Ethics Notes

David

On Consequentialism & Utlitarianism

What it’s all about
Consequentialism is an ethical conception where we mainly consider the effects of our/societies
actions to determine whether they are good or bad. In contrast to authors like Kant for example, who
also weighs the intends and motives of an action to make statements about its righteousness,
consequentialist ethics are focused on the outcome of our behaviour. They emphasize consequences,
as their name already suggests. There are many different things a society can strive for, so there is a
multitude of different specific consequentialist ethics. Someone who thinks preventing climate
change is the highest value, would determine the righteousness of an action only the account of its
positive or negative effects in that regard, following a consequentialist outlook. An action is good if
its consequences yield the highest possible positive effect on preventing climate change compared to
all other eligible courses of action (alternatives) in a certain situation. Instead of preventing climate
change, consequentialists can also value other things like technological progress, emancipation of
genders, or theoretically even colonizing the moon.
There is a variation of consequentialism which has become pretty famous in the last years. The
concept of utilitarianism. Utilitarianists argue that the morally right action to pursue is always the
alternative which yields the highest possible utility. Utility can also be expressed as well-being of
society. If an alternative brings the highest net gain of utility in comparison to all other alternatives, it
is the right alternative to choose. A well-known example to illustrate this is the trolley-dilemma,
where we have the option to actively sacrifice the life of one innocent person in order to save five
other innocent people who would die otherwise. Utilitarianism advises us to take the trade, in order
to reach the highest possible gain of utility.

Whats cool about it

Utilitarianism theoretically gives decision-makers the ability to easily “calculate” what actions they
ought to take when faced with a decision. Also, utilitarianism most of the time is quite well aligned
with traditional value ethics. Since Christian, pacifist or generally well-meaning virtues usually
emphasize helping others and acting benevolent, and utilitarianism does the same, they appear to be
in conflict seldomly. Utilitarianism can give us a very clear orientation to make decisions and is not
flayed by vague intends or hard-to-grasp motives. It only values the outcome which has a kind of
clear-cut charm to it.

Whats lame about it

“Utility” is a difficult to grasp moral currency. How do we weigh different utilities against each other?
Is it permissible to torture innocent people to save a life later? This is called the interpersonal-
comparison-problem of utility. Another problem of utilitarianism is that the ends ALWAYS justify the
means. Utilitarianism can require us to commit horrible crimes in order to increase net utility. There
is nothing sacred to utilitarianism, that’s why some people say it’s a hollow ethical concept. Another
problematic aspect is the distribution of utility. Is a society really good, if it has a high level of well-
being but only for a small number of people? The ethical goal of increasing utility does not tell us
anything on how to distribute the utility among members of society.