according to ethics: theory and practice what is “ethics?”

About consequentialism

Consequentialism: results-based ethics

The Cyberspace Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a manifestly and simple definition of consequentialism:

Of all the things a person might exercise at whatsoever given moment, the morally correct activity is the one with the best overall consequences.

Net Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Consequentialism

Consequentialism is based on ii principles:

• Whether an human action is right or wrong depends just on the results of that act
• The more skilful consequences an act produces, the meliorate or more correct that act

It gives u.s. this guidance when faced with a moral dilemma:

• A person should choose the activeness that maximises good consequences

And it gives this general guidance on how to live:

• People should live then every bit to maximise practiced consequences

Different forms of consequentialism differ over what the skilful thing is that should exist maximised.

• Utilitarianism states that people should maximise man welfare or well-beingness (which they used to call 'utility' - hence the name).
• Hedonism states that people should maximise homo pleasure.
• Other forms of consequentialism accept a more subtle approach; for example stating that people should maximise the satisfaction of their fully informed and rational preferences.

In practice people don't appraise the upstanding consequences of every single act (that's called 'deed consequentialism') because they don't have the fourth dimension.

Instead they apply ethical rules that are derived from considering the full general consequences of particular types of acts. That is called 'dominion consequentialism'.

• And then, for example, according to rule consequentialism we consider lying to be wrong considering nosotros know that in general lying produces bad consequences.

Results-based ethics produces this important determination for upstanding thinking:

• No type of act is inherently wrong - not even murder - it depends on the upshot of the act

This far-fetched example may make things clearer:

• Suppose that by killing X, an entirely innocent person, we can relieve the lives of 10 other innocent people
• A consequentialist would say that killing X is justified because it would result in just 1 person dying, rather than 10 people dying
• A non-consequentialist would say information technology is inherently incorrect to murder people and refuse to kill 10, even though not killing X leads to the expiry of nine more people than killing 10

Utilitarianism

Evaluating each determination would take too long. Photo: Liz Fagoli ©

The classic form of results-based ethics is chosen utilitarianism.

This says that the ethically right choice in a given state of affairs is the one that produces the well-nigh happiness and the least unhappiness for the largest number of people.

The entreatment of results-based ethics

Results-based ethics plays a very large role in everyday life because it is simple and appeals to mutual sense:

• It seems sensible to base ideals on producing happiness and reducing unhappiness
• It seems sensible to base of operations ideals on the consequences of what we exercise, since we usually have decisions about what to do past considering what results will exist produced
• It seems like shooting fish in a barrel to understand and to be based on common sense

Act consequentialism

Deed consequentialism

Act consequentialism looks at every unmarried moral choice anew. Information technology teaches:

• A particular action is morally expert only if it produces more overall good than any alternative action.

Skilful points of act consequentialism

A flexible system

• Act consequentialism is flexible and tin take account of any set up of circumstances, withal exceptional.

Bad points of human action consequentialism

Impractical for real life apply

• while it sounds attractive in theory, it's a very difficult system to apply to existent life moral decisions because:
  • every moral determination is a completely separate case that must be fully evaluated
  • individuals must research the consequences of their acts before they can make an ethically sound pick
  • doing such research is oftentimes impracticable, and besides plush
  • the time taken by such research leads to slow controlling which may itself take bad consequences, and the bad consequences of delay may outweigh the good consequences of making a perfect conclusion
• but where a very serious moral choice has to be made, or in unusual circumstances, individuals may well think hard about the consequences of particular moral choices in this way

Bad for society

• some people argue that if everyone adopted act consequentialism it would have bad consequences for society in full general
• this is because information technology would exist difficult to predict the moral decisions that other people would make, and this would lead to corking doubt about how they would behave
• some philosophers as well think that it would lead to a collapse of mutual trust in society, every bit many would fear that prejudice or bias towards family or other groups would more strongly influence moral decisions than if people used full general moral rules based on consequentialism
• fortunately the impracticality of act consequentialism every bit a general moral process means we don't have to worry much well-nigh this

Rule consequentialism

Rule consequentialism

Rule consequentialism bases moral rules on their consequences. This removes many of the problems of act consequentialism.

Rule consequentialism teaches:

• Whether acts are good or bad depends on moral rules
• Moral rules are chosen solely on the basis of their consequences

So when an individual has a moral choice to make they tin inquire themselves if in that location's an appropriate rule to apply and then apply information technology.

The rules that should be adopted are the rules that would produce the best results if they were adopted by most people.

Philosophers express this with greater precision:

• an act is right if and only if it results from the internalisation of a set up of rules that would maximize good if the overwhelming majority of agents internalised this set of rules

And hither'southward some other version:

An action is morally right if and only if it does not violate the set up of rules of behaviour whose full general credence in the customs would take the best consequences--that is, at least as skilful as whatsoever rival set of rules or no rules at all.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philisophy: Consequentialism

Skillful points of rule consequentialism

Practical and efficient

• Rule consequentialism gets round the applied bug of act consequentialism considering the hard work has been done in deriving the rules; individuals don't by and large have to deport out hard research before they can take action
• And considering individuals can shortcut their moral controlling they are much more likely to make decisions in a quick and timely way

Bad points of rule consequentialism

Less flexible

• Considering rule consequentialism uses general rules it doesn't always produce the best result in individual cases
• However, those in favour of information technology argue that information technology produces more good results considered over a long menses than act consequentialism
• One way of dealing with this problem - and one that people employ all the fourth dimension in everyday life - is to employ basic rules, together with a set of variations that cover a broad range of situations. These variations are themselves derived in the aforementioned mode equally the full general rules

Other forms of consequentialism

Negative Consequentialism

Negative consequentialism is the changed of ordinary consequentialism. Good actions are the ones that produce the to the lowest degree harm.

• A person should choose the act that does the least amount of harm to the greatest number of people.

Against consequentialism

Against consequentialism

Consequentialism has both practical and philosophical problems:

Futurity consequences are difficult to predict

• it's difficult to predict the hereafter consequences of an act
  • in most every case the nearly we can do is predict the probability of certain consequences post-obit an act
  • and since my behaviour is based on my cess of the consequences, should the rightness or wrongness of an act be assessed on what I thought was going to happen or what actually happened?

Measuring and comparison the 'goodness' of consequences is very difficult

• people don't agree on what should be assessed in computing practiced consequences
  • is information technology happiness, pleasure, satisfaction of want or something else?
• It's hard to mensurate and compare the 'goodness' of those consequences
  • how, for example, do you measure happiness?
  • how do you compare a big quantity of happiness that lasts for a few minutes with a gentle satisfaction that lasts for years?
  • how do you measure any 'subjective' quality?
• Choosing dissimilar time periods may produce dissimilar consequences
  • for example, using cheap free energy may produce expert short-term economic results, but in the long-term it may produce bad results for global climate

Information technology is easy to bias in favour of particular groups

• choosing different groups of people may produce different consequences
  • an act that produces a good result for group 10 may at the aforementioned time produce a bad event for group Y, or for society in general
  • so the upstanding choices people make are probable to be different co-ordinate to which group they use for their moral calculations
• the most common solution to this trouble is to look at the consequences for a large group such equally 'social club in general'
• alternatively, ethicists can try to look at things from the standpoint of an 'ideal', fully informed and totally neutral observer

It ignores things we regard equally ethically relevant

• results-based ideals is merely interested in the consequences of an human action
• the intentions of the person doing the deed are irrelevant
  • so an act with skilful results done by someone who intended harm is as good as if it was done by someone who intended to practise good
• the past actions of the person doing the human action are irrelevant
• the graphic symbol of the person doing the act is irrelevant
• the fairness of the consequences are not directly relevant

And these are things that many call back are relevant to ethical judgements.

However, in back up of consequentialism information technology might be argued that many of the things listed above practice influence the good or bad consequences of an act, especially when formulating ethical rules, and so they become incorporated in consequentialist ethical thinking; but only through the back door, not straight.

It doesn't take account of the 'fairness' of the effect

Nosotros cannot predict every issue of an outcome ©

Simple forms of consequentialism say that the best action is the i that produces the largest total of happiness.

This ignores the style in which that happiness is shared out so would seem to approve of acts that make most people happy, and a few people very unhappy, or that brand a few people ecstatically happy and leave the bulk at best neutral.

It also detracts from the value of individuals and their own interests and projects, other than when those are in line with the interests of the grouping.

It can be inconsistent with homo rights

Consider this state of affairs:

A billionaire needs an organ transplant. He says that if he is given the next suitable organ he will fund 1000 hip-replacements a yr for 10 years. Giving him the next available organ ways Mr X, who was top of the list, will die - but information technology as well means that thousands of people will be very happy with their new hips.

Consequentialism might exist used to argue that Mr X'southward human rights (and his and his family unit's happiness) should exist ignored, in order to increase the overall amount of man well-being.

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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/consequentialism_1.shtml

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