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Advantages and disadvantages of consequentialist theory
Strengths of consequentialism
Criticisms of consequentialism
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I believe that Williams provides an interesting and important issue found in consequentialism, and while Railton makes a few good points, I believe he creates as many problems as he solves. By defending consequentialism by dividing it into subjective and objective, I believe that he leaves the realm of true consequentialism. By being objectively consequentialist, you are no longer necessarily concerned with what your actions will cause. You are now concerned with what your actions did cause, and in turn use consequentialism as an evaluation tool for past actions. In theory, Railton believes that we will overtime learn from evaluating our decisions and then in the future be able to make better decisions. However, humans typically want to justify …show more content…
I also believe that since consequentialism is not being used as a decision procedure, it is not very helpful in allowing us to make decisions. Railton did briefly discuss an argument against this belief in which he provides the question, “Which modes of decision making should be employed and when.” This question to me is just as vague of guidance as objective consequentialism is. Also, you must know all the types of decision making and know when they are best used. Through Railton’s objective consequentialism, you would learn these things through experience, but that could take years, which could mean years of undesired and unwanted consequences for years before truly figuring it …show more content…
While he does seem to lessen the alienation of hedonism and reduce the paradox to a problem, however, the problem he creates is not much easier to solve than the paradox he just solved. In fact, it might even be a paradox in itself. By questioning how one should act in order to achieve maximum happiness even when you do not have to use the pursuit of happiness as a goal, you are simply trying to figure out how to achieve maximum happiness even when maximum happiness is not your goal. By wanting to achieve maximum happiness, without having the goal of happiness, happiness become your goal no matter what and leads to the alienation problem of other goals becoming tools. Objective hedonism is concern for one’s own happiness even if it minimizes overall happiness. This is a completely different view than the one he is attempting to defend in Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality. Instead, this begins to look like egoism, a theory in which all of your interests are selfish. This view of hedonism could also lead to minimizing happiness. If someone believed that world domination would make them happy and did not have to make hedonistic deliberations, they would probably pursue world domination. This would minimize overall happiness. Railton also believed that by using a multifaceted approach, alienation would be removed. This to me is
In chapter 2, Shafer-Landau proceeds to list the theories that attempt to disprove hedonism by highlight the shortcomings in its logic and hedonism's replies to these objections. The Argument from Autonomy, is one of strongest objections to hedonism listed. Shafer-Landau states that for a theory to pose a serious threat to hedonism, it needs to challenge the idea that happiness is the only thing of intrinsic value (34). Chapter 2 discuses four strong objections that have the potential and support to disprove hedonism. The Argument from Autonomy provides an abundance of strong information to support its claims.
Nielsen’s next major premise is that if a consequentialist is faced with a decision from which the overall value of the consequences is unclear, then consequentialism should yield to the relevant deontological rule. That is to say, if it is possible that violating a deontological rule to bring about greater good may l...
asks “What are the costs?” and “What are the benefits?”. According to rule consequentialism, rules are selected entirely based on the goodness of their consequences and proceeds to claim that these rules govern what kind of acts are morally wrong. Basically, the rightness or wrongness of an action is contingent on whether it is obligatory or prohibited by an ideal set of rules. An ideal set of...
Consequentialism is a term used by the philosophers to simplify what is right and what is wrong. Consequentialist ethical theory suggests that right and wrong are the consequences of our actions. It is only the consequences that determine whether our actions are right or wrong. Standard consequentialism is a form of consequentialism that is discussed the most. It states that “the morally right action for an agent to perform is the one that has the best consequences or that results in the most good.” It means that an action is morally correct if it has little to no negative consequences, or the one that has the most positive results.
In conclusion Williams’s argument about Utilitarianism can be looked at in many different angles. Williams believes utilitarianism obstructs humans from the basic human moral of integrity. The word integrity means that you are living your life in way that you act in accordance with your commitments and moral code. If a system like utilitarianism tells you that integrity is not important and denies what is important to an individual has a serious problem in the eyes of Bernard Williams.
Consequentialism is ordinarily distinct from deontology, as deontology offers rightness or wrongness of an act, rather than the outcome of the action. In this essay we are going to explore the differences of consequentialism and deontology and apply them to the quandary that Bernard Williams and J.J.C Smart put forward in their original analogy of “Jim and the Indians” in their book , Utilitarianism: for and against (J.J.C Smart & Bernard Williams, 1973, p.78-79.).
Consequentialism is a punishment theory that provides moral justification for punishment by taking into account future consequences and by weighing the intrinsic value of a punishment against other available alternatives. The primary rationale for punishment is to bring the most good over harm, to deter or prevent crimes from occurring in the first place and to prevent future crimes from being committed. Utilitarianism would even consider punishing the innocent or pass a more severe sentence for a lesser crime if it could be determined that benefits to society outweighed the consequences of such punishment (Howard). For example, if it were believed that better crime deterrence or prevention could be achieved, a consequentialist would consider executing a murderer versus handing down a life sentence. Retributivism is a punishment theory that looks back at the specific nature of a crime and determines how much the victim suffered, in order to morally justify the severity of punishment. The moral emphasis is on righting a wrong and seeking justice by ensuring that criminals get what the...
Although there are countless moral theories that have been accepted throughout the all of human history, American philosopher John Rawls’ contractarian approach stands out from the rest. Whereas most of the other widely recognized theories, such as Consequentialism or Utilitarianism, focus primarily on the results of the action in question, Rawl’s theory has a different basis. The focus of contractarianism is predominantly on the original position the debating parties were in, which happens to be behind a veil of ignorance. Contractarianism seems as though it would be a perfect moral theory that would solve all the world’s problems, including the problems raised by Harry Gensler toward cultural relativism. However, as the cliché goes—it’s just too good to be true.
From this one could say it is actually difficult to determine if one’s life is good or better than another’s life. As you look at the theory of Quantitative Hedonism, the presence of pleasure and absence of pain are the only aspects that can determine an intrinsically good life. To further explain this idea, I will use the example of the deceived business man. A businessman believed that his life was good and he experienced plenty of pleasure in his life to make his life good, so since that’s what he thought, it was true to him. However, behind the aspects of just how he felt about himself and his life, in actuality his wife was cheating on him and someone was stealing from him. Therefore, making it evident that his life was not good. Nonetheless, after you look at it from the Objective List Theory, the view on the man’s life and situation alters. From an outer look of this theory, the average observer would say that he really hasn’t achieved anything in his life. He is letting other people run his life because of the way he views his values and well - being, therefore, resulting in him being cheated on and deceived by the people around him and consequently takes away his freedom and knowledge of his own life. He becomes unaware of the circumstances he is in as well as the people he is associated himself with and
Capital punishment is the type of punishment that allows the execution of prisoners who are charged and convicted because they committed a “capital crime.” Capital crime is a crime that is considered so horrible and terrifying that anyone who commits it should be punished with death (McMahon, Wallace). After so many years this type of punishment, also known as the “death penalty”, remains a very controversial topic all around the world, raising countless debates on whether it should be legalized or not.
ABSTRACT: Recently, unrestrained consequentialism has been defended against the charge that it leads to unacceptable trade-offs by showing a trade-off accepted by many of us is not justified by any of the usual nonconsequenlist arguments. The particular trade-off involves raising the speed limit on the Interstate Highway System. As a society, we seemingly accept a trade-off of lives for convenience. This defense of consequentialism may be a tu quoque, but it does challenge nonconsequentialists to adequately justify a multitude of social decisions. Work by the deontologist Frances Kamm, conjoined with a perspective deployed by several economists on the relation between social costs and lives lost, is relevant. It provides a starting point by justifying decisions which involve trading lives only for other lives. But the perspective also recognizes that using resources in excess of some figure (perhaps as low as $7.5 million) to save a life causes us to forego other live-saving activities, thus causing a net loss of life. Setting a speed limit as low as 35 miles per hour might indeed save some lives, but the loss of productivity due to the increased time spent in travel would cost an even greater number of lives. Therefore, many trade-offs do not simply involve trading lives for some lesser value (e.g., convenience), but are justified as allowing some to die in order to save a greater number.
The Death Penalty is very controversial because some people believe is a good Idea while others think is not a good idea at all. Lethal injection has become the preferred method of execution in the United States since the early 80 'sIn the United States the death penalty is used as a punishment for capital offenses. These specifics can vary from state to state, but commonly include first-degree murder, murder with special circumstances, rape with additional bodily harm, and the federal crime of treason. Lethal injection is a process that allows a convict to be put down quickly and painlessly. The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not
Consequentialism is an ethical perspective that primarily focuses upon the consequences resulting from an action and aims to eliminate the negative consequences. Within this framework there are three sub-categories: Egoism, Altruism and Utilitarianism.
Bentham realised that because this theory is based on the outcome of our actions it may be difficult to assess fairly which action will produce the most happiness. He therefore developed the ‘hedonistic calculus’, a form of calculating the happiness resulting from an act by assessing 7 different factors of the pleasure produced such as intensity and duration. In doing this Bentham was attempting to create some sort of ...
Despite the efforts at fairness in courtrooms, judges are subject to exhaustion, sickness, and other external influences that could potentially alter their decisions. It has been proposed that the judges’ lives be carefully regimented and regulated to minimize such influences. While such procedure may improve the fairness of a judiciary decision, ethical concerns over the rights of the judges themselves have been raised. Total consequentialism is an ethical framework that examines the “total net good” of one’s actions to determine whether an action is right or wrong (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2015). Under this framework, this paper will argue that the overall outcome of implementing the proposed intervention is positive. This paper will first argue