1M Normative Ethics

Consequentialism Lecture 1
18th January 2018
Dr Gareth Young
My email address is Gareth.Young@glasgow.ac.uk

My office half-hour is on Tuesdays at 11:30am in Room 527.

Slides for the lectures will appear on moodle shortly after the lectures have been
delivered.

Normative Moral Theories

We have two criteria for evaluating moral theories:

(1) Is it compatible with our judgements about particular cases?

(2) Does it provide a plausible explanation?

A theory which merely provided a long list of right or wrong actions might pass
(1), but would fail (2).
Three objects of evaluation

(1) The action itself

(2) The consequences of the action
(3) The agent carrying out the action (their character, motives, etc.)

In Kantian theories, (1) is prioritised. In Consequentialist theories, (2) is

prioritised. In Virtue Ethics, (3) is prioritised.
Here’s an example. In a debate concerning raising the minimum wage, things like
the following are likely to be raised by both sides:
• Raising the minimum wage would give workers more money to spend, which
would boost the economy. (For)
• Raising the minimum wage would discourage employers from hiring new
staff, leading to greater unemployment. (Against)
Both (a) and (b) are appealing to the effects of raising the minimum wage in
order to persuade us of whether or not it’s a good thing.

Ends vs Means
According to consequentialism, ‘the ends may justify the means’. Any sort of act,
even e.g. murder or torture, may be morally permissible so long as their
consequences are good enough.
What matters are the alternatives. Even an act with very bad consequences might
be permissible, because the consequences of alternative actions may be even
worse. For example, if murdering an innocent person was the only way to prevent
a nuclear explosion in a heavily populated area, consequentialism may require
the murder to be carried out.
Consequentialism
Consequentialism takes evaluation of outcome to be of primary
importance, and derives all other evaluations from this. (The good is prior
to the right.)

Consequentialism has two essential components:

(1)A theory of value: specifies criteria in virtue of which outcomes count as

good or bad.

Consequentialist theories can be distinguished on basis of which things

they take to be intrinsically valuable (e.g., pleasure, happiness, autonomy,
needs, etc.)
2) A standard or principle of rightness: states how actions (and motives)
are to be related to outcomes in order to be judged right or wrong.

Simplest consequentialist standard: actions are right if and only if they

maximise (i.e. promote to the greatest possible extent) goodness.
Rightness is a matter of value maximisation.

NB: it is not what is good for me that matters; but goodness from an
impersonal standpoint.

Q. Why maximization?

A. This seems a rational strategy when it comes to value. (If something is

valuable, the obvious response is to promote it to the extent that we can.)
Mill’s Utilitarianism
(Utilitarianism is a type of consequentialist theory; but not all
consequentialists are utilitarians.)

Mill wants to explain what utilitarianism is, and defend it against objections.

In Chapter II Mill states the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle’:

“Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong

as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is
intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the
privation of pleasure.”
Mill’s value theory: “that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only
things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things...are desirable either
for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of
pleasure and the prevention of pain”.

Is this plausible?
Is happiness the only intrinsic good? Does happiness consist in nothing
more than pleasant experiences?

Problem: lives of certain animals contain large amounts of pleasure, but

aren’t human lives more valuable?

Mill’s response: distinguish between quantity and quality of pleasure;

pleasures associated with distinctively human pursuits (involving reason,
etc.) are higher quality and more valuable.
Small quantity of higher quality pleasure might be more valuable than large
quantity of lower quality.

Problem: how can we tell whether something is of higher or lower quality?

Mill’s response: appeal to the preferences of competent judges, who have

experience of different kinds of pleasure, and the sensibility and training to
appreciate what they have to offer.

If majority of judges prefer one kind of pleasure to another (or would not
give up the former for any amount of the latter), it is of higher quality.
 Haydn and the Oyster
"You are a soul in heaven waiting to be allocated a life on Earth. It is late
Friday afternoon, and you watch anxiously as the supply of available lives
dwindles. When your turn comes, the angel in charge offers you a choice
between two lives, that of the composer Joseph Haydn and that of an oyster.
Besides composing some wonderful music and influencing the evolution of the
symphony, Haydn will meet with success and honour in his own lifetime, be
cheerful and popular, travel and gain much enjoyment from field sports. The
oyster's life is far less exciting. Though this is rather a sophisticated oyster, its
life will consist only of mild sensual pleasure, rather like that experienced by
humans when floating very drunk in a warm bath. When you request the life
of Haydn, the angel sighs, ‘I'll never get rid of this oyster life. It's been hanging
around for ages. Look, I'll offer you a special deal. Haydn will die at the age of
seventy-seven. But I'll make the oyster life as long as you like...’"
Roger Crisp (Mill on Utilitarianism, 1997)
“Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal
appetites and, when once made conscious of them, do not
regard anything as happiness which does not include their
gratification…it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a
pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of different opinion, it is
because they only know their own side of the question.” Chapter
II, Utilitarianism
Problems: (i) sensibility required to appreciate one kind of higher pleasure
might preclude sensibility required to appreciate another kind. Consider the
sensibility required to appreciate industrial blackened grindcore band,
Anaal Nathrakh vs the sensibility required to appreciate Muzak.

(ii) it is not obvious that competent judges would reach agreement on the
merits of various things.

Still, there’s something to Mill’s thought that it’s better to be a dissatisfied

human being than a satisfied pig.

Q: Is the happy life simply the life of pleasant mental experiences? Some
think that more things matter: in particular, that one’s happiness is affected
by the world’s being a certain way, whether you experience it or not. (e.g.,
Nozick’s “Experience Machine”)
The Utilitarian standard of rightness
Act-Utilitarianism: An act is right if and only if it produces at least as much
happiness as any other available act.

(i) Recall Mill’s quote: happiness includes the absence of pain, so

minimising pain can be the right act.

(ii) even though it might be difficult to tell which option maximises

happiness, there is always a fact of the matter;

(iii) in cases where two options would produce equally good

consequences, it’s permissible to do either;

(iv) There are no supererogatory acts, that is, acts over & above call of
duty.
Problems with the act-utilitarian moral standard:

(1) It’s too permissive: it allows, indeed requires, actions which common sense
tells us are wrong. Sheriff, transplant examples.

(2) It’s too demanding: it requires that we always do the right thing, and denies
that we can ever stray from maximising happiness.
Sheriff Example:
There has been a murder in a small town, and the townsfolk have become convinced that a
particular person is guilty of the murder. The sheriff of the town has the person the
townspeople believe to be guilty in his custody for other reasons. As matter of fact, the
Sheriff knows the man to be innocent, and that, if he releases the man to the townsfolk,
they will kill him. On the other hand, he also knows that, if he does not release the man to
the townsfolk, the townsfolk will riot violently, and many people will die.

Should the sheriff protect the innocent man, or should he release him to the townsfolk? Act
utilitarianism would appear committed to releasing the man to the townsfolk, since this
results in the least number of deaths, and so would seem to maximise happiness.