capitalism

92 Consequentialism
Stuart Mill, who referred to it as a “doctrine worthy only of
swine.” Mill’s alternative utilitarian proposal introduces the
distinction between “higher” and “lower” pleasures and
assigns to the former, “the pleasures of the intellect, of the
feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a
much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.”
Mill’s argument rests on the premise that anyone
“competently acquainted with both” types of pleasures
would prefer the higher to the lower pleasures. From this
argument, he famously concludes that it is “better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” Thus, Mill’s
alternative to hedonism aims to answer two perennial questions
in the history of utilitarianism: (1) How should utility
be characterized? and (2) To what extent is it possible to
generalize across the utility functions of individuals?
In moral philosophy, consequentialism contrasts
most sharply with deontological theories of morality.
Deontological theories hold that the rightness of an action
is determined by features of the action, not by the consequences
to which the action gives rise. Immanuel Kant’s
moral theory is particularly representative of this approach.
Kant argued that an action’s consequences are ultimately
irrelevant to its rightness or wrongness. The moral worth of
an action depends “not on the realization of the object of
the action, but solely on the principle of volition in accordance
with which, irrespective of all objects of the faculty
of desire, the action has been performed.” It is the consistency
between the principle of volition and the commands
of reason that determines an action’s rightness. According
to Kant, the rationality of autonomous agents requires that
our actions be “universalizable,” that is, that it be possible
for us rationally to conceive of and will a world in which
our actions are generally done. Against consequentialism,
then, Kant concludes that a particular action can be morally
wrong despite the fact that, if carried out, it would lead to
maximally good consequences.
Consequentialism has been charged with being morally
lax in some circumstances and overly strict in others. It is
commonplace to illustrate these charges by appeal to familiar
types of examples. First, in some circumstances, it is
relatively clear that violating commonsense moral prohibitions
(e.g., prohibitions against lying and breaking
promises) would lead to maximally good consequences.
Generally speaking, consequentialist theories must hold
that such circumstances would make these actions morally
permissible or, more strongly, morally required. This fact
prompts the charge of laxness aimed at consequentialist
moral theories and, specifically, at utilitarianism. It is conceivable
that there are cases in which, say, lying about an
individual’s guilt would lead to better consequences than
would telling the truth. But critics of consequentialism
charge that surely it would be wrong to punish an innocent
person simply because so doing would lead to better consequences.
One standard consequentialist reply has been to
claim that it is the consequences of rules not the consequences
of acts that are relevant to moral assessment. The
distinction between rule and act utilitarianism makes it possible
to offer the moral argument that one should act on
rules of the sort that, if generally followed, maximally good
consequences would result. In line with ordinary morality,
then, the rule utilitarian is in a position to claim that morality
prohibits lying and promise breaking and, moreover,
that it does so for good consequentialist reasons.
The second charge (viz., that consequentialism is overly
strict) derives from the fact that this theory denies the moral
relevance of intentions in assessing the morality of actions.
By so doing, it risks winding up committed to a theory of
blameworthiness and punishment on which individuals are
held accountable for the results of their actions, even when
these results were in no sense intended. In other words,
some consequentialist theories hold individuals responsible
for their actions when ordinary morality tells us that these
individuals were not morally at fault. Such theories also
stand accused of being overly strict on the grounds that they
see all actions as being either morally required or forbidden.
For example, if morality demands that our actions
maximize utility, it will normally be the case that there is
exactly one action that morality allows. All other actions
will be prohibited.
As we might expect, the distinction between consequentialist
and deontological theories has its parallel in political
theory. As applied to this domain, consequentialism is most
often set against theories of individual rights. Rights theorists
claim that some ends, no matter how good, cannot be
legitimately pursued because so doing would violate the
rights of individuals. John Rawls put the point succinctly in
his A Theory of Justice, claiming that utilitarian forms of
consequentialism do not “take seriously the distinction
between persons.” But it is important to recall that not all
consequentialist theories are utilitarian and, more interesting
for our purposes, that consequentialist theories can be consistent
with and, indeed, supportive of highly individualist
understandings of justice. In fact, rights theorist John Locke
makes explicit appeal to consequentialist considerations in
his argument for property rights. Locke writes,
he who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not
lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the
provisions serving to the support of human life, produced
by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak
much within compass) ten times more than those which are
yielded by an acre of land of an equal richness lying waste
in common.
David Hume similarly appeals to consequentialist
considerations in his argument for a stable system of property
“fix’d by general rules.” Hume tells us that, “however
single acts of justice may be contrary, either to public or