utilitarianism position paper

Ethics and Pandemics pp 61–83 Cite as

Utilitarianism and Consequentialist Ethics: Framing the Greater Good

• Andrew Sola 4  
• First Online: 24 June 2023

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Part of the book series: Springer Series in Public Health and Health Policy Ethics ((SSPHHPE))

This chapter evaluates the most important alternative to Kantian deontology: utilitarianism, the idea that we should pursue the greatest possible happiness even if doing so infringes on other people’s rights. Both the advantages and disadvantages of the theory are discussed. Three interdisciplinary perspectives are offered. The first explores the problem of equitable vaccine distribution by discussing the Fair Priority Model for Vaccine Distribution. The second interdisciplinary perspective addresses the ethical problem of quantifying human life and medical treatments while assessing the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. The final interdisciplinary perspective introduces readers to the history of smallpox. The eradication of the disease is one of the great triumphs of medical history. However, the discovery of the smallpox vaccine is founded on a great problem: The first test subject was the 8-year-old son of Edward Jenner’s gardener. Readers are encouraged to assess Jenner’s action, as well as compulsory vaccination policies. The chapter concludes by asking readers to perform a self-assessment. Given the two major ethical theories discussed—Kantian deontology and utilitarian consequentialism—which seems to be best equipped to deal with pandemic dilemmas?

• Utilitarianism
• Consequentialism
• Vaccine equity
• Healthcare economics
• Edward Jenner
• Vaccination

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Sola, A. (2023). Utilitarianism and Consequentialist Ethics: Framing the Greater Good. In: Ethics and Pandemics. Springer Series in Public Health and Health Policy Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33207-4_4

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5 Utilitarianism: Theory and Applications

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Utilitarianism is a comprehensive doctrine claiming that the greatest amount of happiness is an end that should exclusively guide all actions of both government and individuals. The fact that people value the happiness of those close to them more than that of strangers makes utilitarianism personally unacceptable to many, but it may still be a proper principle for government, given some overriding respect for individual rights. There are, however, basic problems concerning the value of life, and the treatment of future people and foreigners. The conventional discounting of future incomes does not imply that the utility of future people is discounted. The state's primary responsibility is to its own citizens, but it should not treat aliens as mere instruments for the welfare of citizens.

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5 Utilitarianism

Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere

Introduction

Let us start our introduction to utilitarianism with an example that shows how utilitarians answer the following question, “Can the ends justify the means?” Imagine that Peter is an unemployed poor man in New York. Although he has no money, his family still depends on him; his unemployed wife (Sandra) is sick and needs $500 for treatment, and their little children (Ann and Sam) have been thrown out of school because they could not pay tuition fees ($500 for both of them). Peter has no source of income and he cannot get a loan; even John (his friend and a millionaire) has refused to help him. From his perspective, there are only two alternatives: either he pays by stealing or he does not. So, he steals $1000 from John in order to pay for Sandra’s treatment and to pay the tuition fees of Ann and Sam. One could say that stealing is morally wrong. Therefore, we will say that what Peter has done— stealing from John—is morally wrong.

Utilitarianism, however, will say what Peter has done is morally right. For utilitarians, stealing in itself is neither bad nor good; what makes it bad or good is the consequences it produces. In our example, Peter stole from one person who has less need for the money, and spent the money on three people who have more need for the money. Therefore, for utilitarians, Peter’s stealing from John (the “means”) can be justified by the fact that the money was used for the treatment of Sandra and the tuition fees of Ann and Sam (the “end”). This justification is based on the calculation that the benefits of the theft outweigh the losses caused by the theft. Peter’s act of stealing is morally right because it produced more good than bad. In other words, the action produced more pleasure or happiness than pain or unhappiness, that is, it increased net utility.

The aim of this chapter is to explain why utilitarianism reaches such a conclusion as described above, and then examine the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarianism. The discussion is divided into three parts: the first part explains what utilitarianism is, the second discusses some varieties (or types) of utilitarianism, and the third explores whether utilitarianism is persuasive and reasonable.

What is Utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. For consequentialism, the moral rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the consequences it produces. On consequentialist grounds, actions and inactions whose negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences will be deemed morally wrong while actions and inactions whose positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences will be deemed morally right. On utilitarian grounds, actions and inactions which benefit few people and harm more people will be deemed morally wrong while actions and inactions which harm fewer people and benefit more people will be deemed morally right.

Benefit and harm can be characterized in more than one way; for classical utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), they are defined in terms of happiness/unhappiness and pleasure/pain. On this view, actions and inactions that cause less pain or unhappiness and more pleasure or happiness than available alternative actions and inactions will be deemed morally right, while actions and inactions that cause more pain or unhappiness and less pleasure or happiness than available alternative actions and inactions will be deemed morally wrong. Although pleasure and happiness can have different meanings, in the context of this chapter they will be treated as synonymous.

Utilitarians’ concern is how to increase net utility. Their moral theory is based on the principle of utility which states that “the morally right action is the action that produces the most good” (Driver 2014). The morally wrong action is the one that leads to the reduction of the maximum good. For instance, a utilitarian may argue that although some armed robbers robbed a bank in a heist, as long as there are more people who benefit from the robbery (say, in a Robin Hood-like manner the robbers generously shared the money with many people) than there are people who suffer from the robbery (say, only the billionaire who owns the bank will bear the cost of the loss), the heist will be morally right rather than morally wrong. And on this utilitarian premise, if more people suffer from the heist while fewer people benefit from it, the heist will be morally wrong.

From the above description of utilitarianism, it is noticeable that utilitarianism is opposed to deontology, which is a moral theory that says that as moral agents we have certain duties or obligations, and these duties or obligations are formalized in terms of rules (see Chapter 6). There is a variant of utilitarianism, namely rule utilitarianism, that provides rules for evaluating the utility of actions and inactions (see the next part of the chapter for a detailed explanation). The difference between a utilitarian rule and a deontological rule is that according to rule utilitarians, acting according to the rule is correct because the rule is one that, if widely accepted and followed, will produce the most good. According to deontologists, whether the consequences of our actions are positive or negative does not determine their moral rightness or moral wrongness. What determines their moral rightness or moral wrongness is whether we act or fail to act in accordance with our duty or duties (where our duty is based on rules that are not themselves justified by the consequences of their being widely accepted and followed).

Some Varieties (or Types) of Utilitarianism

The above description of utilitarianism is general. We can, however, distinguish between different types of utilitarianism. First, we can distinguish between “actual consequence utilitarians” and “foreseeable consequence utilitarians.” The former base the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions on the actual consequences of actions; while the latter base the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions on the foreseeable consequences of actions. J. J. C. Smart (1920-2012) explains the rationale for this distinction with reference to the following example: imagine that you rescued someone from drowning. You were acting in good faith to save a drowning person, but it just so happens that the person later became a mass murderer. Since the person became a mass murderer, actual consequence utilitarians would argue that in hindsight the act of rescuing the person was morally wrong. However, foreseeable consequence utilitarians would argue that—looking forward (i.e., in foresight)—it could not be foreseen that the person was going to be a mass murderer, hence the act of rescuing them was morally right (Smart 1973, 49). Moreover, they could have turned out to be a “saint” or Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr., in which case the action would be considered to be morally right by actual consequence utilitarians.

A second distinction we can make is that between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism focuses on individual actions and says that we should apply the principle of utility in order to evaluate them. Therefore, act utilitarians argue that among possible actions, the action that produces the most utility would the morally right action. But this may seem impossible to do in practice since, for every thing that we might do that has a potential effect on other people, we would thus be morally required to examine its consequences and pick the one with the best outcome. Rule utilitarianism responds to this problem by focusing on general types of actions and determining whether they typically lead to good or bad results. This, for them is the meaning of commonly held moral rules: they are generalizations of the typical consequences of our actions. For example, if stealing typically leads to bad consequences, stealing in general would be considered by a rule utilitarian to be wrong. [1]

Hence rule utilitarians claim to be able to reinterpret talk of rights, justice, and fair treatment in terms of the principle of utility by claiming that the rationale behind any such rules is really that these rules generally lead to greater welfare for all concerned. We may wonder whether utilitarianism in general is capable of even addressing the notion that people have rights and deserve to be treated justly and fairly, because in critical situations the rights and wellbeing of persons can be sacrificed as long as this seems to lead to an increase overall utility.

For example, in a version of the famous “trolley problem,” imagine that you and an overweight stranger are standing next to each other on a footbridge above a rail track. You discover that there is a runaway trolley rolling down the track and the trolley is about to kill five people who cannot get off of the track quickly enough to avoid the accident. Being willing to sacrifice yourself to save the five persons, you consider

jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley…but you realize that you are far too light to stop the trolley….The only way you can stop the trolley killing five people is by pushing this large stranger off the footbridge, in front of the trolley. If you push the stranger off, he will be killed, but you will save the other five. (Singer 2005, 340)

Utilitarianism, especially act utilitarianism, seems to suggest that the life of the overweight stranger should be sacrificed regardless of any purported right to life he may have. A rule utilitarian, however, may respond that since in general killing innocent people to save others is not what typically leads to the best outcomes, we should be very wary of making a decision to do so in this case. This is especially true in this scenario since everything rests on our calculation of what might possibly stop the trolley, while in fact there is really far too much uncertainty in the outcome to warrant such a serious decision. If nothing else, the emphasis placed on general principles by rule utilitarians can serve as a warning not to take too lightly the notion that the ends might justify the means.

Whether or not this response is adequate is something that has been extensively debated with reference to this famous example as well as countless variations. This brings us to our final question here about utilitarianism—whether it is ultimately a persuasive and reasonable approach to morality.

Is Utilitarianism Persuasive and Reasonable?

First of all, let us start by asking about the principle of utility as the foundational principle of morality, that is, about the claim that what is morally right is just what leads to the better outcome. John Stuart Mill’s argument that it is is based on his claim that “each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4). Mill derives the principle of utility from this claim based on three considerations, namely desirability, exhaustiveness, and impartiality. That is, happiness is desirable as an end in itself; it is the only thing that is so desirable (exhaustiveness); and no one person’s happiness is really any more desirable or less desirable than that of any other person (impartiality) (see Macleod 2017).

In defending desirability, Mill argues,

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner…the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4)

In defending exhaustiveness, Mill does not argue that other things, apart from happiness, are not desired as such; but while other things appear to be desired , happiness is the only thing that is really desired since whatever else we may desire, we do so because attaining that thing would make us happy. Finally, in defending impartiality, Mill argues that equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether the happiness is felt by the same person or by different persons. In Mill’s words, “each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4). We may wonder, however, whether this last argument is truly adequate. Does Mill really show here that we should treat everyone’s happiness as equally worthy of pursuit, or does he simply assert this?

Let us grant that Mill’s argument here is successful and the principle of utility is the basis of morality. Utilitarianism claims that we should thus calculate, to the best of our ability, the expected utility that will result from our actions and how it will affect us and others, and use that as the basis for the moral evaluation of our decisions. But then we may ask, how exactly do we quantify utility? Here there are two different but related problems: how can I come up with a way of comparing different types of pleasure and pain, benefit or harm that I myself might experience, and how can I compare my benefit and yours on some neutral scale of comparison? Bentham famously claimed that there was a single universal scale that could enable us to objectively compare all benefits and harms based on the following factors: intensity, duration, certainty/uncertainty, proximity, fecundity, purity, and extent. And he offered on this basis what he called a “felicific calculus” as a way of objectively comparing any two pleasures we might encounter (Bentham [1789] 1907).

For example, let us compare the pleasure of drinking a pint of beer to that of reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet . Suppose the following are the case:

• The pleasure derived from drinking a pint of beer is more intense than the pleasure derived from reading Hamlet (intensity).
• The pleasure of drinking the beer lasts longer than that of reading Hamlet (duration).
• We are confident that drinking the beer is more pleasurable than reading Hamlet (certainty/uncertainty).
• The beer is closer to us than the play, and therefore it is easier for us to access the former than the latter (proximity).
• Drinking the beer is more likely to promote more pleasure in the future while reading Hamlet is less likely to promote more pleasure in the future (fecundity).
• Drinking the beer is pure pleasure while reading Hamlet is mixed with something else (purity).
• Finally, drinking the beer affects both myself and my friends in the bar and so has a greater extent than my solitary reading of Hamlet (extent).

Since, on all of these measures, drinking a pint of beer is more pleasurable than reading Hamlet , it follows according to Bentham that it is objectively better for you to drink the pint of beer and forget about reading Hamlet , and so you should. Of course, it is up to each individual to make such a calculation based on the intensity, duration, certainty, etc. of the pleasure resulting from each possible choice they may make in their eyes, but Bentham at least claims that such a comparison is possible.

This brings us back to the problem we mentioned before that, realistically, we cannot be expected to always engage in very difficult calculations every single time we want to make a decision. In an attempt to resolve this problem, utilitarians might claim that in the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions, the application of the principle of utility can be backward-looking (based on hindsight) or forward-looking (based on foresight). That is, we can use past experience of the results of our actions as a guide to estimating what the probable outcomes of our actions might be and save ourselves from the burden of having to make new estimates for each and every choice we may face.

In addition, we may wonder whether Bentham’s approach misses something important about the different kinds of pleasurable outcomes we may pursue. Mill, for example, would respond to our claim that drinking beer is objectively more pleasurable than reading Hamlet by saying that it overlooks an important distinction between qualitatively different kinds of pleasure. In Mill’s view Bentham’s calculus misses the fact that not all pleasures are equal—there are “higher” and “lower” pleasures that make it “better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 2). Mill justifies this claim by saying that between two pleasures, although one pleasure requires a greater amount of difficulty to attain than the other pleasure, if those who are competently acquainted with both pleasures prefer (or value) one over the other, then the one is a higher pleasure while the other is a lower pleasure. For Mill, although drinking a pint of beer may seem to be more pleasurable than reading Hamlet , if you are presented with these two options and you are to make a choice—each and every time or as a rule—you should still choose to read Hamlet and forego drinking the pint of beer. Reading Hamlet generates a higher quality (although perhaps a lower quantity) of pleasure, while drinking a pint of beer generates lower quality (although higher quantity) of pleasure.

In the end, these issues may be merely technical problems faced by utilitarianism—is there some neutral scale of comparison between pleasures? If there is, is it based on Betham’s scale which makes no distinctions between higher and lower pleasures, or Mill’s which does? The more serious problem, however, remains, which is that utilitarianism seems willing in principle to sacrifice the interests and even perhaps lives of individuals for the sake of the benefit of a larger group. And this seems to conflict with our basic moral intuition that people have a right not to be used in this way. While Mill argued that the notion of rights could be accounted for on purely utilitarian terms, Bentham simply dismissed it. For him such “natural rights” are “simple nonsense, natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts”  (Bentham [1796] 1843, 501).

Let us conclude by revisiting the question we started with: can the ends justify the means? I stated that as far as utilitarianism is concerned the answer to this question is in the affirmative. While the answer is plausible and right for utilitarians, it is implausible for many others, and notably wrong for deontologists. As we have seen in this chapter, on a close examination utilitarianism is less persuasive and less reasonable than it appears to be when it is far away.

Bentham, Jeremy. (1789) 1907. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bentham, Jeremy. (1796) 1843. Anarchical Fallacies. In The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. John Bowring. Vol 2. Edinburgh: William Tait.

Driver, Julia. 2014.  “The History of Utilitarianism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/utilitarianism-history/

Hooker, Brad. 2016. “Rule Consequentialism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/consequentialism-rule/

Macleod, Christopher. 2017. “John Stuart Mill.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/mill/

Mill, John Stuart . Utilitarianism . (1861) 1879. 7th ed. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11224

Singer, Peter. 2005. “Ethics and Intuitions.” The Journal of Ethics 9(3/4): 331-352.

Smart, J. J. C. 1973. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics.” In Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams.

Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Further Reading

Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hooker, Brad. 1990. “Rule-Consequentialism.” Mind 99(393): 66-77.

Scheffler, Samuel. 1988. Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sen, Amartya and Bernard Williams, eds. 1982. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sidgwick, Henry. 1907. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan.

Singer, Peter. 2000. Writings on an Ethical Life. New York: HarperCollins.

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1985. “The Trolley Problem.” The Yale Law Journal 94(6): 1395-1415.

Williams, Bernard. 1973. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” In Smart, J. J. C and Bernard Williams.

• Of course, there may be exceptions to such a rule in particular, atypical cases if stealing might lead to better consequences. This raises a complication for rule utilitarians: if they were to argue that we should follow rules such as “do not steal” except in those cases where stealing would lead to better consequences, then this could mean rule utilitarianism wouldn’t be very different from act utilitarianism. One would still have to evaluate the consequences of each particular act to see if one should follow the rule or not. Hooker (2016) argues that rule utilitarianism need not collapse into act utilitarianism in this way, because it would be better to have a set of rules that are more clear and easily understood and followed than ones that require us to evaluate many possible exceptions. ↵

Utilitarianism Copyright © 2019 by Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Liberal Utilitarianism—Yes, But for Whom?

In his important paper “Just Better Utilitarianism,” Matti Häyry reminds his readers that liberal utilitarianism can offer a basis for moral and political choices in bioethics and thus could be helpful in decisionmaking. 1 Although I agree with the general defense of Häyry’s liberal utilitarianism, in this commentary, I urge Häyry to say more on who belongs to our moral community. I challenge Häyry’s principle of actual or prospective existence. I also argue that Häyry should say more on human beings at the “margin of life” (such as fetuses and other mindless humans). I claim that debate over whether some form of utilitarianism is superior over other moral theories is not as important as answering the question underlying these issues: Who belongs to our moral community?

Introduction

In his important paper “Just Better Utilitarianism,” Matti Häyry reminds his readers that liberal utilitarianism can offer a basis for moral and political choices in bioethics and thus could be helpful in decisionmaking. 1 Although I agree with the general defense of Häyry’s liberal utilitarianism, in this commentary, I urge Häyry to say more on who belongs to our moral community. I challenge Häyry’s principle of actual or prospective existence. I also argue that Häyry should say more on human beings at the “margin of life” (such as fetuses). I claim that debate over whether some form of utilitarianism is superior over other moral theories is not as important as answering the question underlying these issues: Who belongs to our moral community?

Challenging the Principle of Actual and Prospective Existence

Häyry’s liberal utilitarianism includes the following principle:

“When the moral rightness of human activities is assessed, the imagined needs of non-existent beings who will never come into existence shall not be counted.”

Call this the principle of actual or prospective existence. Häyry adopts this rule to avoid the repugnant conclusion that we must reproduce every time we could have offspring with tolerable lives. This principle is in line with Häyry’s antinatalist view: not having children is both rational and ethical. 2 , 3 Some see this sort of antinatalist conclusion as repugnant or implausible itself, 4 whereas others endorse similar conclusions for somewhat different reasons. 5 , 6

I am not sure whether it is wrong to have children. That is because I am not fully confident that existence is always bad. However, I am confident that nonexistence cannot be bad, so it cannot be wrong not to have children. Thus, abstaining from procreation seems to be the safe option, morally, because you cannot wrong someone who does not exist. Be that as it may, I think we have a reason to reject the principle of actual or prospective existence or, at least, to revise it.

To see this, consider the following case:

A couple wants to have a child. If they procreate now, their child will be sick. She will suffer pain and discomfort through her life. However, if the couple waits a month, they will have a healthy child whose life is much better – overall – than the life of the child who would be conceived earlier. 7

Assuming that the child would be a different child because of different DNA and that the couple has no reason not to wait a month, it seems that they should wait a month. It is better, morally, to have a child whose life is better than one whose life is worse, other things being equal. Based on some of Häyry’s previous work, I assume he agrees. 8

However, if the principle of actual or prospective existence is correct, it might be difficult to claim that the couple should wait and have the child whose life would be better instead of proceeding immediately to have the child whose life would be worse. After all, if they choose not to wait a month and have the sick child instead, the other child would never come into existence. If the other child never comes into existence, then according to the principle, her imagined needs are not to be counted. And if her imagined needs are not counted, it is not obvious why the couple should have waited a month and created the better off-child rather than the worse-off child.

So, to avoid this problem, it could be that the imagined needs of people that never come into existence matter, at least sometimes. More precisely, they matter when one has decided to bring a person into existence.

One might wonder what sort of moral obligations the couple have if they cannot have the healthier child at all. For example, suppose that no matter what they do, any child they have will spend her life in pain. Technically, a child they conceived at a later time would be a different person from one they conceived at an earlier time, because postponing the act of procreation would cause different gametes to unite. Would it be wrong for the couple to procreate?

I think many people would agree that if the life of the child is worth living, the couple does nothing morally wrong in bringing her into existence. And many would say that even if they also agreed that a couple that could bring a healthy child into existence but intentionally chooses to have a sick child instead does do something wrong.

As I see it, Häyry has three options here. He could reject the principle of actual or prospective existence. But that would, it seems, lead to the repugnant conclusion that we should reproduce every time we could have offspring with tolerable lives. Another choice is to simply bite the bullet and accept that it is not morally wrong to create a life that is worse than some other life you could create instead. But this would contradict Häyry’s previous claims. 9 The third option, which I think is the most plausible one, is to revise the principle of actual and prospective existence so that it is not vulnerable to the counter-example raised above.

Here is one friendly suggestion for how to do that, which I call the revised principle of actual or prospective existence :

When the moral rightness of human activities is assessed, the imagined needs of nonexistent beings who will never come into existence shall not be counted unless one has already made the decision to bring a person into existence. If one has decided to procreate, the imagined needs of nonexistent beings should be counted and one therefore has a moral reason to bring the best-off person one can into existence.

So, if the quality of life of those people who never exist does not matter when one has not decided whether to bring any persons into existence, but only when one has decided to bring a person into existence, the principle does not create an obligation to procreate every time one could do so. This would be in line with what Häyry and others have argued or assumed to be true. 10

Do Actual but Mindless Humans Deserve our Moral Consideration?

How we treat mindless humans could also pose a problem for liberal utilitarianism. By mindless humans , I mean beings that are biologically human (that have human DNA) but that are not conscious, such as (at least early) fetuses and brain-dead humans. For simplicity, here my discussion is focused on fetuses.

Häyry does not discuss the ethics of abortion or the moral status of the fetuses in his paper, but he mentions Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva’s now-famous article on the moral permissibility of infanticide. 11 Häyry approaches that article at a more abstract level: his reaction to it was to demand clarity in bioethical arguments 12 and to discuss the possibility of anonymous publishing. 13

I assume Häyry’s position on ethics of abortion has not changed significantly since he started his career in philosophical bioethics. Then, Häyry summarized his view as follows: abortion is morally permissible and should be legally permitted as long as the woman makes the decision while being aware of the consequences of her decision to herself and the fetus. 14

Pro-choice views on the ethics of abortion can, roughly, be based on two kind of arguments: (1) person-denying arguments and (2) bodily-autonomy arguments. Thus, if abortion is not morally wrong, that is so because either (1) a fetus is not a person and does not have a right to life, which means that a fetus is a sort of being whose life is not wrong to end or (2) the pregnant woman has a right to her bodily autonomy, which means that, even if the fetus has a right to life or is a person, the fetus does not have a right to use another person’s body to sustain its life and, therefore, abortion is morally justified.

In “Just Better Utilitarianism,” Häyry posits his liberal utilitarianism in light of Jeremy Bentham’s words: “The question is not, Can they reason ? nor, Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer ?” 15 Häyry uses this reasoning on nonhuman animals. According to liberal utilitarianism, meat consumption, factory farming, and other related practices are immoral because animals can, indeed, suffer. 16 Their interest in not suffering is more basic than our need (or desire, to say it more accurately) to consume animal-based products, such as meat. Because it is wrong to satisfy less basic needs of one being by preventing the possibility of satisfying more basic needs of others, meat consumption and the other practices are morally wrong.

Now, if mindless humans such as fetuses can suffer (i.e., feel pain), could that undermine the notion that liberal utilitarianism justifies abortion? One might think so, because if abortion is permissible, then the more basic needs of the fetuses (avoiding suffering) would be ignored in favor of the less basic needs of pregnant women (controlling what happens to one’s body).

Studies often suggest that a cortex and intact thalamocortical tracts are necessary to experience pain. Since the cortex only becomes functional and the tracts only develop after 24 weeks, many studies hold that a fetus cannot experience pain until the final trimester. But in recent work, it has been argued that neuroscience cannot definitively rule out fetal pain before 24 weeks. 17 Although most abortions occur well before 24 weeks, some of the States in United States allow abortion even during the final trimester. 18

Suppose fetuses do feel pain. It seems that liberal utilitarians should at least be concerned about it. They could not simply ignore fetal pain.

In a landmark paper, Judith Jarvis Thomson argued that abortion is still morally permissible even on the assumption that fetuses have a right to life and are persons. To support her position, she offered the following hypothetical case.

Famous Violinist . You wake up and find yourself in a bed, attached to an unconscious famous violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has attached him to you because you alone have the right blood type to help. A doctor tells you: “We’re sorry you have been connected to this person. We would have never allowed it if we had known. But to unplug him now would kill him. Nevertheless, it’s only for nine months; after that, he will recover from his ailment and can safely be unplugged from you.” 19

Thomson’s reaction to the case was that although it would be very nice for you to remain attached, it is not your moral obligation. It is morally permissible for you to detach yourself from the violinist because, although he has a right to life, he does not have a right to use your body to sustain his own life. Because the case is, allegedly, analogous enough with pregnancy, the pregnant woman likewise has a right to detach the fetus from her, even in the cases where the fetus would die as a result. 20

To see what moral weight fetal pain, if it exists, would have, we can revise Thomson’s case so that detaching yourself from the violinist is very painful to him. Consider the following revised case.

Painful Detachment. You wake up and find yourself in a bed attached to an unconscious famous violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has attached him to you because you alone have the right blood type to help. A doctor tells you: “We’re sorry you have been connected to this person. We would never have allowed it if we had known. But to unplug him now would kill him very painfully. Nevertheless, it is only for nine months; after that, he will cover from his ailment and can safely be unplugged from you.”

Does the pain detaching yourself would cause make you morally obligated to remain attached to the violinist? Probably not. Does it give you a moral reason to consider whether you can do something to ease the pain? Probably yes. If it is possible, the violinist should be offered pain relief, if pain, as a liberal utilitarian must assume, has any moral relevance. Similarly, we should be concerned about fetal pain.

But now, what if we could ease the pain of animals in factory farming? If, given that fetuses do feel pain, we are only obligated to ensure that abortion does not cause the fetus to feel pain, not to prevent abortions per se, why we should stop killing animals? Is not enough that we make sure they are killed painlessly? If on the other hand, we believe that we should not kill animals for food even if we can do so without inflicting pain, why we should not abstain from killing fetuses as well?

A liberal utilitarian might have at least two replies. She might say that killing animals is unnecessary because the same goods can be achieved by other means, such as by eating plant-based food. However, there are no proper alternatives to abortion: the same goods that are achieved by abortion cannot be achieved by, for example, gestating the fetus to the term and giving it up for adoption. 21 One might also say that pregnancies happen inside women’s bodies while killing animals does not, and that this is morally relevant.

But now suppose we imagine that, thanks to new technology, it is no longer necessary to kill the fetus when ending the pregnancy prematurely. Perhaps sometimes, pregnancy does not happen inside a female body in the first place. 22 Consider the following cases.

Partial ectogenesis. It has become possible to detach a fetus from the female body in a very early phase of pregnancy and gestate the fetus inside an artificial womb instead. A woman gets pregnant and wants to have an abortion, but the doctor tells her: “You know, you don't need to kill the fetus. We can just remove it alive and gestate it in an artificial womb machine. Then, after a few months, you could give it up for adoption if you still feel you don’t want to have a child.”

Is the woman still entitled to have the fetus killed, or is she morally obligated not to kill the fetus? Surely, people’s intuitions differ here, but I suspect—and some studies suggest 23 —that at least many women would feel that avoiding the burdens of the pregnancy is not the point of abortion: the point of abortion is not to have a child at all. 24 , 25 , 26

To propose partial ectogenesis as an alternative to abortion would thus be to misunderstand the purpose of abortion. Since the purpose of the abortion is to have the fetus killed, but the justification for the abortion is bodily autonomy and integrity, when an artificial womb device becomes an option, another justification for abortion will be needed. That brings us to the next case.

Complete ectogenesis. It has become possible to create embryos in vitro and gestate them in artificial womb machines. A couple wants to have a child, but after the embryos are created and transferred into the machine, they change their mind. They do not want to have a child. However, the doctor tells them: “You know, you don’t need to destroy the embryo developing in the machine. You can just leave it there, and when the time comes, if you do not want the newborn, we can give it to some other couple that does want to have a child.”

Is the couple—either together or separately—still entitled to have the embryo destroyed, or are they morally obligated not to destroy it? 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 Again, our intuitions probably differ. But what seems to be relevant is whether the fetus itself is the sort of being whose life it is seriously morally wrong to end. So, it is likely that to determine what the couple or the woman should do, morally, in the above cases cannot be answered without answering the question of whether the fetus itself is entitled to a right to life. Häyry could just assume that embryos or fetuses are not the sort of beings (persons) whose life it is seriously morally wrong to end. But this simply assumes an answer to the very difficult question that, to my mind, should be answered first.

It is very easy to be a utilitarian when faced with simple scenarios. It is also easy to become a utilitarian in time of crisis: for instance, public health often uses a utilitarian approach to make triage decisions during pandemics 31 such as COVID-19. For an example of a simple case, consider the following.

A billionaire who is convinced by liberal utilitarianism donates one million dollars to the state on the condition that the money be spent to save as many of his fellow citizens’ lives as possible. The state has two choices: use the money for one ambulance helicopter that patrols a rural part of the country, or use the money for 10 ambulances that are used in major cities. The helicopter would save, on average, one life annually while the ambulances would save, on average, one hundred lives annually.

It is obvious what to choose. Other things being equal, the money should be spent for the ambulances, so that the greatest number of people would be saved.

But now suppose there is a third possibility. Use the money to fund a campaign to discourage women from choosing abortion. Suppose further that this money would save 1,000 embryos and fetuses from being aborted. Should the state choose this policy instead because it saves even more lives? It depends. It depends on whether we count fetuses and embryos as part of our moral community. If we do, then it seems to be a moral obligation to choose the campaign, but if we do not consider these mindless humans a part of our moral community, then there is no moral obligation to choose this option over the ambulances. 32

There are also recent real-life cases that illustrate the problem. For instance, there is an ongoing debate whether guidelines for treating extremely premature babies should be altered to free up ventilators for adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. 33 In some cases, a ventilator would give an adult a higher probability of survival than it would give the extremely premature baby who would otherwise get it. However, saving babies rather than adults would likely maximize life years saved, since a baby who survives is likely to live longer than an adult who does. It is difficult to apply any utilitarian approach successfully if we do not know what moral status to assign to the mindless human fetuses. 34

We could simply say that fetuses are not persons because they lack (self-)consciousness. But we could say many nonhuman animals lack that as well. Or someone could reply that being a person does not matter: what matters is that when killing a fetus (or embryo) we are depriving it of life unjustly. 35 Is not life itself a very basic need that outweighs any alleged needs or wants to control one’s body?

It is very easy to be a utilitarian when it is clear who belongs to our moral community. But it is much more difficult to apply utilitarian approaches to practical issues when there is a reasonable disagreement as to whether someone (or something) is a sort of being we should be morally concerned about. Consider (illegal) immigrants, recipients of international aid, fetuses and embryos, the brain-dead, the severely mentally disabled, animals, and so on. 36

How societies should treat the aforementioned is not obvious because it is not obvious whether they belong to our moral community. I am afraid that liberal utilitarianism cannot tell us how we should treat them unless we somehow determine whether they are the sort of beings we should be morally concerned about.

1. Häyry M. Just better utilitarianism. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2021;30(2). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180120000882 . See also Häyry M. Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics . London, UK: Routledge; 1994. [ Google Scholar ]

2. Häyry M. A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome . Journal of Medical Ethics 2004; 30 :377–78. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

3. Häyry M. The rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome revisited . Journal of Medical Ethics 2005; 31 :606–7. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

4. Pihlström S. Ethical unthinkabilities and philosophical seriousness . Metaphilosophy 2009; 40 :656–70. [ Google Scholar ]

5. Benatar D. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence . Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008. [ Google Scholar ]

6. Rachels S. The immorality of having children . Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2014; 17 :567–82. [ Google Scholar ]

7. Derek Parfit famously raised this kind of example in Parfit D. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1984. [ Google Scholar ]

8. Häyry M. If you must make babies, then at least make the best babies you can? Human Fertility 2004; 7 :105–12. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

9. Häyry could also say that there has been philosophical progress in his view and that he no longer thinks one should create the best possible lives if one is going to procreate. Or he could claim that he does not actually believe (some of) his arguments. At least one scholar has claimed that a philosopher does not have to believe himself what he or she is arguing for. See Plakias, A. Publishing without belief . Analysis 2019; 79 :638–46. [ Google Scholar ]

10. Savulescu J. Procreative beneficence: Why we should select the best children . Bioethics 2008; 15 :413–26 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] . Also, for example, Peter Singer says: “To focus only on those who exist or will exist anyway leaves out something vital to the ethics of this decision [which lives to create]. We can, and we should, compare the lives of those who will exist with the lives of those who might have existed, if we had acted differently. …We can and should ‘argue as if from the abyss of the nonexistent.’ Never having tasted ‘life’s desire,’ they will ‘feel no dearth’ of life. Yet the quality of the lives they would have led is inescapably relevant to our decision.” Singer P. Practical Ethics . 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2011, at 110–1. [ Google Scholar ]

11. Giubilini A, Minerva F. After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? Journal of Medical Ethics 2013; 39 :261–3 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] . For other arguments that infanticide is (in some cases) morally permissible, see Kuhse H, Singer P. Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1983. [ Google Scholar ] ; Hassoun N, Kriegel U. Consciousness and the moral permissibility of infanticide . Journal of Applied Philosophy 2008; 25 :45–55 [ Google Scholar ] ; Räsänen J. Pro-life arguments against infanticide and why they are not convincing . Bioethics 2016; 30 :656–62. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

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13. Häyry M. Academic freedom, public reactions, and anonymity . Bioethics 2014; 28 :170–3. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

14. Häyry M, Häyry H. Rakasta, Kärsi ja Unhoita: Moraalifilosofisia Pohdintoja Ihmiselämän Alusta ja Lopusta . [Love, Suffer and Forget: Moral philosophical thoughts on the beginning and end of human life, in Finnish] Helsinki: Kirjayhtymä; 1987. [ Google Scholar ]

15. Bentham J. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation . Burns JH, Hart HLA, eds. London and New York: Methuen; 1982. [1789], at 283 as cited in Häyry 2020, note 1. [ Google Scholar ]

16. A famous utilitarian argument for animal rights was made in Singer P. Animal Liberation. New York, NY: Harper Collins; 1975. [ Google Scholar ]

17. Derbyshire S, Bockmann J. Reconsidering fetal pain . Journal of Medical Ethics 2020; 46 :3–6. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

18. For instance, while the landmark decision in the United States ( Roe v. Wade ) prohibited states from banning abortion in the first trimester, the states are free to allow abortion during the second and third trimesters as well.

19. Adapted from Thomson J. J. A defense of abortion . Philosophy & Public Affairs 1971; 1 :–66. [ Google Scholar ]

20. There are disagreements on whether her argument manages to justify abortion. For a recent criticism, see for example Bernstein C, Manata P. Moral responsibility and the wrongness of abortion . Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2019; 44 :243–62. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

21. Räsänen J. Against the impairment principle: A reply to Hendricks . Bioethics 2020; 34 :862–64. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

22. Räsänen J, Smajdor A. The ethics of ectogenesis . Bioethics 2020; 34 :328–30. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

23. Cannold L. Women, ectogenesis, and ethical theory . Journal of Applied Philosophy 1995; 12 :55–64. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

24. Langford S. An end to abortion? A feminist critique of the ‘ectogenetic solution’ to abortion’ . Women's Studies International Forum 2008; 31 :–9. [ Google Scholar ]

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26. Overall C. Rethinking abortion, ectogenesis, and fetal death . Journal of Social Philosophy 2015; 46 :126–40. [ Google Scholar ]

27. Räsänen J. Ectogenesis, abortion and a right to the death of the fetus . Bioethics 2017; 31 :697–702. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

28. Hendricks P. There is no right to the death of the fetus . Bioethics 2018; 32 :395–7. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

29. Kaczor C. Ectogenesis and a right to the death of the prenatal human being: A reply to Räsänen . Bioethics 2018; 32 :634–8. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

30. Blackshaw B, Rodger D. Ectogenesis and the case against the right to the death of the foetus . Bioethics 2019; 33 :76–81. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

31. Childress J, Faden R, Gaare R, Gostin L, Kahn J, Bonnie R, et al. Public health ethics: Mapping the terrain . Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2002; 30 :170–8. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

32. In abortion ethics literature, there is a vast amount of work on a similar thought experiment (embryo rescue case) that aims to show that embryos are not persons. See Liao M. The embryo rescue case . Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 2006 ;27:141–7 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] ; Räsänen J. Why pro‐life arguments still are not convincing: A reply to my critics . Bioethics 2018; 32 :628–33 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] ; Hendricks P. Why the embryo rescue case is a bad argument against embryonic personhood . Bioethics 2019; 33 :669–73 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] ; Hershenov D. What must pro-lifers believe about the moral status of embryos? Pacific Philospohical Quarterly . 2020; 101 :186–202. [ Google Scholar ]

33. Haward M, Janvier A, Moore G, Fry J, Laventhal N, Lantos J. Should extremely premature babies get ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis? American Journal of Bioethics 2020; 20 :37–43. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

34. Räsänen, J. Saving the babies or the elderly in a time of crisis? American Journal of Bioethics 2020; 20 :180–2. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

35. Marquis D. Why abortion is immoral . Journal of Philosophy 1989; 86 :183–202. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

36. Häyry briefly discusses some of the mentioned entities in his Just Better Utilitarianism and in Häyry M. Causation, responsibility, and harm: How the discursive shift from law and ethics to social justice sealed the plight of nonhuman animals . Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2020; 29 :246–67. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

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Consequentialism

Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This historically important and still popular theory embodies the basic intuition that what is best or right is whatever makes the world best in the future, because we cannot change the past, so worrying about the past is no more useful than crying over spilled milk. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is probably 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.

1. Classic Utilitarianism

2. what is consequentialism, 3. what is good hedonistic vs. pluralistic consequentialisms, 4. which consequences actual vs. expected consequentialisms, 5. consequences of what rights, relativity, and rules, 6. consequences for whom limiting the demands of morality, 7. arguments for consequentialism, other internet resources, related entries.

The paradigm case of consequentialism is utilitarianism, whose classic proponents were Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1861), and Henry Sidgwick (1907). (For predecessors, see Schneewind 1997, 2002.) Classic utilitarians held hedonistic act consequentialism. Act consequentialism is the claim that an act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good, that is, if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total amount of bad for all is greater than this net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion. (Cf. Moore 1912, chs. 1–2.) Hedonism then claims that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic bad.

These claims are often summarized in the slogan that an act is right if and only if it causes “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” This slogan is misleading, however. An act can increase happiness for most (the greatest number of) people but still fail to maximize the net good in the world if the smaller number of people whose happiness is not increased lose much more than the greater number gains. The principle of utility would not allow that kind of sacrifice of the smaller number to the greater number unless the net good overall is increased more than any alternative.

Classic utilitarianism is consequentialist as opposed to deontological because of what it denies. It denies that moral rightness depends directly on anything other than consequences, such as whether the agent promised in the past to do the act now. Of course, the fact that the agent promised to do the act might indirectly affect the act’s consequences if breaking the promise will make other people unhappy. Nonetheless, according to classic utilitarianism, what makes it morally wrong to break the promise is its future effects on those other people rather than the fact that the agent promised in the past (Sinnott-Armstrong 2009).

Since classic utilitarianism reduces all morally relevant factors (Kagan 1998, 17–22) to consequences, it might appear simple. However, classic utilitarianism is actually a complex combination of many distinct claims, including the following claims about the moral rightness of acts:

Consequentialism = whether an act is morally right depends only on consequences (as opposed to the circumstances or the intrinsic nature of the act or anything that happens before the act). Actual Consequentialism = whether an act is morally right depends only on the actual consequences (as opposed to foreseen, foreseeable, intended, or likely consequences). Direct Consequentialism = whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act itself (as opposed to the consequences of the agent’s motive, of a rule or practice that covers other acts of the same kind, and so on). Evaluative Consequentialism = moral rightness depends only on the value of the consequences (as opposed to non-evaluative features of the consequences). Hedonism = the value of the consequences depends only on the pleasures and pains in the consequences (as opposed to other supposed goods, such as freedom, knowledge, life, and so on). Maximizing Consequentialism = moral rightness depends only on which consequences are best (as opposed to merely satisfactory or an improvement over the status quo). Aggregative Consequentialism = which consequences are best is some function of the values of parts of those consequences (as opposed to rankings of whole worlds or sets of consequences). Total Consequentialism = moral rightness depends only on the total net good in the consequences (as opposed to the average net good per person). Universal Consequentialism = moral rightness depends on the consequences for all people or sentient beings (as opposed to only the individual agent, members of the individual’s society, present people, or any other limited group). Equal Consideration = in determining moral rightness, benefits to one person matter just as much as similar benefits to any other person (as opposed to putting more weight on the worse or worst off). Agent-neutrality = whether some consequences are better than others does not depend on whether the consequences are evaluated from the perspective of the agent (as opposed to an observer).

These claims could be clarified, supplemented, and subdivided further. What matters here is just that most pairs of these claims are logically independent, so a moral theorist could consistently accept some of them without accepting others. Yet classic utilitarians accepted them all. That fact makes classic utilitarianism a more complex theory than it might appear at first sight.

It also makes classic utilitarianism subject to attack from many angles. Persistent opponents posed plenty of problems for classic utilitarianism. Each objection led some utilitarians to give up some of the original claims of classic utilitarianism. By dropping one or more of those claims, descendants of utilitarianism can construct a wide variety of moral theories. Advocates of these theories often call them consequentialism rather than utilitarianism so that their theories will not be subject to refutation by association with the classic utilitarian theory.

This array of alternatives raises the question of which moral theories count as consequentialist (as opposed to deontological) and why. In actual usage, the term “consequentialism” seems to be used as a family resemblance term to refer to any descendant of classic utilitarianism that remains close enough to its ancestor in the important respects. Of course, different philosophers see different respects as the important ones (Portmore 2020). Hence, there is no agreement on which theories count as consequentialist under this definition.

To resolve this vagueness, we need to determine which of the various claims of classic utilitarianism are essential to consequentialism. One claim seems clearly necessary. Any consequentialist theory must accept the claim that I labeled “consequentialism”, namely, that certain normative properties depend only on consequences. If that claim is dropped, the theory ceases to be consequentialist.

It is less clear whether that claim by itself is sufficient to make a theory consequentialist. Several philosophers assert that a moral theory should not be classified as consequentialist unless it is agent-neutral (McNaughton and Rawling 1991, Howard-Snyder 1994, Pettit 1997). This narrower definition is motivated by the fact that many self-styled critics of consequentialism argue against agent-neutrality.

Other philosophers prefer a broader definition that does not require a moral theory to be agent-neutral in order to be consequentialist (Bennett 1989; Broome 1991, 5–6; and Skorupski 1995). Criticisms of agent-neutrality can then be understood as directed against one part of classic utilitarianism that need not be adopted by every moral theory that is consequentialist. Moreover, according to those who prefer a broader definition of consequentialism, the narrower definition conflates independent claims and obscures a crucial commonality between agent-neutral consequentialism and other moral theories that focus exclusively on consequences, such as moral egoism and recent self-styled consequentialists who allow agent-relativity into their theories of value (Sen 1982, Broome 1991, Portmore 2001, 2003, 2011).

A definition solely in terms of consequences might seem too broad, because it includes absurd theories such as the theory that an act is morally right if it increases the number of goats in Texas. Of course, such theories are implausible. Still, it is not implausible to call them consequentialist, since they do look only at consequences. The implausibility of one version of consequentialism does not make consequentialism implausible in general, since other versions of consequentialism still might be plausible.

Besides, anyone who wants to pick out a smaller set of moral theories that excludes this absurd theory may talk about evaluative consequentialism, which is the claim that moral rightness depends only on the value of the consequences. Then those who want to talk about the even smaller group of moral theories that accepts both evaluative consequentialism and agent-neutrality may describe them as agent-neutral evaluative consequentialism. If anyone still insists on calling these smaller groups of theories by the simple name, ‘consequentialism’, this narrower word usage will not affect any substantive issue.

Still, if the definition of consequentialism becomes too broad, it might seem to lose force. Some philosophers have argued that any moral theory, or at least any plausible moral theory, could be represented as a version of consequentialism (Sosa 1993, Portmore 2009, Dreier 1993 and 2011; but see Brown 2011). If so, then it means little to label a theory as consequentialist. The real content comes only by contrasting theories that are not consequentialist.

In the end, what matters is only that we get clear about which theories a particular commentator counts as consequentialist or not and which claims are supposed to make them consequentialist or not. Only then can we know which claims are at stake when this commentator supports or criticizes what they call “consequentialism”. Then we can ask whether each objection really refutes that particular claim.

Some moral theorists seek a single simple basic principle because they assume that simplicity is needed in order to decide what is right when less basic principles or reasons conflict. This assumption seems to make hedonism attractive. Unfortunately, however, hedonism is not as simple as they assume, because hedonists count both pleasures and pains. Pleasure is distinct from the absence of pain, and pain is distinct from the absence of pleasure, since sometimes people feel neither pleasure nor pain, and sometimes they feel both at once. Nonetheless, hedonism was adopted partly because it seemed simpler than competing views.

The simplicity of hedonism was also a source of opposition. From the start, the hedonism in classic utilitarianism was treated with contempt. Some contemporaries of Bentham and Mill argued that hedonism lowers the value of human life to the level of animals, because it implies that, as Bentham said, an unsophisticated game (such as push-pin) is as good as highly intellectual poetry if the game creates as much pleasure (Bentham 1843). Quantitative hedonists sometimes respond that great poetry almost always creates more pleasure than trivial games (or sex and drugs and rock-and-roll), because the pleasures of poetry are more certain (or probable), durable (or lasting), fecund (likely to lead to other pleasures), pure (unlikely to lead to pains), and so on.

Mill used a different strategy to avoid calling push-pin as good as poetry. He distinguished higher and lower qualities of pleasures according to the preferences of people who have experienced both kinds (Mill 1861, 56; compare Plato 1993 and Hutcheson 1755, 421–23). This qualitative hedonism has been subjected to much criticism, including charges that it is incoherent and does not count as hedonism (Moore 1903, 80–81; cf. Feldman 1997, 106–24).

Even if qualitative hedonism is coherent and is a kind of hedonism, it still might not seem plausible. Some critics argue that not all pleasures are valuable, since, for example, there is no value in the pleasures that a sadist gets from whipping a victim or that an addict gets from drugs. Other opponents object that not only pleasures are intrinsically valuable, because other things are valuable independently of whether they lead to pleasure or avoid pain. For example, my love for my wife does not seem to become less valuable when I get less pleasure from her because she contracts some horrible disease. Similarly, freedom seems valuable even when it creates anxiety, and even when it is freedom to do something (such as leave one’s country) that one does not want to do. Again, many people value knowledge of distant galaxies regardless of whether this knowledge will create pleasure or avoid pain.

These points against hedonism are often supplemented with the story of the experience machine found in Nozick 1974 (42–45; cf. De Brigard 2010) and the movie, The Matrix . People on this machine believe they are spending time with their friends, winning Olympic gold medals and Nobel prizes, having sex with their favorite lovers, or doing whatever gives them the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. Although they have no real friends or lovers and actually accomplish nothing, people on the experience machine get just as much pleasure as if their beliefs were true. Moreover, they feel no (or little) pain. Assuming that the machine is reliable, it would seem irrational not to hook oneself up to this machine if pleasure and pain were all that mattered, as hedonists claim. Since it does not seem irrational to refuse to hook oneself up to this machine, hedonism seems inadequate. The reason is that hedonism overlooks the value of real friendship, knowledge, freedom, and achievements, all of which are lacking for deluded people on the experience machine.

Some hedonists claim that this objection rests on a misinterpretation of hedonism. If hedonists see pleasure and pain as sensations , then a machine might be able to reproduce those sensations. However, we can also say that a mother is pleased that her daughter gets good grades. Such propositional pleasure occurs only when the state of affairs in which the person takes pleasure exists (that is, when the daughter actually gets good grades). But the relevant states of affairs would not really exist if one were hooked up to the experience machine. Hence, hedonists who value propositional pleasure rather than or in addition to sensational pleasure can deny that more pleasure is achieved by hooking oneself up to such an experience machine (Feldman 1997, 79–105; see also Tännsjö 1998 and Feldman 2004 for more on hedonism).

A related position rests on the claim that what is good is desire satisfaction or the fulfillment of preferences; and what is bad is the frustration of desires or preferences. What is desired or preferred is usually not a sensation but is, rather, a state of affairs, such as having a friend or accomplishing a goal. If a person desires or prefers to have true friends and true accomplishments and not to be deluded, then hooking this person up to the experience machine need not maximize desire satisfaction. Utilitarians who adopt this theory of value can then claim that an agent morally ought to do an act if and only if that act maximizes desire satisfaction or preference fulfillment (that is, the degree to which the act achieves whatever is desired or preferred). What maximizes desire satisfaction or preference fulfillment need not maximize sensations of pleasure when what is desired or preferred is not a sensation of pleasure. This position is usually described as preference utilitarianism .

One problem for preference utilitarianism concerns how to make interpersonal comparisons (though this problem also arises for several other theories of value). If we want to know what one person prefers, we can ask what that person would choose in conflicts. We cannot, however, use the same method to determine whether one person’s preference is stronger or weaker than another person’s preference, since these different people might choose differently in the decisive conflicts. We need to settle which preference (or pleasure) is stronger because we may know that Jones prefers A’s being done to A’s not being done (and Jones would receive more pleasure from A’s being done than from A’s not being done), whereas Smith prefers A’s not being done (and Smith would receive more pleasure from A’s not being done than from A’s being done). To determine whether it is right to do A or not to do A, we must be able to compare the strengths of Jones’s and Smith’s preferences (or the amounts of pleasure each would receive in her preferred outcome) in order to determine whether doing A or not doing A would be better overall. Utilitarians and consequentialists have proposed many ways to solve this problem of interpersonal comparison, and each attempt has received criticisms. Debates about this problem still rage. (For a recent discussion with references, see Coakley 2015.)

Preference utilitarianism is also often criticized on the grounds that some preferences are misinformed, crazy, horrendous, or trivial. I might prefer to drink the liquid in a glass because I think that it is beer, though it really is strong acid. Or I might prefer to die merely because I am clinically depressed. Or I might prefer to torture children. Or I might prefer to spend my life learning to write as small as possible. In all such cases, opponents of preference utilitarianism can deny that what I prefer is really good. Preference utilitarians can respond by limiting the preferences that make something good, such as by referring to informed desires that do not disappear after therapy (Brandt 1979). However, it is not clear that such qualifications can solve all of the problems for a preference theory of value without making the theory circular by depending on substantive assumptions about which preferences are for good things.

Many consequentialists deny that all values can be reduced to any single ground, such as pleasure or desire satisfaction, so they instead adopt a pluralistic theory of value. Moore’s ideal utilitarianism , for example, takes into account the values of beauty and truth (or knowledge) in addition to pleasure (Moore 1903, 83–85, 194; 1912). Other consequentialists add the intrinsic values of friendship or love, freedom or ability, justice or fairness, desert, life, virtue, and so on.

If the recognized values all concern individual welfare, then the theory of value can be called welfarist (Sen 1979). When a welfarist theory of value is combined with the other elements of classic utilitarianism, the resulting theory can be called welfarist consequentialism .

One non-welfarist theory of value is perfectionism , which claims that certain states make a person’s life good without necessarily being good for the person in any way that increases that person’s welfare (Hurka 1993, esp. 17). If this theory of value is combined with other elements of classic utilitarianism, the resulting theory can be called perfectionist consequentialism or, in deference to its Aristotelian roots, eudaemonistic consequentialism .

Similarly, some consequentialists hold that an act is right if and only if it maximizes some function of both happiness and capabilities (Sen 1985, Nussbaum 2000). Disabilities are then seen as bad regardless of whether they are accompanied by pain or loss of pleasure.

Or one could hold that an act is right if it maximizes fulfillment (or minimizes violation) of certain specified moral rights. Such theories are sometimes described as a utilitarianism of rights . This approach could be built into total consequentialism with rights weighed against happiness and other values or, alternatively, the disvalue of rights violations could be lexically ranked prior to any other kind of loss or harm (cf. Rawls 1971, 42). Such a lexical ranking within a consequentialist moral theory would yield the result that nobody is ever justified in violating rights for the sake of happiness or any value other than rights, although it would still allow some rights violations in order to avoid or prevent other rights violations.

When consequentialists incorporate a variety of values, they need to rank or weigh each value against the others. This is often difficult. Some consequentialists even hold that certain values are incommensurable or incomparable in that no comparison of their values is possible (Griffin 1986 and Chang 1997). This position allows consequentialists to recognize the possibility of irresolvable moral dilemmas (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988, 81; Railton 2003, 249–91).

Pluralism about values also enables consequentialists to handle many of the problems that plague hedonistic utilitarianism. For example, opponents often charge that classical utilitarians cannot explain our obligations to keep promises and not to lie when no pain is caused or pleasure is lost. Whether or not hedonists can meet this challenge, pluralists can hold that knowledge is intrinsically good and/or that false belief is intrinsically bad. Then, if deception causes false beliefs, deception is instrumentally bad, and agents ought not to lie without a good reason, even when lying causes no pain or loss of pleasure. Since lying is an attempt to deceive, to lie is to attempt to do what is morally wrong (in the absence of defeating factors). Similarly, if a promise to do an act is an attempt to make an audience believe that the promiser will do the act, then to break a promise is for a promiser to make false a belief that the promiser created or tried to create. Although there is more tale to tell, the disvalue of false belief can be part of a consequentialist story about why it is morally wrong to break promises.

When such pluralist versions of consequentialism are not welfarist, some philosophers would not call them utilitarian . However, this usage is not uniform, since even non-welfarist views are sometimes called utilitarian. Whatever you call them, the important point is that consequentialism and the other elements of classical utilitarianism are compatible with many different theories about which things are good or valuable.

Instead of turning pluralist, some consequentialists foreswear the aggregation of values. Classic utilitarianism added up the values within each part of the consequences to determine which total set of consequences has the most value in it. One could, instead, aggregate goods for each individual but not aggregate goods of separate individuals (Roberts 2002). Alternatively, one could give up all aggregation, including aggregation for individuals, and instead rank the complete worlds or sets of consequences caused by acts without adding up the values of the parts of those worlds or consequences. One motive for this move is Moore’s principle of organic unity (Moore 1903, 27–36), which claims that the value of a combination or “organic unity” of two or more things cannot be calculated simply by adding the values of the things that are combined or unified. For example, even if punishment of a criminal causes pain, a consequentialist can hold that a world with both the crime and the punishment is better than a world with the crime but not the punishment, perhaps because the former contains more justice, without adding the value of this justice to the negative value of the pain of the punishment. Similarly, a world might seem better when people do not get pleasures that they do not deserve, even if this judgment is not reached by adding the values of these pleasures to other values to calculate any total. Cases like these lead some consequentialists to deny that moral rightness is any aggregative function of the values of particular effects of acts. Instead, they compare the whole world that results from an action with the whole world that results from not doing that action. If the former is better, then the action is morally right (J.J.C. Smart 1973, 32; Feldman 1997, 17–35). This approach can be called holistic consequentialism or world utilitarianism .

Another way to incorporate relations among values is to consider distribution . Compare one outcome where most people are destitute but a few lucky people have extremely large amounts of goods with another outcome that contains slightly less total goods but where every person has nearly the same amount of goods. Egalitarian critics of classical utilitarianism argue that the latter outcome is better, so more than the total amount of good matters. Traditional hedonistic utilitarians who prefer the latter outcome often try to justify egalitarian distributions of goods by appealing to a principle of diminishing marginal utility. Other consequentialists, however, incorporate a more robust commitment to equality. Early on, Sidgwick (1907, 417) responded to such objections by allowing distribution to break ties between other values. More recently, some consequentialists have added some notion of fairness (Broome 1991, 192–200) or desert (Feldman 1997, 154–74) to their test of which outcome is best. (See also Kagan 1998, 48–59.) Others turn to prioritarianism, which puts more weight on people who are worse off (Adler and Norheim 2022, Arneson 2022). Such consequentialists do not simply add up values; they look at patterns.

A related issue arises from population change. Imagine that a government considers whether to provide free contraceptives to curb a rise in population. Without free contraceptives, overcrowding will bring hunger, disease, and pain, so each person will be worse off. Still, each new person will have enough pleasure and other goods that the total net utility will increase with the population. Classic utilitarianism focuses on total utility, so it seems to imply that this government should not provide free contraceptives. That seems implausible to many utilitarians. To avoid this result, some utilitarians claim that an act is morally wrong if and only if its consequences contain more pain (or other disvalues) than an alternative, regardless of positive values (cf. R. N. Smart 1958). This negative utilitarianism implies that the government should provide contraceptives, since that program reduces pain (and other disvalues), even though it also decreases total net pleasure (or good). Unfortunately, negative utilitarianism also seems to imply that the government should painlessly kill everyone it can, since dead people feel no pain (and have no false beliefs, diseases, or disabilities – though killing them does cause loss of ability). A more popular response is average utilitarianism, which says that the best consequences are those with the highest average utility (cf. Rawls 1971, 161–75). The average utility would be higher with the contraceptive program than without it, so average utilitarianism yields the more plausible result—that the government should adopt the contraceptive program. Critics sometimes charge that the average utility could also be increased by killing the worst off, but this claim is not at all clear, because such killing would put everyone in danger (since, after the worst off are killed, another group becomes the worst off, and then they might be killed next). Still, average utilitarianism faces problems of its own (such as “the mere addition paradox” in Parfit 1984, chap. 19). In any case, all maximizing consequentialists, whether or not they are pluralists, must decide whether moral rightness depends on maximizing total good or average good.

A final challenge to consequentialists’ accounts of value derives from Geach 1956 and has been pressed by Thomson 2001. Thomson argues that “A is a good X” (such as a good poison) does not entail “A is good”, so the term “good” is an attributive adjective and cannot legitimately be used without qualification. On this view, it is senseless to call something good unless this means that it is good for someone or in some respect or for some use or at some activity or as an instance of some kind. Consequentialists are supposed to violate this restriction when they say that the total or average consequences or the world as a whole is good without any such qualification. However, consequentialists can respond either that the term “good” has predicative uses in addition to its attributive uses or that when they call a world or total set of consequences good, they are calling it good for consequences or for a world (Sinnott-Armstrong 2003a). If so, the fact that “good” is often used attributively creates no problem for consequentialists.

A second set of problems for classic utilitarianism is epistemological. Classic utilitarianism seems to require that agents calculate all consequences of each act for every person for all time. That’s impossible.

This objection rests on a misinterpretation. These critics assume that the principle of utility is supposed to be used as a decision procedure or guide , that is, as a method that agents consciously apply to acts in advance to help them make decisions. However, most classic and contemporary utilitarians and consequentialists do not propose their principles as decision procedures. (Bales 1971) Bentham wrote, “It is not to be expected that this process [his hedonic calculus] should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment.” (1789, Chap. IV, Sec. VI) Mill agreed, “it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large.” (1861, Chap. II, Par. 19) Sidgwick added, “It is not necessary that the end which gives the criterion of rightness should always be the end at which we consciously aim.” (1907, 413)

Instead, most consequentialists claim that overall utility is the criterion or standard of what is morally right or morally ought to be done. Their theories are intended to spell out the necessary and sufficient conditions for an act to be morally right, regardless of whether the agent can tell in advance whether those conditions are met. Just as the laws of physics govern golf ball flight, but golfers need not calculate physical forces while planning shots; so overall utility can determine which decisions are morally right, even if agents need not calculate utilities while making decisions. If the principle of utility is used as a criterion of the right rather than as a decision procedure, then classical utilitarianism does not require that anyone know the total consequences of anything before making a decision.

Furthermore, a utilitarian criterion of right implies that it would not be morally right to use the principle of utility as a decision procedure in cases where it would not maximize utility to try to calculate utilities before acting. Utilitarians regularly argue that most people in most circumstances ought not to try to calculate utilities, because they are too likely to make serious miscalculations that will lead them to perform actions that reduce utility. It is even possible to hold that most agents usually ought to follow their moral intuitions, because these intuitions evolved to lead us to perform acts that maximize utility, at least in likely circumstances (Hare 1981, 46–47). Some utilitarians (Sidgwick 1907, 489–90) suggest that a utilitarian decision procedure may be adopted as an esoteric morality by an elite group that is better at calculating utilities, but utilitarians can, instead, hold that nobody should use the principle of utility as a decision procedure.

This move is supposed to make consequentialism self-refuting, according to some opponents. However, there is nothing incoherent about proposing a decision procedure that is separate from one’s criterion of the right. Similar distinctions apply in other normative realms. The criterion of a good stock investment is its total return, but the best decision procedure still might be to reduce risk by buying an index fund or blue-chip stocks. Criteria can, thus, be self-effacing without being self-refuting (Parfit 1984, chs. 1 and 4).

Others object that this move takes the force out of consequentialism, because it leads agents to ignore consequentialism when they make real decisions. However, a criterion of the right can be useful at a higher level by helping us choose among available decision procedures and refine our decision procedures as circumstances change and we gain more experience and knowledge. Hence, most consequentialists do not mind giving up consequentialism as a direct decision procedure as long as consequences remain the criterion of rightness (but see Chappell 2001).

If overall utility is the criterion of moral rightness, then it might seem that nobody could know what is morally right. If so, classical utilitarianism leads to moral skepticism. However, utilitarians insist that we can have strong reasons to believe that certain acts reduce utility, even if we have not yet inspected or predicted every consequence of those acts. For example, in normal circumstances, if someone were to torture and kill his children, it is possible that this would maximize utility, but that is very unlikely. Maybe they would have grown up to be mass murders, but it is at least as likely that they would grow up to cure serious diseases or do other great things, and it is much more likely that they would have led normally happy (or at least not destructive) lives. So observers as well as agents have adequate reasons to believe that such acts are morally wrong, according to act utilitarianism. In many other cases, it will still be hard to tell whether an act will maximize utility, but that shows only that there are severe limits to our knowledge of what is morally right. That should be neither surprising nor problematic for utilitarians.

If utilitarians want their theory to allow more moral knowledge, they can make a different kind of move by turning from actual consequences to expected or expectable consequences. Suppose that Alice finds a runaway teenager who asks for money to get home. Alice wants to help and reasonably believes that buying a bus ticket home for this runaway will help, so she buys a bus ticket and puts the runaway on the bus. Unfortunately, the bus is involved in a freak accident, and the runaway is killed. If actual consequences are what determine moral wrongness, then it was morally wrong for Alice to buy the bus ticket for this runaway. Opponents claim that this result is absurd enough to refute classic utilitarianism.

Some utilitarians bite the bullet and say that Alice’s act was morally wrong, but it was blameless wrongdoing, because her motives were good, and she was not responsible, given that she could not have foreseen that her act would cause harm. Since this theory makes actual consequences determine moral rightness, it can be called actual consequentialism .

Other responses claim that moral rightness depends on foreseen, foreseeable, intended, or likely consequences, rather than actual ones. Imagine that Bob does not in fact foresee a bad consequence that would make his act wrong if he did foresee it, but that Bob could easily have foreseen this bad consequence if he had been paying attention. Maybe he does not notice the rot on the hamburger he feeds to his kids which makes them sick. If foreseen consequences are what matter, then Bob’s act is not morally wrong. If foreseeable consequences are what matter, then Bob’s act is morally wrong, because the bad consequences were foreseeable. Now consider Bob’s wife, Carol, who notices that the meat is rotten but does not want to have to buy more, so she feeds it to her children anyway, hoping that it will not make them sick; but it does. Carol’s act is morally wrong if foreseen or foreseeable consequences are what matter, but not if what matter are intended consequences, because she does not intend to make her children sick. Finally, consider Bob and Carol’s son Don, who does not know enough about food to be able to know that eating rotten meat can make people sick. If Don feeds the rotten meat to his little sister, and it makes her sick, then the bad consequences are not intended, foreseen, or even foreseeable by Don, but those bad results are still objectively likely or probable , unlike the case of Alice. Some philosophers deny that probability can be fully objective, but at least the consequences here are foreseeable by others who are more informed than Don can be at the time. For Don to feed the rotten meat to his sister is, therefore, morally wrong if likely consequences are what matter, but not morally wrong if what matter are foreseen or foreseeable or intended consequences.

Consequentialist moral theories that focus on actual or objectively probable consequences are often described as objective consequentialism (Railton 1984). In contrast, consequentialist moral theories that focus on intended or foreseen consequences are usually described as subjective consequentialism . Consequentialist moral theories that focus on reasonably foreseeable consequences are then not subjective insofar as they do not depend on anything inside the actual subject’s mind, but they are subjective insofar as they do depend on which consequences this particular subject would foresee if he or she were better informed or more rational.

One final solution to these epistemological problems deploys the legal notion of proximate cause. If consequentialists define consequences in terms of what is caused (unlike Sosa 1993), then which future events count as consequences is affected by which notion of causation is used to define consequences. Suppose I give a set of steak knives to a friend. Unforeseeably, when she opens my present, the decorative pattern on the knives somehow reminds her of something horrible that her husband did. This memory makes her so angry that she voluntarily stabs and kills him with one of the knives. She would not have killed her husband if I had given her spoons instead of knives. Did my decision or my act of giving her knives cause her husband’s death? Most people (and the law) would say that the cause was her act, not mine. Why? One explanation is that her voluntary act intervened in the causal chain between my act and her husband’s death. Moreover, even if she did not voluntarily kill him, but instead she slipped and fell on the knives, thereby killing herself, my gift would still not be a cause of her death, because the coincidence of her falling intervened between my act and her death. The point is that, when voluntary acts and coincidences intervene in certain causal chains, then the results are not seen as caused by the acts further back in the chain of necessary conditions (Hart and Honoré 1985). Now, if we assume that an act must be such a proximate cause of a harm in order for that harm to be a consequence of that act, then consequentialists can claim that the moral rightness of that act is determined only by such proximate consequences. This position, which might be called proximate consequentialism , makes it much easier for agents and observers to justify moral judgments of acts because it obviates the need to predict non-proximate consequences in distant times and places. Hence, this move is worth considering, even though it has never been developed as far as I know and deviates far from traditional consequentialism, which counts not only proximate consequences but all upshots — that is, everything for which the act is a causally necessary condition.

Another problem for utilitarianism is that it seems to overlook justice and rights. One common illustration is called Transplant. Imagine that each of five patients in a hospital will die without an organ transplant. The patient in Room 1 needs a heart, the patient in Room 2 needs a liver, the patient in Room 3 needs a kidney, and so on. The person in Room 6 is in the hospital for routine tests. Luckily (for them, not for him!), his tissue is compatible with the other five patients, and a specialist is available to transplant his organs into the other five. This operation would save all five of their lives, while killing the “donor”. There is no other way to save any of the other five patients (Foot 1966, Thomson 1976; compare related cases in Carritt 1947 and McCloskey 1965).

We need to add that the organ recipients will emerge healthy, the source of the organs will remain secret, the doctor won’t be caught or punished for cutting up the “donor”, and the doctor knows all of this to a high degree of probability (despite the fact that many others will help in the operation). Still, with the right details filled in (no matter how unrealistic), it looks as if cutting up the “donor” will maximize utility, since five lives have more utility than one life (assuming that the five lives do not contribute too much to overpopulation). If so, then classical utilitarianism implies that it would not be morally wrong for the doctor to perform the transplant and even that it would be morally wrong for the doctor not to perform the transplant. Most people find this result abominable. They take this example to show how bad it can be when utilitarians overlook individual rights, such as the unwilling donor’s right to life.

Utilitarians can bite the bullet, again. They can deny that it is morally wrong to cut up the “donor” in these circumstances. Of course, doctors still should not cut up their patients in anything close to normal circumstances, but this example is so abnormal and unrealistic that we should not expect our normal moral rules to apply, and we should not trust our moral intuitions, which evolved to fit normal situations (Sprigge 1965). Many utilitarians are happy to reject common moral intuitions in this case, like many others (cf. Singer 1974, Unger 1996, Norcross 1997).

Most utilitarians lack such strong stomachs (or teeth), so they modify utilitarianism to bring it in line with common moral intuitions, including the intuition that doctors should not cut up innocent patients. One attempt claims that a killing is worse than a death. The doctor would have to kill the “donor” in order to prevent the deaths of the five patients, but nobody is killed if the five patients die. If one killing is worse than five deaths that do not involve killing, then the world that results from the doctor performing the transplant is worse than the world that results from the doctor not performing the transplant. With this new theory of value, consequentialists can agree with others that it is morally wrong for the doctor to cut up the “donor” in this example.

A modified example still seems problematic. Just suppose that the five patients need a kidney, a lung, a heart, and so forth because they were all victims of murder attempts. Then the world will contain the five killings of them if they die, but not if they do not die. Thus, even if killings are worse than deaths that are not killings, the world will still be better overall (because it will contain fewer killings as well as fewer deaths) if the doctor cuts up the “donor” to save the five other patients. But most people still think it would be morally wrong for the doctor to kill the one to prevent the five killings. The reason is that it is not the doctor who kills the five, and the doctor’s duty seems to be to reduce the amount of killing that she herself does. In this view, the doctor is not required to promote life or decrease death or even decrease killing by other people. The doctor is, instead, required to honor the value of life by not causing loss of life (cf. Pettit 1997).

This kind of case leads some consequentialists to introduce agent-relativity into their theory of value (Sen 1982, Broome 1991, Portmore 2001, 2003, 2011). To apply a consequentialist moral theory, we need to compare the world with the transplant to the world without the transplant. If this comparative evaluation must be agent-neutral, then, if an observer judges that the world with the transplant is better, the agent must make the same judgment, or else one of them is mistaken. However, if such evaluations can be agent-relative, then it could be legitimate for an observer to judge that the world with the transplant is better (since it contains fewer killings by anyone), while it is also legitimate for the doctor as agent to judge that the world with the transplant is worse (because it includes a killing by him ). In other cases, such as competitions, it might maximize the good from an agent’s perspective to do an act, while maximizing the good from an observer’s perspective to stop the agent from doing that very act. If such agent-relative value makes sense, then it can be built into consequentialism to produce the claim that an act is morally wrong if and only if the act’s consequences include less overall value from the perspective of the agent. This agent-relative consequentialism , plus the claim that the world with the transplant is worse from the perspective of the doctor, could justify the doctor’s judgment that it would be morally wrong for him to perform the transplant. A key move here is to adopt the agent’s perspective in judging the agent’s act. Agent-neutral consequentialists judge all acts from the observer’s perspective, so they would judge the doctor’s act to be wrong, since the world with the transplant is better from an observer’s perspective. In contrast, an agent-relative approach requires observers to adopt the doctor’s perspective in judging whether it would be morally wrong for the doctor to perform the transplant. This kind of agent-relative consequentialism is then supposed to capture commonsense moral intuitions in such cases (Portmore 2011).

Agent-relativity is also supposed to solve other problems. W. D. Ross (1930, 34–35) argued that, if breaking a promise created only slightly more happiness overall than keeping the promise, then the agent morally ought to break the promise according to classic utilitarianism. This supposed counterexample cannot be avoided simply by claiming that keeping promises has agent-neutral value, since keeping one promise might prevent someone else from keeping another promise. Still, agent-relative consequentialists can respond that keeping a promise has great value from the perspective of the agent who made the promise and chooses whether or not to keep it, so the world where a promise is kept is better from the agent’s perspective than another world where the promise is not kept, unless enough other values override the value of keeping the promise. In this way, agent-relative consequentialists can explain why agents morally ought not to break their promises in just the kind of case that Ross raised.

Similarly, critics of utilitarianism often argue that utilitarians cannot be good friends, because a good friend places more weight on the welfare of his or her friends than on the welfare of strangers, but utilitarianism requires impartiality among all people. However, agent-relative consequentialists can assign more weight to the welfare of a friend of an agent when assessing the value of the consequences of that agent’s acts. In this way, consequentialists try to capture common moral intuitions about the duties of friendship (see also Jackson 1991).

One final variation still causes trouble. Imagine that the doctor herself wounded the five people who need organs. If the doctor does not save their lives, then she will have killed them herself. In this case, even if the doctor can disvalue killings by herself more than killings by other people, the world still seems better from her own perspective if she performs the transplant. Critics will object that it is, nonetheless, morally wrong for the doctor to perform the transplant. Many people will not find this intuition as clear as in the other cases, but consequentialists who do find it immoral for the doctor to perform the transplant even in this case will need to modify consequentialism in some other way in order to yield the desired judgment.

This problem cannot be solved by building rights or fairness or desert into the theory of value. The five do not deserve to die, and they do deserve their lives, just as much as the one does. Each option violates someone’s right not to be killed and is unfair to someone. So consequentialists need more than just new values if they want to avoid endorsing this transplant.

One option is to go indirect. A direct consequentialist holds that the moral qualities of something depend only on the consequences of that very thing. Thus, a direct consequentialist about motives holds that the moral qualities of a motive depend on the consequences of that motive. A direct consequentialist about virtues holds that the moral qualities of a character trait (such as whether or not it is a moral virtue) depend on the consequences of that trait (Driver 2001a, Hurka 2001, Jamieson 2005, Bradley 2005). A direct consequentialist about acts holds that the moral qualities of an act depend on the consequences of that act. Someone who adopts direct consequentialism about everything is a global direct consequentialist (Pettit and Smith 2000, Driver 2012).

In contrast, an indirect consequentialist holds that the moral qualities of something depend on the consequences of something else. One indirect version of consequentialism is motive consequentialism , which claims that the moral qualities of an act depend on the consequences of the motive of that act (compare Adams 1976 and Sverdlik 2011). Another indirect version is virtue consequentialism , which holds that whether an act is morally right depends on whether it stems from or expresses a state of character that maximizes good consequences and, hence, is a virtue.

The most common indirect consequentialism is rule consequentialism , which makes the moral rightness of an act depend on the consequences of a rule (Singer 1961). Since a rule is an abstract entity, a rule by itself strictly has no consequences. Still, obedience rule consequentialists can ask what would happen if everybody obeyed a rule or what would happen if everybody violated a rule. They might argue, for example, that theft is morally wrong because it would be disastrous if everybody broke a rule against theft. Often, however, it does not seem morally wrong to break a rule even though it would cause disaster if everybody broke it. For example, if everybody broke the rule “Have some children”, then our species would die out, but that hardly shows it is morally wrong not to have any children. Luckily, our species will not die out if everyone is permitted not to have children, since enough people want to have children. Thus, instead of asking, “What would happen if everybody did that?”, rule consequentialists should ask, “What would happen if everybody were permitted to do that?” People are permitted to do what violates no accepted rule, so asking what would happen if everybody were permitted to do an act is just the flip side of asking what would happen if people accepted a rule that forbids that act. Such acceptance rule consequentialists then claim that an act is morally wrong if and only if it violates a rule whose acceptance has better consequences than the acceptance of any incompatible rule. In some accounts, a rule is accepted when it is built into individual consciences (Brandt 1992). Other rule utilitarians, however, require that moral rules be publicly known (Gert 2005; cf. Sinnott-Armstrong 2003b) or built into public institutions (Rawls 1955). Then they hold what can be called public acceptance rule consequentialism : an act is morally wrong if and only if it violates a rule whose public acceptance maximizes the good.

The indirectness of such rule utilitarianism provides a way to remain consequentialist and yet capture the common moral intuition that it is immoral to perform the transplant in the above situation. Suppose people generally accepted a rule that allows a doctor to transplant organs from a healthy person without consent when the doctor believes that this transplant will maximize utility. Widely accepting this rule would lead to many transplants that do not maximize utility, since doctors (like most people) are prone to errors in predicting consequences and weighing utilities. Moreover, if the rule is publicly known, then patients will fear that they might be used as organ sources, so they would be less likely to go to a doctor when they need one. The medical profession depends on trust that this public rule would undermine. For such reasons, some rule utilitarians conclude that it would not maximize utility for people generally to accept a rule that allows doctors to transplant organs from unwilling donors. If this claim is correct, then rule utilitarianism implies that it is morally wrong for a particular doctor to use an unwilling donor, even for a particular transplant that would have better consequences than any alternative even from the doctor’s own perspective. Common moral intuition is thereby preserved.

Rule utilitarianism faces several potential counterexamples (such as whether public rules allowing slavery could sometimes maximize utility) and needs to be formulated more precisely (particularly in order to avoid collapsing into act-utilitarianism; cf. Lyons 1965). Such details are discussed in another entry in this encyclopedia (see Hooker on rule-consequentialism). Here I will just point out that direct consequentialists find it convoluted and implausible to judge a particular act by the consequences of something else (Smart 1956). Why should mistakes by other doctors in other cases make this doctor’s act morally wrong, when this doctor knows for sure that he is not mistaken in this case? Rule consequentialists can respond that we should not claim special rights or permissions that we are not willing to grant to every other person, and that it is arrogant to think we are less prone to mistakes than other people are. However, this doctor can reply that he is willing to give everyone the right to violate the usual rules in the rare cases when they do know for sure that violating those rules really maximizes utility. Anyway, even if rule utilitarianism accords with some common substantive moral intuitions, it still seems counterintuitive in other ways. This makes it worthwhile to consider how direct consequentialists can bring their views in line with common moral intuitions, and whether they need to do so.

Another popular charge is that classic utilitarianism demands too much, because it requires us to do acts that are or should be moral options (neither obligatory nor forbidden). (Scheffler 1982) For example, imagine that my old shoes are serviceable but dirty, so I want a new pair of shoes that costs $100. I could wear my old shoes and give the $100 to a charity that will use my money to save someone else’s life. It would seem to maximize utility for me to give the $100 to the charity. If it is morally wrong to do anything other than what maximizes utility, then it is morally wrong for me to buy the shoes. But buying the shoes does not seem morally wrong. It might be morally better to give the money to charity, but such contributions seem supererogatory, that is, above and beyond the call of duty. Of course, there are many more cases like this. When I watch television, I always (or almost always) could do more good by helping others, but it does not seem morally wrong to watch television. When I choose to teach philosophy rather than working for CARE or the Peace Corps, my choice probably fails to maximize utility overall. If we were required to maximize utility, then we would have to make very different choices in many areas of our lives. The requirement to maximize utility, thus, strikes many people as too demanding because it interferes with the personal decisions that most of us feel should be left up to the individual.

Some utilitarians respond by arguing that we really are morally required to change our lives so as to do a lot more to increase overall utility (see Kagan 1989, P. Singer 1993, and Unger 1996). Such hard-liners claim that most of what most people do is morally wrong, because most people rarely maximize utility. Some such wrongdoing might be blameless when agents act from innocent or even desirable motives, but it is still supposed to be moral wrongdoing. Opponents of utilitarianism find this claim implausible, but it is not obvious that their counter-utilitarian intuitions are reliable or well-grounded (Murphy 2000, chs. 1–4; cf. Mulgan 2001, Singer 2005, Greene 2013).

Other utilitarians blunt the force of the demandingness objection by limiting direct utilitarianism to what people morally ought to do. Even if we morally ought to maximize utility, it need not be morally wrong to fail to maximize utility. John Stuart Mill, for example, argued that an act is morally wrong only when both it fails to maximize utility and its agent is liable to punishment for the failure (Mill 1861). It does not always maximize utility to punish people for failing to maximize utility. Thus, on this view, it is not always morally wrong to fail to do what one morally ought to do. If Mill is correct about this, then utilitarians can say that we ought to give much more to charity, but we are not required or obliged to do so, and failing to do so is not morally wrong (cf. Sinnott-Armstrong 2005).

Many utilitarians still want to avoid the claim that we morally ought to give so much to charity. One way around this claim uses a rule-utilitarian theory of what we morally ought to do. If it costs too much to internalize rules implying that we ought to give so much to charity, then, according to such rule-utilitarianism, it is not true that we ought to give so much to charity (Hooker 2000, ch. 8).

Another route follows an agent-relative theory of value. If there is more value in benefiting oneself or one’s family and friends than there is disvalue in letting strangers die (without killing them), then spending resources on oneself or one’s family and friends would maximize the good. A problem is that such consequentialism would seem to imply that we morally ought not to contribute those resources to charity, although such contributions seem at least permissible.

More personal leeway could also be allowed by deploying the legal notion of proximate causation. When a starving stranger would stay alive if and only if one contributed to a charity, contributing to the charity still need not be the proximate cause of the stranger’s life, and failing to contribute need not be the proximate cause of his or her death. Thus, if an act is morally right when it includes the most net good in its proximate consequences, then it might not be morally wrong either to contribute to the charity or to fail to do so. This potential position, as mentioned above, has not yet been developed, as far as I know.

Yet another way to reach this conclusion is to give up maximization and to hold instead that we morally ought to do what creates enough utility. This position is often described as satisficing consequentialism (Slote 1984). According to satisficing consequentialism, it is not morally wrong to fail to contribute to a charity if one contributes enough to other charities and if the money or time that one could contribute does create enough good, so it is not just wasted. (For criticisms, see Bradley 2006.) A related position is progressive consequentialism , which holds that we morally ought to improve the world or make it better than it would be if we did nothing, but we don’t have to improve it as much as we can (Elliot and Jamieson, 2009). Both satisficing and progressive consequentialism allow us to devote some of our time and money to personal projects that do not maximize overall good.

A more radical set of proposals confines consequentialism to judgements about how good an act is on a scale (Norcross 2006, 2020) or to degrees of wrongness and rightness (Sinhababu 2018). This positions are usually described as scalar consequentialism . A scalar consequentialist can refuse to say whether it is absolutely right or wrong to give $1000 to charity, for example, but still say that giving $1000 to charity is better and more right than giving only $100 and simultaneously worse and more wrong than giving $10,000. A related contrastivist consequentialism could say that one ought to give $1000 in contrast with $100 but not in contrast with $10,000 (cf. Snedegar 2017). Such positions can also hold that less or less severe negative sanctions are justified when an agent’s act is worse than a smaller set of alternatives compared to when the agent’s act is worse than a larger set of alternatives. This approach then becomes less demanding, both because it sees less negative sanctions as justified when the agent fails to do the best act possible, and also because it avoids saying that everyday actions are simply wrong without comparison to any set of alternatives.

Opponents still object that all such consequentialist theories are misdirected. When I decide to visit a friend instead of working for a charity, I can know that my act is not immoral even if I have not calculated that the visit will create enough overall good or that it will improve the world. These critics hold that friendship requires us to do certain favors for friends without weighing our friends’ welfare impartially against the welfare of strangers. Similarly, if I need to choose between saving my drowning wife and saving a drowning stranger, it would be “one thought too many” (Williams 1981) for me to calculate the consequences of each act. I morally should save my wife straightaway without calculating utilities.

In response, utilitarians can remind critics that the principle of utility is intended as only a criterion of right and not as a decision procedure, so utilitarianism does not imply that people ought to calculate utilities before acting (Railton 1984). Consequentialists can also allow the special perspective of a friend or spouse to be reflected in agent-relative value assessments (Sen 1982, Broome 1991, Portmore 2001, 2003) or probability assessments (Jackson 1991). It remains controversial, however, whether any form of consequentialism can adequately incorporate common moral intuitions about friendship.

Even if consequentialists can accommodate or explain away common moral intuitions, that might seem only to answer objections without yet giving any positive reason to accept consequentialism. However, most people begin with the presumption that we morally ought to make the world better when we can. The question then is only whether any moral constraints or moral options need to be added to the basic consequentialist factor in moral reasoning. (Kagan 1989, 1998) If no objection reveals any need for anything beyond consequences, then consequences alone seem to determine what is morally right or wrong, just as consequentialists claim.

This line of reasoning will not convince opponents who remain unsatisfied by consequentialist responses to objections. Moreover, even if consequentialists do respond adequately to every proposed objection, that would not show that consequentialism is correct or even defensible. It might face new problems that nobody has yet recognized. Even if every possible objection is refuted, we might have no reason to reject consequentialism but still no reason to accept it.

In case a positive reason is needed, consequentialists present a wide variety of arguments. One common move attacks opponents. If the only plausible options in moral theory lie on a certain list (say, Kantianism, contractarianism, virtue theory, pluralistic intuitionism, and consequentialism), then consequentialists can argue for their own theory by criticizing the others. This disjunctive syllogism or process of elimination will be only as strong as the set of objections to the alternatives, and the argument fails if even one competitor survives. Moreover, the argument assumes that the original list is complete. It is hard to see how that assumption could be justified.

Consequentialism also might be supported by an inference to the best explanation of our moral intuitions. This argument might surprise those who think of consequentialism as counterintuitive, but in fact consequentialists can explain many moral intuitions that trouble deontological theories. Moderate deontologists, for example, often judge that it is morally wrong to kill one person to save five but not morally wrong to kill one person to save a million. They never specify the line between what is morally wrong and what is not morally wrong, and it is hard to imagine any non-arbitrary way for deontologists to justify a cutoff point. In contrast, consequentialists can simply say that the line belongs wherever the benefits most outweigh the costs, including any bad side effects (cf. Sinnott-Armstrong 2007). Similarly, when two promises conflict, it often seems clear which one we should keep, and that intuition can often be explained by the amount of harm that would be caused by breaking each promise. In contrast, deontologists are hard pressed to explain which promise is overriding if the reason to keep each promise is simply that it was made (Sinnott-Armstrong 2009). If consequentialists can better explain more common moral intuitions, then consequentialism might have more explanatory coherence overall, despite being counterintuitive in some cases. (Compare Sidgwick 1907, Book IV, Chap. III; and Sverdlik 2011.) And even if act consequentialists cannot argue in this way, it still might work for rule consequentialists (such as Hooker 2000).

Consequentialists also might be supported by deductive arguments from abstract moral intuitions. Sidgwick (1907, Book III, Chap. XIII) seemed to think that the principle of utility follows from certain very general self-evident principles, including universalizability (if an act ought to be done, then every other act that resembles it in all relevant respects also ought to be done), rationality (one ought to aim at the good generally rather than at any particular part of the good), and equality (“the good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view ... of the Universe, than the good of any other”).

Other consequentialists are more skeptical about moral intuitions, so they seek foundations outside morality, either in non-normative facts or in non-moral norms. Mill (1861) is infamous for his “proof” of the principle of utility from empirical observations about what we desire (cf. Sayre-McCord 2001). In contrast, Hare (1963, 1981) tries to derive his version of utilitarianism from substantively neutral accounts of morality, of moral language, and of rationality (cf. Sinnott-Armstrong 2001). Similarly, Gewirth (1978) tries to derive his variant of consequentialism from metaphysical truths about actions.

Yet another argument for a kind of consequentialism is contractarian . Harsanyi (1977, 1978) argues that all informed, rational people whose impartiality is ensured because they do not know their place in society would favor a kind of consequentialism. Broome (1991) elaborates and extends Harsanyi’s argument.

Other forms of arguments have also been invoked on behalf of consequentialism (e.g. Cummiskey 1996, P. Singer 1993; Sinnott-Armstrong 1992). However, each of these arguments has also been subjected to criticisms.

Even if none of these arguments proves consequentialism, there still might be no adequate reason to deny consequentialism. We might have no reason either to deny consequentialism or to assert it. Consequentialism could then remain a live option even if it is not proven.

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Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons

B.M. Wooldridge

Click to print this chapter: Utilitarianism Pros and Cons

Consequentialism is a general moral theory that tells us that, in any given situation, we should perform those actions that lead to better overall consequences. There are generally two branches of Consequentialism:

• Hedonism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘pleasurable’ consequences, and
• Utilitarianism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘happy’ consequences.

The focus of this paper will be on Utilitarianism, as this is undoubtedly the most popular form of consequentialist theories. John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost Utilitarian moral theorists, sums up Utilitarianism as follows: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” [1]

Any account of Utilitarianism will have two central tenets. First, Utilitarians are focused on states of affairs, which means that Utilitarianism is concerned with the result, or consequences, of one’s actions, and disregards other features like one’s motives or reasons for acting. One might have good motives or reasons for performing a certain action, but an action is only considered morally good for a Utilitarian if it maximizes the consequences, or happiness, of a given situation. Secondly, Utilitarians emphasize that agents are to be neutral in making their decisions. What this means is that under Utilitarianism, everyone counts for the same, and nobody counts for more than anybody else. Friends, family members, significant others, and anyone else important to you counts just the same as a complete stranger when making a moral decision.

On the face of it, this seems like a sensible moral theory. Like any other theory, Utilitarianism has its advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, I will argue that the disadvantages of Utilitarianism far outweigh the advantages. More specifically, I will argue that, despite its initial appeal, there are serious problems with Utilitarianism that render it a problematic moral theory. In what follows, I will consider a thought experiment from Bernard Williams to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of Utilitarianism, followed by a discussion of why Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

To begin, consider the case of George. George has recently completed his PhD in Chemistry, and, like any other PhD candidate, finds it extremely difficult to land a job after completing his degree. George has a family, and his wife works hard to support them. While she is supportive of George, his difficulty finding a job puts a serious strain on their relationship. An older chemist who knows George tells George that he can get him a job in a laboratory. The laboratory pursues research into chemical and biological warfare. George, however, is opposed to chemical and biological warfare, and he therefore cannot accept the job. However, if George refuses the job, it will go to a colleague of George’s who does not have any reservations about chemical and biological warfare. Indeed, if this colleague takes the job, he will pursue the research with great zeal. For what it’s worth, George’s wife is not against chemical and biological warfare. Should George take the job? [2]

It seems that a Utilitarian would inform us that George should take the job, for doing so will lead to better overall consequences than turning down the job. In taking the job, George will not perform the research with great enthusiasm. Williams is not clear on whether George will actively sabotage the research, but it can be reasonably assumed that if George takes the job, he will perform his duties in such a way that will minimize the impact that chemical and biological research will have on developing weapons for war. While George will not directly be saving anyone, his work will indirectly lead to the saving of thousands of lives. Indeed, simply taking the job will ensure that someone who has great enthusiasm for chemical and biological warfare does not get the job. So even if George does not directly or indirectly save anyone while performing his duties, he will already have maximized the consequences by preventing someone who would do great harm from getting the job.

This thought experiment is useful in considering the strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism. Let us first begin with the strengths of the theory. Perhaps the biggest strength of Utilitarianism is that it is, at least prima facie, easier to reach a conclusion under this theory than other theories. That is, Utilitarianism provides us with a clear path for determining which action in a given situation will be the correct one: it is that action that will increase utility. This is in contrast to other moral theories, such as Deontology, which do not always provide a clear answer. Deontology, for example, focuses on the motives or reasons one has for acting, and it can be difficult sometimes to ascertain what one’s motives and/or reasons are. Even if one explicitly outlines their motives or reasons, it is not always the case that this is truthful. The consequences of an action, however, do provide us with a clear criterion for what counts as a morally good action. If one’s action leads to good, or happy, consequences, then that action is morally permissible. Thus, Utilitarianism is a theory that can easily help us reach decisions.

Relating this to the case of George, George’s actions can be judged on whether they will lead to better consequences. In this case, his action will lead to good consequences, albeit indirectly. In accepting the job, George prevents someone else who might indirectly harm others by promoting chemical and biological warfare from getting the job. Consider, for a moment, if we judged this action not on the consequences, but rather on the reasons or motives for acting. Suppose George accepts the job because he is motivated to end chemical and biological warfare, or that his reason for taking the job is to help support his family. While these reasons might be noble ones, we cannot be clear on whether these are actually the motives/reasons that George has. Motives and reasons, in other words, are not as clearly accessible as the consequences of an action.

Another strength of Utilitarianism is its emphasis on neutrality. When making a decision, one is to take a ‘God’s eye’ view of things, and consider everyone equally. This emphasis on neutrality makes Utilitarianism an impartial moral theory, meaning it considers everyone’s status and interests as equal. Relating this to the case of George, we see that George needs to assess the situation from a neutral perspective. He should not favour his or his family’s interests as opposed to the interests of others who might be impacted by chemical and biological warfare. Even if his wife and family were against chemical and biological warfare, and even considering that George himself is against chemical and biological warfare, he needs to put these interests and considerations aside and make the decision that is best for everyone involved.

While Utilitarianism does have its strengths as a theory, it also has some very serious weaknesses, and in the remainder of this paper I will outline of these weaknesses and argue why I think they make Utilitarianism a problematic moral theory.

We can begin by considering the point about neutrality. While Utilitarians will count this as a strength of their theory, it can also be considered a weakness of the theory. In considering everyone equally, Utilitarianism devalues the importance of personal relationships. In some cases, following Utilitarianism will force us to disregard those who are close to us. Suppose, for instance, that George’s wife and children, like George, were also against chemical and biological warfare. Utilitarianism will tell us that George should disregard their interests and feelings and perform that action that will increase the consequences. But this seems to be impersonal. The interests, feelings, and desires of George’s family should matter more than the interests, feelings, and desires of complete strangers, simply because these people are closer to George. Each of us has special relations to individuals that we work hard to develop, and that, in many cases, help us become better people. To disregard the interests, feelings, and desires of these individuals seems to be wrong.

I should also point out here that while Utilitarians will consider everyone equally, this does not mean that they will treat everyone equally. Consider another example from Williams. Suppose that there is a racial minority in a society. This minority does not harm anyone else in the society, nor does it do anything particularly good either. However, the other citizens, who make up the majority, have prejudices against this minority, and consider its presence very disagreeable, and proposals are put forward to remove this minority. [3] Williams is not clear on what would be involved in ‘removing’ the minority. The removal of the minority need not involve murder, although it could. It might involve, for example, removing them from society by forcing them to leave the society.

It seems that a Utilitarian would be forced to accept that eliminating this minority would increase the happiness for the majority of people, and would therefore be a moral action. But this seems wrong, mainly because removing the minority from society would involve what many people take to be morally evil actions, which is another problem with Utilitarianism. In some cases, Utilitarianism might sanction morally evil actions in order to achieve morally desirable consequences. Removing the minority might involve genocide or mass deportations, both of which seem morally problematic. Killing people simply because they are of a certain race or ethnicity, and/or removing them from a society without just cause, are severe moral violations that any reasonable person could not sanction. The idea here is this: sometimes, in working to achieve the greatest overall consequences, individuals will be forced to do bad things, and these bad things, even if they increase happiness, are still bad. And it is a failing of Utilitarianism that it does not recognize the moral value of labeling these as morally bad actions.

At this point a Utilitarian will surely have something to say. A Utilitarian might respond to the above points as follows. All of the critiques I have offered are focused only on the short-term consequences, and not the long-term consequences. When we focus on the long-term consequences of the above cases, the Utilitarian answer will change. For example, if George takes the job, this might lead to good consequences in the immediate future. But in the long run, it might lead to bad consequences. It might, for example, cause a serious strain on his marriage, and make George unhappy, which will in turn affect his relationships with others. In the racial minority case, while removing the minority might lead to better consequences in the short term, it will lead to worse consequences in the long term. It will, for example, weaken the trust among members of a community, and destabilize the social relations of individuals within that community. In response to this, a Utilitarian might adopt a rule, the general following of which will lead to better long-term consequences. In so doing, a Utilitarian switches the focus from a version of Utilitarianism that is focused on acts, to one that is focused on rules.

This response from a Utilitarian fails, in that it invites more questions than what it does answers. Mainly, just how far into the future should we look when considering the consequences of our actions? Utilitarians do not provide a clear answer to this question. Saying that we should focus on the long-term consequences of an action when the implications of the short-term consequences are troubling seems to be problematic. And, moreover, should we really follow a rule when, in the moment, we can perform an act that will increase the happiness of others? Adopting rule-utilitarianism as a way to respond to these objections seems not only ad-hoc, but also inconsistent with the Utilitarian maxim of increasing the consequences.

Overall, the theory of Utilitarianism, while perhaps initially appealing, seems to have some serious flaws. While the theory of Utilitarianism might help us more easily reach moral conclusions than what other theories do, and while it emphasizes the neutrality of moral agents, it does nonetheless have a tendency to alienate us from those we are closest to, and might require us to perform actions that, under other moral theories, are considered morally problematic. It is for these reasons that Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

For Refection & Discussion

• What are the benefits of Utilitarianism? Are these benefits enough to convince you that it is the correct moral theory we should follow?
• What are the drawbacks of Utilitarianism? Are these benefits enough to convince you that it is an incorrect moral theory we should follow?
• If more happiness is produced by not following Utilitarianism, is that what we should do? What does this say about the theory?

Citation & Use

This chapter was written by Brandon Wooldridge, PhD Candidate, McMaster University. Email: [email protected]. This work released under a CC-BY license.

• John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism,” In Moral Philosophy: A Reader, Fourth Edition, Ed. Louis Pojam & Peter Tramel (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009), 158. ↵
• Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utiliarianism,” in Utilitarianism: For and Against, J.J.C. Smart & Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 98. ↵
• Williams, “A Critique of Utiliarianism,” 105. ↵

Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons Copyright © 2024 by B.M. Wooldridge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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