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent
rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or
omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics which treats morality like
science: advancing socially over the course of many lifetimes,
such that any moral criterion is subject to revision.
.Consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods.

Division of Consequentialism
.Consequentialism is usually divided into:
1.Utilitarianism: is an ethical theory which evaluates the moral
worth of an action based on the utility of action, The
greatest happiness of the greatest number .
2.Ethical egoism can be understood as a consequentialisttheory according to whic
h the consequences for the individual
agent are taken to matter more than any other result.
3.Ethical altruism can be seen as a consequentialistethic which
prescribes that an individual take actions that have the best
consequences for everyone except for himself. This was
advocated by AugusteComte, who coined the term "altruism,"
and whose ethics can be summed up in the phrase: Live for
others

Division of Consequentialism
4. Hedonism, which is the philosophy that pleasure is the most
important pursuit of mankind, and that individuals should
strive to maximise their own total pleasure (net of any pain
or suffering). .people should maximise human pleasure.
5. State consequentialism (Mohist consequentialism), also
known as state consequentialism, is an ethical theory which
evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much
it contributes to the welfare of a state.

Division of Consequentialism
State consequentialism (Mohist), dating back to the 5th
century BCE, is the "world's earliest form of
consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based
on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of
human welfare. It is the business of the benevolent man to
seek to promote what is beneficial to the world and to
eliminate what is harmful, and to provide a model for the
world. What benefits he will carry out; what does not benefit
men he will leave alone .(Mozi, Mozi-5th century BC)

Critiques of Consequentialism
1.By the time of the action, a consequentialistdoesn t know exactly
wheterhis action is right or wrong because it depends on the
consequences which is still in the future.
2.Some Virtue Ethicists hold that Consequentialisttheories totally
disregard the development and importance of moral character.
PhillipaFoot (1920 -), for example, argues that consequences in
themselves have no ethical content, unless it has been provided
by a virtue, such as benevolence, etc.
3.Others have argued that Consequentialism is unable to explain
adequately why a morally wrong action is morally wrong, and
attempts to do so lead to absurdity, such as the example of an
"obliging stranger" who agrees to be baked in an oven.

Critiques of Consequentialism
4.Elizabeth Anscombe(1919 -2001) has objected to
Consequentialism on the grounds that it does not provide
guidance in what one ought to do, since the rightness or
wrongness of an action is determined based solely on the
consequences it produces.
5.Bernard Williams (1929 -2003) has argued that
Consequentialism is alienating because it requires moral agents
to put too much distance between themselves and their own
projects and commitments, and to take a strictly impersonal
view of all actions.

Critiques of Consequentialism
6.No type of act is inherentlywrong -not even murder -it
depends on the result of the act
7.Others argue that Consequentialism makes no distinction
between consequences that are foreseen and those that are
intended (e.g. relieving a terminally ill patient's pain may also
cause an effect one would normally be obliged to avoid, namely
the patient's death: the Principle of Double Effect).
8.Still others have argued that Consequentialism fails to
appropriately take into account the people affected by a
particular action (e.g. A Consequentialist cannot really criticize
human rights abuses in a war if they ultimately result in a
better state of affairs).

Utilitarianism
The greatest happiness of the greatest number
Jeremy Bentham & John Stuart Mill

Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism was developed by English philosophers and
economists
.Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in his book Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation(1781).
.John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) in his book: Utilitarianism
.Bentham and Mill are claimed to create utilitarianism, although it is
not totally new. Epicurus (341 270 BC) already mentioned it in
his idea. We can find also in David Hume (1711-1766)who said
"utility, in all subjects, is a source of praise and approbation; . . .
it is a foundation of the chief part of morals, which has a
reference to mankind and our fellow creatures" (Hume, 1948, p.
221).

Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral
theories. Like other forms of consequentialism, its core idea is that
whether actions are morally right or wrong depends on their effects.
More specifically, the only effects of actions that are relevant are the
good and bad results that they produce.
.Philosophers refer to it as a teleological system. The Greek word
telos means end or goal. .This means that this ethical system
determines morality by the end result. Whereas religion s ethics are
based on rules, utilitarianism is based on results.

Utilitarianism
.Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better
by increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and
happiness) in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things
(such as pain and unhappiness).
.They reject moral codes or systems that consist of commands or
taboos that are based on customs, traditions, or orders given by
leaders or supernatural beings. Instead, utilitarians think that what
makes a morality be true or justifiable is its positive contribution
(consequences) to human (and perhaps non-human) beings.
.Consequences of the Utilitarian includes all of the good and bad
produced by the act, whether arising after the act has been
performed or during its performance. If the difference in the
consequences of alternative acts is not great, some Utilitarians do
not regard the choice between them as a moral issue.

Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism is a philosophical view or theory about how we
should evaluate a wide range of things that involve choices that
people face. Among the things that can be evaluated are actions,
laws, policies, character traits, and moral codes.

Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham

.Bentham in his book wrote: Nature has placed mankind under
the governance of two sovereign masters: pain and pleasure. It
is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to
determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of
right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects,
are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all
we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off
our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. "
(1789, p. 12).
.Bentham believed that pain and pleasure not only explain our
actions but also help us define what is good and moral. He
believed that this foundation could provide a basis for social,
legal, and moral reform in society.

Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham

.Bentham wrote: By the principle of utility is meant that principle
which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment
or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in
question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote
or to oppose that happiness.
.Bentham formulated his famous principle, The greatest
happiness of the greatest number .What he means
by happiness is pleasure, free from pain

Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham

.What is good?
.Jeremy Bentham answered this question by adopting the view called
hedonism. According to hedonism, the only thing that is good in itself
is pleasure. Hedonists do not deny that many different kinds of
things can be good, including food, friends, freedom, and many other
things, but hedonists see these as instrumental goods that are
valuable only because they play a causal role in producing pleasure
or happiness.
.Pleasure and happiness, however, are intrinsic goods, meaning that
they are good in themselves and not because they produce some
further valuable thing.
.Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e, they analyzed happiness as a
balance of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings alone
are of intrinsic value and disvalue.

Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham

.Bentham believed that a hedonic calculus is theoretically
possible. A moralist, he maintained, could sum up the units of
pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to be affected,
immediately and in the future, and could take the balance as a
measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action.
.Such precise measurement as Bentham envisioned is perhaps
not essential, but it is nonetheless necessary for the utilitarian to
make some interpersonal comparisons of the values of the
effects of alternative courses of action.
.His final intention of acting is pleasure so that his philosophy is
called pig philosophy.

Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham

.Many thinkers have rejected hedonism because pleasure and
pain are sensations that we feel, claiming that many important
goods are not types of feelings.
.Being healthy or honest or having knowledge, for example,
are thought by some people to be intrinsic goods that are not
types of feelings.
.Other thinkers see desires or preferences as the basis of
value; whatever a person desires is valuable to that person. If
desires conflict, then the things most strongly preferred are
identified as good.

.John Stuart Mill (1806 1873) who was the nephew of

Bentham revised and criticized his uncle.
.John Stuart Mill modified Bentham philosophy and
developed it apart from Bentham s hedonistic foundation.
Mill used the same utilitarian calculus but instead focused
on maximizing the general happiness by calculating the
greatest good for the greatest number. While Bentham
used the calculus in a quantitative sense, Mill used this
calculus in a qualitative sense. He believed, for example,
that some pleasures were of higher quality than others.
Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill

.He criticized Bentham on the meaning of happiness.

According to Bentham, happiness is the same as pleasure
which depends on intensity, duration, time, fecundity, and
the number of people who experience the happiness.
.According to Mill, the real pleasure depend on the
qualitative features which comes from higher faculties
(intellectual, imagination, feeling etc) and it is not a lower
faculties (bodily pleasure, sensual etc). That is why, he said,
"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied" (Mill, 1863, p. 20).
Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill

Utilitarianism is famous?
.Why utilitarianism is so famous?
.First, it is a relatively simple ethical system to apply. To
determine whether an action is moral you merely have to
calculate the good and bad consequences that will result from a
particular action. If the good outweighs the bad, then the action is
moral.
.Second, utilitarianism avoids the need to appeal to divine
revelation. Many adherents to this ethical system are looking for a
way to live a moral life apart from the Scripture and a belief in
God. The system replaces revelation with reason. Logic rather
than an adherence to scriptural principles guides the ethical
decision-making of a utilitarian.

Utilitarianism is famous?
.Third, most people already use a form of utilitarianism in their
daily decisions. We make lots of non-moral decisions every day
based upon consequences. At the checkout line, we try to find the
shortest line so we can get out the door more quickly. We make
most of our financial decisions (writing checks, buying
merchandise, etc.) on a utilitarian calculus of cost and benefits. So
making moral decisions using utilitarianism seems like a natural
extension of our daily decision-making procedures.

Influence of Utilitarianism
.The Utilitarian theory of the justification of punishment stands
in opposition to the retributive theory, according to which
punishment is intended to make the criminal pay for his
crime. According to the Utilitarian, the rationale of punishment
is entirely to prevent further crime by either reforming the
criminal or protecting society from him and to deter others
from crime through fear of punishment.

Influence of Utilitarianism
.Classical economics received some of its most important
statements from Utilitarian writers, especially Ricardo and
John Stuart Mill. Ironically, its theory of economic value was
framed primarily in terms of the cost of labour in production
rather than in terms of the use value, or utility, of
commodities. Later developments more clearly reflected the
Utilitarian philosophy.
.Peter J. Hammond mengatakan, "The whole study of welfare
economics is founded more or less explicitly on utilitarian
ideas," Further he said that the principles of social welfare are
function, efficiency, dan effectiveness (Hammond, 1982, p.
85).

Influence of Utilitarianism
.Utilitarians supports democracyas a way of making the
interest of government coincide with the general interest;
they have argued for the greatest individual liberty
compatible with an equal liberty for others on the ground that
each individual is generally the best judge of his own welfare.
.Context of the emerging utilitarianism is renewal of social
institution. It related to the changes of policy: utilitarianism.
.In order to arrive at a welfare state, it need to redistribution
of income tax, allocation of scarce resources with the criteria
of cost-benefit, cost effective or risk benefit.

Influence of Utilitarianism
.Medical ethics: Most of medical ethics based on the
utilitarianism in which medical doctor will evaluate their
medical intervention based on cost benefit. In more serious
medical intervention, medical doctor s intervention will base
on QALY (the quality-adjusted life year). It is a comparison
between:
1.life expectancy
2.quality of life
3.cost
.If medical intervention gives longer life expectancy and good
quality of life, so it is good to make

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
.Stealing: although the widespread practice of lying and stealing would
have bad consequences, resulting in a loss of trustworthiness and
security, it is not certain that an occasional lie to avoid embarrassment
or an occasional theft from a rich man would not have good
consequences, and thus be permissible or even required by
Utilitarianism. .No universal moral standard.
.Hedonistic value theory held by Bentham, holds that the value of life
is more than a balance of pleasure over pain. Mill, in contrast to
Bentham, discerned differences in the quality of pleasures that
made some intrinsically preferable to others independently of
intensity and duration (the quantitative dimensions recognized by
Bentham).

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
Some philosophers in the Utilitarian tradition have recognized
certain wholly nonhedonistic values without losing their
Utilitarian credentials such as British philosopher, G.E. Moore
(1873 1958) which regarded many kinds of consciousness
including love, knowledge, and the experience of beauty as
intrinsically valuable independently of pleasure, a position
labeled ideal Utilitarianism.

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism cannot protect the rights of minorities if the goal is
the greatest good for the greatest number. Americans in the
eighteenth century could justify slavery on the basis that it
provided a good consequence for a majority of Americans.
Certainly the majority benefited from cheap slave labor even
though the lives of black slaves were much worse.
.There is tendency to uses human being as a tool to arrive at the
greatest happiness for the greatest number. It will degrade the
human dignity and put human being not as the most important.

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism is predicting the future consequences. If morality is
based on results, then we would have to have omniscience in order to
accurately predict the consequence of any action. But at best we can
only guess at the future, and often these educated guesses are wrong.
.Consequences themselves must be judged. When results occur, we
must still ask whether they are good or bad results. Utilitarianism
provides no objective and consistent foundation to judge results
because results are the mechanism used to judge the action itself.
.Utilitarianism do not make any distinction between:
.Foreseen bad consequences, and
.Unpredicted bad consequences.

Both have different value.

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
.Utilitarianism leads to an end justifies the means mentality. If any
worthwhile end can justify the means to attain it, a true ethical
foundation is lost. But we all know that the end does notjustify the
means. If that were so, then Hitler could justify the Holocaust because
the end was to purify the human race. Stalin could justify his slaughter
of millions because he was trying to achieve a communist utopia.
.Certainly, the end cannot justify the meansbecause in order to have a
good behavior/action, there are 3 elements should be considered
together:
1.Intention
2.The way (method)
3.Environment

LOGO
Criticism of Utilitarianism
.All of the e elements play important role in determining the goodness
of the action. If one of them is not good, the action is not goo either.
.Although it is true that the intention plays important role, but if only
the intention is good but means (methods) to achieve it is not good,
the action is not good
. environment can reduce or increase the goodness or the wrongness
of the action.
.We have to distinguish also between:
.intrinsic evil action, and
.indifferent action

Both have different value

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