![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
There are a number of assumptions made in our accepted psychology of moral decision-making that consequentialism seems to violate:: value connectionism, pluralism and dispositionalism. But consequentialism violates them only on a utilitarian or similar theory of value, not on the rival sort of theory that is sketched here.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In the argument of the paper I draw on lines of thought in two recent books: The Robust Demands of the Good, published in 2015, and The Birth of Ethics, published in 2018. See (Pettit Citation2015, Citation2018a). For earlier defenses of consequentialist theory, see (Pettit Citation1997, Citation2012) and for a more recent statement and defense, see (Pettit Citation2024).
2. On any plausible rendering, the right option will be that which has the highest expected value in the decision-theoretic sense but even that sort of formula raises questions. Should ‘expected’ reflect the actual credences of the agent, for example, or the credences that they would have if they were rationally responsive to available evidence? And should it be understood in evidential or causal terms?
3. The word was first introduced by Elizabeth Anscombe (Citation1958) but she used it to describe just about any position that assumes that any actions, no matter how unappealing, may turn out to be morally right; nothing is absolutely forbidden.
4. In recent years, some thinkers have opted for using the term for any doctrine in which the right is made a promotional function of the good, whether that good be neutral or non-neutral (Dreier Citation1993; Portmore Citation2014; Smith Citation2009). I reject that line here. For an argument that neutralism is the more important aspect of consequentialism on the grounds that it entail promotionalism but is not entailed by it, see (Pettit Citation2024).
5. Many will argue, following Peter Singer (Citation1981), that it should be determined by values that are also independent of the good of our particular species. I set aside that issue here.
6. The variation in weights may itself vary between individuals or between different times in the life of any individual. I set aside that complexity here.
7. This is particularly likely on any account of ethics that is naturalistic in character and refuses to treat value-making properties as sui generis. See (Pettit Citation2018a).
8. Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi (Watson Citation1985, I.1.10). I rely on my own translation.
9. Things are a little more complicated on the equation of goodness with preference-satisfaction, which was common for a time in the last century. But on this theory too, it is usually assumed that whatever people do, they do for the sake of preference-satisfaction, so that it should be take as the only good. For a critique of that claim, however, see (Pettit Citation2006)
10. In Jan Narveson’s (Citation1973) marvelous phrase, it may therefore call, not for making people happy, but for making happy people. This third feature is not important in the current context – it is crucial for issues of population ethics – and I mention it only for the sake of making the character of this utilitarianism vivid.
11. For a recent defense of the sort of consequentialism envisaged here, see (Pettit Citation2024).
12. I am indebted to the very helpful comments of an anonymous referee on an earlier draft of this paper.