Variants of Consequentialism

Variants of Consequentialism
by Joseph Rowlands

Consequentialism describes moral systems that focus judgment on the consequences of actions. The actions aren't treated as good or bad themselves. It is the effects of those actions that are good or bad.

I was once asked whether I think Objectivism is a consequentialist morality. In a sense, I think it is. The goal of the morality is to promote your life. The process of evaluation is focused on the consequences to your life. Actions aren't chosen because they have the arbitrary label of "moral". They are chosen because according to your best judgment, they are the options that benefit your life.

Virtues have a role in the Objectivist morality, but they are not primaries. They are means of achieving values. It is the values that give virtues their moral significance, and it is the ability to achieve those values, and the life-enhancing quality of those values, that make virtues worth practicing. If a conflict were found between a virtue and choosing an optimal value, we would look for the flaw in the way the virtue is understood to see where it has gone wrong.

But saying that Objectivism is a consequentialist morality also has problems. For me, the problem is that there are several things that can be meant by consequentialism. There are several varieties, and most have problems. I'd like to describe some possible variants and see why they are problematic.

One approach to focusing on the consequences would actually focus on the consequences. If you acted in a way that seemed reasonable, but the outcome was bad, this view would say that you made a mistake. This is best seen when people feel guilty over an accident that there was no way they could have known or prevented. But they recognize that if they had acted in a different way, it wouldn't have happened.

Most people can see the problem with this kind of thinking. They will often point out that the guilty person couldn't possibly have known, and has no reason to feel guilty. They believe that moral guilt can't be assigned when a person acted well and unforeseeable accidents occurred anyway. While this is a valid criticism, there is another. The primary function of a moral system is to let a person make choices. Unforeseeable consequences cannot be a factor in making decisions.

A different consequentialist approach would be to focus on the intended results. If you intended to kill someone and failed, that's clearly bad even though you failed. And if you intended to help someone, but somehow it didn't work out, that would still be considered good. Intentions are a kind of consequentialism even though they aren't consequences themselves. But the decisions are made based on a projected consequence.

The problem with intentions is summed up by the statement "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". A person can intend for the consequences to be good, but that might be a very unlikely outcome. A person who drinks and drives may not intend to hurt anyone, and may even think he's helping drive his friends home, but he would still be blamed. He should know better. Intentions aren't enough. They don't provide a solid foundation for a moral system.

Maybe this problem can be resolved by a third approach to consequentialism. This approach might be best described as focusing on expected consequences. It doesn't excuse irrational or irresponsible behavior because the intentions were good. Nor does assign blame for unforeseeable consequences.

Of course, there may still be arguments about what consequences were foreseeable or expected. It may even be that someone is held responsible for not acquiring the information they would have needed to have the right expectations. Intentional ignorance, like intentions, may not be an excuse. But instead of dwelling on the details, I'll leave this version as close enough.

Now one of the big concerns about consequentialism is the relationship between ends and means. Is consequentialism saying that "the ends justify the means"? Does it mean any action, no matter how horrific it might seem, would be justified? It brings up thoughts of killing innocent people and giving their organs away so that other people can live.

This highlight another variant of consequentialism. Is it simply the direct results of a person's actions that are the consequences worth considering? Or are unintended consequences also a factor? Can you judge the distribution of organs based purely on the one death and several lives saved? Or do you have to look at the greater evil that is created by having a society that murders innocent individuals for the sake of others?

The ends justifies the means argument can be rejected by not focusing only on the direct consequence, but by focusing on all of the consequences, even if they are unintentional or more difficult to pin down. In this view, the means does not have just one effect. It has many effects. Means that are usually considered immoral will usually have a variety of negative consequences that outweigh the intended benefits.

So this variant of consequentialism has a more wide-reaching view of the consequences. Not only may there be many consequences, but they may happen at any time in the future. The scope of analysis is much larger.

Even with all of this, there is still a major problem with calling Objectivism a consequentialist morality.

Imagine someone who believes that the standard of morality is the state you're in when you die. Maybe they focus on how long you lived. Or maybe they look at your assets. Or maybe it's the number of people who will remember you. Or maybe it's the number and quality of achievement. All of these would still be cases of consequentialism. The focus on a final result or consequence.

The important element here is that these variants of consequentialism focus entirely on the end result, and so they don't consider the process. Maybe the end result factors in whether you enjoyed the life or not, but ultimately its the endpoint that is important. The process itself is only valuable to the extent it leads to a better end result.

This view is not compatible with Objectivism. The goal of living is not to reach some point where you can die with the most points. Life is its own reward. It's a self-generated, self-sustaining process. We act in order to live. We live in order to act. It's not any particular state that matters. It is the process itself. Are we living life well? Are we happy? Are we healthy? Is it full of excitement? The process is critical.

Some might take this to suggest that Objectivism is not a consequentialist morality. It isn't ultimately focused on some consequence. As a process, it is more focused on the means itself. That seems more compatible with a virtue-based morality, where it isn't where you end up, but how you live your life.

That's an attractive perspective, based on an extremely important insight. It's enough to seriously question whether Objectivism is consequentialist or not.

And yet, I still believe it is. There's no requirement that consequentialism need only focus on the final state. It can take into account any of consequences, including whether you will enjoy the process of carrying out the actions you've chosen. How the process takes shape is one of the consequences.

If you study in school and get a good job, you don't just have a good job. You also change the process that is your life. It changes the choices confronting you. It provides new challenges, and new relationships, and new opportunities. It isn't just X amount of dollars. Your life is changed.

A proper consequentialist morality is concerned with all of the impacts your choices have. It is concerned with how you live your life, and not just where you end up. A virtue-ethics focuses on kinds of behaviors, but ultimately is unconcerned with where those behaviors take you. Virtue is its own goal and its own reward in that view.

Objectivism is concerned with promoting your life. It is concerned about making choices and taking actions and practicing virtues and understanding principles that improve the quality of your life. It is a kind of consequentialist morality.

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