Consequentialism & Nonconsequentialist Constraints Flashcards

Question

satisficing consequentialism

Answer 1

to perform an action that is “good enough” with respect to its consequences, even if some alternative action would have even better consequences

Answer 2

a person’s actions are right or wrong depending on what they thought the consequences would be

Answer 3

everyone whose welfare will be affected by one’s action counts morally

Answer 4

the moral worth of an action is determined by how much happiness or suffering it brings to the world, and therefore people should always do whatever will bring about the most happiness to the most people

Answer 5

moral reasoning device designed to promote impartial decision-making by denying decision-makers access to potentially biasing information about who will benefit most or least from the available options

Answer 6

universal = holds that everyone whose welfare will be affected by one's action counts morally impartial = everyone's welfare counts equally in determining the deontic status of an action

Answer 7

actual consequences: to act rightly is to do whatever produces the best consequences expected consequences: a person acts rightly by doing the action that has the highest level of “expected utility” - expected utility is a combination of the good (or bad) effects that one predicts will result from an action and the probability of those effects occurring

Answer 8

imagine the action of a person who, in 1938, saves someone from drowning. while we generally regard saving a drowning person as the right thing to do and praise people for such actions, the person saved from drowning in this case was Adolf Hitler had Hitler drowned, millions of other people might have been saved from suffering and death between 1938 and 1945 if utilitarianism evaluates the rescuer’s actions based on actual consequences, then the rescuer did the wrong thing if utilitarianism judges the rescuer’s action by its foreseeable, expected consequences, then the rescuer did the right thing

Answer 9

most consequentialists claim that it should be a theory of rightness - “it is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgement” (Bentham, 1789) a criterion of the right can be useful at a higher level by helping us choose among available decision procedures & refine our decision procedures as circumstances change and we gain more experience and knowledge

Answer 10

a consequentialist criterion of right implies that it would not be morally right to use consequentialism as a decision procedure in cases where it would not maximise utility to try to calculate utilities before acting 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 a criterion of the right can be useful at a higher level by helping us choose among available decision procedures & refine our decision procedures as circumstances change and we gain more experience and knowledge

Answer 11

unforeseen & unforeseeable consequences

Answer 12

most people agree that we morally ought to improve the world where possible and acting to bring about the best outcomes seems a natural way to achieve this

Answer 13

main objections to act consequentialism 1. unable to make sense of familiar moral options 2. unable to make sense of familiar moral constraints 3. consequentialism operates with a dubious notion of goodness 4. consequentialism is self-defeating 5. consequentialism gives no practical guidance at all

Answer 14

requirement to maximise utility 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 the demandingness objection specifically takes issue with the extent to which a theory is demanding on the individual’s self-interest leaves no room for actions that are permissible yet do not bring about the best consequences - everything that is suboptimal is impermissible

Answer 15

1. suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad 2. if it in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought, morally, to do it 3. it makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbour’s child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away 4. the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position very demanding form of consequentialism

Answer 16

very demanding (although Singer believes morality should be this demanding, no one said it should be easy) premises 3 & 4 reject to commonly held intuitions about our moral obligations

Answer 17

this objection deals with the idea that a plausible principle of beneficence should not require too big a personal sacrifice in order to help strangers due to agent-neutrality, consequentialism seems unable to make sense of special obligations we have to particular individuals or groups (e.g. family)

Answer 18

moral saint: “a person whose every action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, who is as morally worthy as can be”

Answer 19

impartiality assumption alienates us from loved ones focuses on the way in which acting for consequentialist reasons seems incompatible with acting in ways that partly constitute valuable relationships due to agent-neutrality, consequentialism seems unable to make sense of special obligations we have to particular individuals or groups (e.g. family) - fails to recognise the moral legitimacy of giving special preferences to ourselves & people that we know and care about

Answer 20

you are ill & lying in hospital a friend comes to the hospital to visit you at the end of the visit, when you thank her for making the trip, she remarks that she did it because she knew it would give you pleasure and was thus obligated by consequentialism to visit upon hearing this, you instantly feel disheartened; the fact that the friend visited us out of moral obligation, and not simply due to her love for us seems to make it feel less satisfying on our behalf

Answer 21

Stocker, 1976

Answer 22

“wrong answers” objection gives the wrong answers to moral questions (permits various actions that everyone knows are morally wrong)

Answer 23

multi-level consequentialism satisficing consequentialism rule consequentialism the agent-relative / agent-neutral distinction motive consequentialism

Answer 24

single-level: normative reason = motivating reason multi-level: normative reason ≠ motivating reason distinction to be made between one’s motivating reason & one’s normative reason for action - a motivating reason is a reason that explains why an action was done (e.g. love, friendship) - a normative reason justifies why an action is right or wrong (e.g. performing this action will maximise general welfare) multi-level endorses act consequentialism for right action but endorses a different decision procedure - only takes consequentialism to be a theory of rightness not as a decision procedure

Answer 25

multi-level consequentialism endorses act consequentialism for right action but endorses a different decision procedure - only takes consequentialism to be a theory of rightness not as a decision procedure view that individuals should usually follow tried-and-tested rules of thumb / heuristics, rather than trying to calculate which action will produce the most well-being distinction to be made between one’s motivating reason & one’s normative reason for action - a motivating reason is a reason that explains why an action was done (e.g. love, friendship) - a normative reason justifies why an action is right or wrong (e.g. performing this action will maximise general welfare)

Answer 26

I can visit my friend out of friendship (motivating reason), and the reason that doing so is right is because it maximises general welfare (normative reason)

Answer 27

incompatible with real relationship values self-effacing Stocker’s disharmony between motives & reasons - 'reasons’ are the justifications & values one has for taking a particular action; ‘motives’, however, are the true impulses behind an action - motives & reasons must be in harmony during interpersonal activities for moral values to be realised - genuine love & friendship are among the greatest pleasures that one can experience, however, if they are done purely as a means to an end & not an end in themselves, the pleasure of those emotions is lost

Answer 28

‘reasons’ are the justifications & values one has for taking a particular action; ‘motives’, however, are the true impulses behind an action motives & reasons must be in harmony during interpersonal activities for moral values to be realised genuine love & friendship are among the greatest pleasures that one can experience, however, if they are done purely as a means to an end & not an end in themselves, the pleasure of those emotions is lost

Answer 29

X brings about a sufficient amount of Y to satisfice is to perform an action that is “good enough” with respect to its consequences, even if some alternative action would have even better consequences it is not morally wrong to fail to contribute to a charity if one contributes enough to other charities & if the money or time that one could contribute does create enough good, so it is not just wasted

Answer 30

Slote, 1984

Answer 31

arbitrary threshold of defining ‘good enough’, unwelcome implications - suggests morality is indifferent between saving 2 people and saving 6 people licences gratuitous harms - so long as it leaves us over the threshold, there’s nothing wrong with a harm even when a non-harmful act was available (Bradley, 2006)

Answer 32

an action A is right iff A is in accordance with a rule which if generally followed / accepted makes the outcome best part of determining which code would be ideal requires that one consider the costs of successfully getting people to internalise a rule that requires people to be completely impartial in their decisions that affect their own welfare and the welfare of loved ones

Answer 33

ideal world objection / compliance level objection (Parfit, 2011) - compliance vs internalisation collapses into act consequentialism (Smart, 1973) rule worship objection (Smart, 1973)

Answer 34

optimal rules under conditions of universal compliance prescribe acts that are obviously wrong in conditions of partial non-compliance compliance formulation: an act is morally permissible if and only if it is allowed by the code of rules, which if generally complied with, would produce the most good internalisation formulation: an act is morally permissible if and only if it is allowed by the code of rules whose internalisation by the vast majority would produce the most good Hooker favours the internalisation formulation - internalisation can have benefits that mere compliance doesn’t have

Answer 35

philosophers have proposed versions of rule consequentialism that assess the consequences of rules under some rates of compliance other than only 100% - e.g. at 90% (Hooker, 2000) but these still fall foul of the ‘distant world objection’ (Podgorski, 2018)

Answer 36

compliance: one complies with a code of rules if and only if one acts in accordance with that code of rules internalisation: one has internalised a code of rules if and only if one both believes that the right thing to do is what is specified by the code and has the psychological dispositions and character traits that dispose one to do what is specified by the code, to feel guilt when one violates the code, and to resent it when others violate the code Hooker favours the internalisation formulation - internalisation can have benefits that mere compliance doesn’t have - e.g. suppose that you have internalised the rule that says “retaliate against an attacker” and that you are totally transparent in the sense that people know your dispositions just by looking at you. Your having internalised the rule will, then, have the benefit of deterring potential attackers without your ever having to retaliate against any attackers. This is a benefit that merely complying with the rule doesn’t have

Answer 37

might be more costly to get one code of rules internalised than another, and we should not overlook this cost since, absent obtrusive governmental policing & sanctions, internalisation is necessary to ensure general compliance

Answer 38

RC is extensionally equivalent to act consequentialism (Lyons) E.g. Kant’s claim that lying is always wrong - many deem too rigid & claim it fails to account for the circumstances in which the lie is being told - more plausible rule could be that offered by Nathanson, which says “do not lie except in special circumstances that justify lying” - what are these special circumstances - for a utilitarian correct circumstances would be when lying would generate more good than telling the truth - RU adopting this approach & advocating a moral code that consists of a list of rules of this form would look like “do x except when not doing x maximises utility” and while this seems plausible, it also is identical to AU reason for not formulating RC in terms of compliance

Answer 39

collapse objection depends on a universal-conformity model of rule consequentialism

Answer 40

“rule worship”: an irrational deference to rules that has no utilitarian justification (Smart, 1973) sometimes need to break a rule (e.g. promise) for another rule (e.g. killing) - creates hierarchy of rules can lead to disaster e.g. Hitler case

Answer 41

response: override rule that requires one to prevent disaster even when doing so requires breaking other rules (Brandt) but what counts as disaster?

Answer 42

we have more information on those near to us so can better approximate their expected utility at given points sometimes it is required that we are able to give extended action with feedback we have more commitment to those close to us

Answer 43

since "my" projects depend on my interests and desires, and since "my" interests and desires do not seem to generate agent-neutral reasons, by elimination the reasons in question must be agent-relative having established that there are genuine agent-relative reasons, conclude that it must sometimes be possible to pursue our own interests instead of the overall good, since agent-relative reasons will sometimes outweigh agent-neutral reasons 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 maximise the good thus the fact that moral requirements exist does not need to conflict with the pursuit of our own projects

Answer 44

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 (Jackson, 1991)

Answer 45

no only denies that they are the sole determinant of the rightness or wrongness of an action

Answer 46

personal prerogatives not to maximise the good & constraints on producing the good (Kamm, 2013)

Answer 47

a prerogative denies that agents must always maximise good consequences hence, it allows for the possibility that some acts are supererogatory because, while they are not morally required, they are morally valuable in virtue of producing better consequences (Kamm, 2013)

Answer 48

Scheffler, 1982

Answer 49

Kagan, 1989

Answer 50

non-alienation (Scheffler, 1982) - humans are psychologically predisposed to be most concerned about their own projects - morally permitted to pursue their non-optimific projects for personal reasons, cannot be alienated from their fundamental natures people are ends-in-themselves (personal sovereignty) - since we should not view people as mere means of promoting the greater good, each of us can sometimes justifiably pursue non optimific goals - on this view, the foundation of prerogatives can also be the foundation of constraints on interferences, as both are connected to the idea of personal sovereignty - moral obligation less about doing as much good as possible than it is about respect for persons

Answer 51

humans are psychologically predisposed to be most concerned about their own projects morally permitted to pursue their non-optimific projects for personal reasons, cannot be alienated from their fundamental natures this justification does not morally limit others from interfering with someone in their quest to maximise the good; it only implies that someone need not always act of his own accord for impartial good for impartial reasons this non-alienation justification suggests agents should be permitted to try to control what they care about most

Answer 52

since we should not view people as mere means of promoting the greater good, each of us can sometimes justifiably pursue non-optimific goals on this view, the foundation of prerogatives can also be the foundation of constraints on interferences, as both are connected to the idea of personal sovereignty prerogatives can be seen as a by-product of the fact that moral obligation is not about producing as much good as possible. It is about respect for persons and doing as much good as that requires

Answer 53

(1) a strong duty not to harm owed to each individual and so correlative to that individual’s right not to be harmed; and/or (2) a prohibition against intending harm

Answer 54

equivalence thesis: consequentialists argue that there is no intrinsic moral difference between harming and not-aiding principle of contextual interaction: a property can behave differently in one context than in another If we can find even one set of comparable cases in which a harming is morally worse than a not-aiding, we rebut a universal claim like the Equivalence Thesis

Answer 55

1. Smith will inherit a fortune if his little cousin dies. One evening while the child is taking his bath, Smith drowns him 2. Jones will inherit a fortune if his little cousin dies. When Jones enters the bathroom, he sees that the child slipped and fell face down in the water. Although Jones could easily save the child, he does nothing, intending that the child die

Answer 56

1. in killing we introduce a threat that was not previously present, while in letting die, we do not interfere with a currently present threat 2. in killing we act, while in letting die we fail to act (in particular, we refrain from acting); 3. in killing we cause someone to lose life that he would have had independently of our actions at that time; in letting die, someone loses only life that he would have had with our help at that time; and 4. in killing we interfere first with the victim, while in letting die, we avoid being interfered with (by having to aid)

Answer 57

1. when we kill or let someone die, we might reasonably think that she has some right to her life. But when we harm or do not aid someone in non-life-and-death cases, what they lose – or fail to get – may be something to which they have no right 2. generally, when someone kills, they interfere with another’s body in ways they do not do when they let die. However, if we harm someone in non-life-and-death cases, we may not necessarily interfere with her body any more than if we do not aid

Answer 58

Foot appeals to negative / positive rights to justify DDA - in the Trolley Case, comparing violations of negative rights - comparing killing one to killing five (numbers count) - in the Judge Case, comparing violations of negative right and positive rights negative rights have priority over positive rights (Foot, 1967) - violations of negative rights take precedence - justifies doing/allowing distinction

Answer 59

negative rights have priority over positive rights (Foot, 1967) - violations of negative rights take precedence - justifies doing/allowing distinction

Answer 60

1. typical difference in cost to the agent of avoiding doing harm as compared to the cost of avoiding allowing harm - HOWEVER, some instances of refraining from doing harm exacting tremendous costs; some cases of providing aid require next to no sacrifice (only provides a rough guide) 2. doing harm to an individual is more disrespectful of that person than merely allowing harm to befall him - easier to claim than defend 3. the appropriate sort of facts about a particular agent can ground especially compelling moral requirements

Answer 61

all three justifications are unsuccessful in defending the moral relevance of the distinction between doing and allowing (all are agent-focused)

Answer 62

Foot contends relevant distinction between initiating a threatening sequence of events or keeping it going & allowing a threatening sequence that is already in train to continue (Foot, 1967) one suggestion is that whether an act of withdrawing aid or protection counts as killing or letting die depends on whether the barrier to death that one removes is a barrier that one has oneself provided

Answer 63

if aid or protection against a lethal threat is both operative and self-sustaining, withdrawing it appears to count as killing irrespective of whether the person who withdraws it is also the person who provided it (Kagan, 1991) but, when aid that is as-yet-inoperative is withdrawn, it seems to make a difference to whether this counts as killing or letting die whether the person who withdraws it is also the person who provided it (Kagan, 1991)

Answer 64

Abdul 1: Food is being sent to the starving inhabitants of a remote village but Abdul intercepts the supplies and steals them Abdul 2: A check that can be used to buy food is on its way to the village but Abdul intercepts and steals the check Abdul 3: Abdul himself writes a check and mails it to the village. Later, however, he intercepts the check and tears it up Abdul 4: Abdul writes a check for the village and gives it to a friend to mail. A moment later he changes his mind and asks the friend to return it to him in each of these cases Abdul does something that prevents aid from reaching its intended beneficiaries. He interferes in a sequence of events in such a way that people die who would not otherwise have died. He therefore violates the constraint against doing harm yet common-sense morality holds that what Abdul does in Abdul 3 and in Abdul 4 is permissible

Answer 65

DDE: there is a moral constraint on intending evil, even when the evil will be a means to a greater good. Nonetheless, we may be permitted to employ neutral or good means to pursue a greater good, even though we foresee evil side effects if (1) the good is proportionate to the evil and (2) there is no better way to achieve this good (Kamm, 2013) DDE prohibits actions that aim at evil ends, but leaves room for those undertaken in pursuit of the good, but that have foreseeable but unintended evil consequences

Answer 66

lacks consideration for justice and fairness - i.e. the rights of the victim (Kamm, 2013) subjectivity: the DDE can be subject to interpretation and can be applied differently by different people - difficulty in distinguishing between intended & foreseen consequences, especially in complex situations - difficulty in determining proportionality between good & bad consequences. This is especially true when the bad consequences are severe, and the good consequences are minor traditional DDE is too strong - seems to rule out intentionally harming someone to promote that person’s overall good, and it rules out intentionally harming someone to help others even when that person is no worse off than he would have been otherwise (Kamm, 2013) major objection (Thomson, 1999): states of mind (such as intending) cannot make an act that is otherwise permissible be impermissible

Answer 67

PPH is a sharpening of DDE in terms of what is permissible or not permissible as means PPH: it is permissible for (1) greater good and (2) means that have greater good as their noncausal flip side to cause lesser evil, but not permissible for an act (3) to require lesser evil as a means to greater good, or (4) to directly cause lesser evil as a side effect when the act has greater good as mere causal effect (Kamm, 1989)

Answer 68

PPH gives expression a moral distinction between substitution & subordination of persons (Kamm, 2007) it is sometimes permissible to substitute a person for others so that the substituted person is threatened instead of the original people this contrasts with subordinating one person to others, as in Transplant Case (CS5), which is not permissible

Answer 69

inviolability of PPH is not absolute - limited qualitatively (PPH permits some ways of harming) and may be limited quantitatively (e.g. PPH may be overridden to save a million people)

Answer 70

the fact that people have moral status means that treating them morally requires considering their interests the moral status of a given individual might override the calculation of consequences changes the frame of case studies - rather than framing questions in terms of what the agent is permitted or obligated to do, we should instead concern ourselves with what treatment the victim is entitled to receive this approach is not merely about producing as much good as possible, but rather about maintaining respect for individuals and doing as much good as this requires

Answer 71

entitlement of ‘victim’ might reasonably be framed around a person’s inviolability connection to Kant’s categorical imperative specifying that we should treat people not merely as means but as ends in themselves, and whose lives have an unconditional value (Kamm, 2013) high degree of inviolability is correlated with a strong right protecting a person’s life. To transgress this right would then constitute a moral wrong

Answer 72

common sense - intuitive appeal to incorporating provisions for individual respect into our version of consequentialism as it tends to align itself with commonsense notions of fairness & justice, acknowledging the separateness of persons in a way that is typically overlooked by consequentialist arguments practical value - appreciate this by considering what would happen if everybody were permitted to act in disregard to inviolability

Answer 73

while inviolability entails a protection of an individual’s negative rights, it does not make provisions for positive rights link to doing harm vs withholding aid

Answer 74

both arguments centre around an individual wishing to forgo their inviolability: veil of ignorance & saving millions

Answer 75

individual’s decision-making from behind a veil of ignorance consider the case where a person does not know if, at some point in their life, they may find themselves in the trolley problem, either in the group of five or as the one Kamm’s outline of the counterargument suggests that the rational individual would choose to forego their rights, as their chances of being saved are greater than their chances of being sacrificed evaluation: while such a decision may be the strictly rational choice, there is cause to question whether individuals would be quite so content to bargain away their moral status

Answer 76

perhaps in the instance where sacrificing one life would protect millions, an individual could conceivably wish for their rights to be foregone evaluation: while true that many would be happy to sacrifice their own life in the interest of saving such a great number of lives, it is difficult to know where each individual would draw the line

Answer 77

imagine a judge faced with a difficult decision: either frame and execute an innocent man, or allow five people to be killed in a riot that started because people were outraged by the innocent man not being executed

Answer 78

a trolley is hurtling along the tracks and the driver sees five people on the track in front of him. On the other track, there is one person the trolley driver must make a choice: either divert the trolley onto the other track where it will hit and kill one innocent person, or let it continue on its current path and run over five people consequentialist response: kill the one

Answer 79

a trolley is about to collide with five people, resulting in their deaths. A bystander has the ability to divert the trolley such that it travels along a different set of tracks, however, doing so will cause it to collide and kill one person. consequentialist response: not only defensible, but morally obligatory, for the bystander to divert the trolley, as doing so would result in the greater good by minimising total number of deaths possible non-consequentialist response: adopt the view that we are required to maximise the good within the scope of certain constraints & prerogatives

Answer 80

wrong for the judge to kill one person in as judge has to choose between killing one & merely allowing five to die not wrong for trolley driver to kill as the choice is between killing one & killing five what might account for our moral judgements in these cases? The DDA is one possible explanation, the DDE another one

Answer 81

doctor tasked with treating five gravely ill patients, each in need of a different organ transplant. Doctor scheduled to meet with a healthy patient for a routine check-up. This patient would make a suitable organ donor for all other ill patients. Harvesting patient 5’s organs would save all five other patients, at the cost of just one without an inviolability constraint in place, it might follow that the doctor is morally obligated to sacrifice the life of the healthy patient to save the lives of the others however, universalising this behaviour (permitting doctors to sacrifice the lives of patients without their consent) would lead to a world in which patients feared doctors and avoided entering hospitals out of concern for their lives if we value rights above all, we must acknowledge that the rights of all are compromised when any one individual’s rights are transgressed to prevent a gradual erosion of rights, we must impose an inviolability condition such that it can never be considered morally permissible for them to be violated, irrespective of an agent’s intent, or the consequences of an act on the greater good

Answer 82

case of incurable throat cancer patient that will die in next few days but is in agony so wants to end it sooner - if one withholds treatment, it may take longer for the patient to die & so he may suffer more than he would if more direct action were taken and a lethal injection given - strong reason to think that active euthanasia is preferable to passive doctrine that active euthanasia is always wrong while passive euthanasia is sometimes permissible can be challenged for several reasons: - active euthanasia is in many cases more humane than passive euthanasia - doctrine rests on a distinction between killing & letting die that itself can be questioned

Answer 83

claim: a merely extractive abortion involves the active withdrawal of life-supporting aid from the foetus - therefore when a pregnant woman has a merely extractive abortion, thereby withdrawing life-supporting aid that she herself has been providing to a foetus, she does not kill the foetus but merely allows it to die objections to claim: 1. even if we concede that withdrawing aid in progress that one has oneself been providing counts as an instance of letting die, the agent who performs an abortion is typically not the pregnant woman herself but is instead her doctor. Since the doctor terminates life-support that someone else has provided, he kills the foetus rather than lets it die 2. even a merely extractive abortion is an instance of doing something that results in the foetus's death - namely, actively removing the foetus from the environment that supports its life. Hence, it is odd to describe it as merely allowing death to occur 3. in order for one to allow a person to die, there must be some preexisting threatening sequence of events that one fails to arrest or to which one removes some barrier by which it has been blocked. But in the case of a merely extractive abortion, there is no threat to the foetus which the abortion allows to continue by failing to arrest it or by unblocking it. The abortion itself “originates the sequence which ends in the death of the foetus, and the destruction comes about ‘through the agency’ of the mother who seeks the abortion.” (Foot). A merely extractive abortion is, therefore, an act of killing rather than an instance of allowing the foetus to die

Consequentialism & Nonconsequentialist Constraints Flashcards

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