10 - Consequentialism and Moral Correspondence

Summary

Consequentialists who are inclined to embrace role-relative morality, and thereby abandon the correspondence thesis, must defend the claim that the consequences of judicial action are not consequences that enter into the balance of reasons for private action and the consequences of constitutional action are not consequences that enter into the balance of reasons for judicial action. This claim should be troubling to most consequentialists because the consequences of judicial action in a case involving a disobedient citizen are consequences that would not occur but for the citizen's disobedience, and the consequences of constitutional action in a case involving a disobedient judge are consequences that would not occur but for the judge's disobedience. That is, a citizen's disobedience is a cause-in-fact (or butfor cause) of any adverse effects on the rule of law or any disproportionate increase of erroneous acts of disobedience on the part of other citizens that occur by virtue of a judge's decision to acquit that citizen. And a judge's decision to acquit such a citizen is a cause-in-fact (or but-for cause) of any adverse effects on the separation of powers or any disproportionate increase of erroneous acts of disobedience on the part of other judges that occur by virtue of a system designer's refusal to discipline that judge. Thus, for consequentialists to defend the truth of role-relative morality, they must have grounds for maintaining that some consequences that would not occur but for a citizen's actions are consequences that do not affect the consequential calculus that determines the rightness or wrongness of that citizen's conduct.