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Consequentialist Options

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2014

JUSSI SUIKKANEN
JUSSI SUIKKANEN*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham, [email protected]
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Abstract

According to traditional forms of act-consequentialism, an action is right if and only if no other action in the given circumstances would have better consequences. It has been argued that this view does not leave us enough freedom to choose between actions which we intuitively think are morally permissible but not required options. In the first half of this article, I will explain why the previous consequentialist responses to this objection are less than satisfactory. I will then attempt to show that agents have more options on consequentialist grounds than the traditional forms of act-consequentialism acknowledged. This is because having a choice between many permissible options can itself have value.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 276 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

1 Sheffler, S., The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford, 1982), p. 1Google Scholar.

2 Many consequentialists tend to rank the options in terms of how much agent-neutral value their consequences would have (Scheffler, Rejection, p. 1; Pettit, P., ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’, in Barron, M., Pettit, P. and Slote, M., Three Methods of Ethics (Oxford, 1996), pp. 92–174, at 130–1)Google Scholar. This entails that the same outcomes are ranked in the same order relative to all agents. Others rank options in terms of how good their consequences are relative to agents (Portmore, D., ‘Position-Relative Consequentialism’, Ethics 113 (2003), pp. 303–32)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This creates different rankings of the same outcomes for different agents. I take no stand on whether agent-neutral or agent-relative value is to be maximized. Likewise, I take no stand on whether actual or expected value of consequences should be taken into account.

3 Kagan, S., The Limits of Morality (Oxford, 1989), pp. 2–3Google Scholar; Pettit, ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’, pp. 163–9; Portmore, ‘Position-Relative’, p. 306; Slote, M., ‘Satisficing Consequentialism’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 58 (1982), pp. 139–64, at 143–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vallentyne, P., ‘Against Maximizing Act-Consequentialism’, Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, ed. Dreier, J. (Oxford, 2006), pp. 21–37, at 26–7Google Scholar.

4 I thus assume that any plausible theory of value will be complete and fine-grained. This is to assume that the evaluative properties of the consequences will not be incommensurable and that the consequences of different options are rarely equally good (Vallentyne, ‘Against’, p. 26). Whether rejecting this assumption would help act-consequentialism to avoid the freedom-objection will be discussed in the sect. III.3 below.

5 In addition, we could consider many other related objections such as (O4): a theory is false if it is unable to account for morally permissible options which are moral options either to act so as to make things better overall but worse for oneself or to act so as to make things better for oneself but worse overall (Portmore, D., Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality (Oxford, 2011), p. 237)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, using such a theoretical standard that assumes a certain sophisticated philosophical view about which acts are permissible to evaluate other ethical theories seems to beg the important questions.

6 Mulgan and Pettit run these objections together (Mulgan, T., Future People (Oxford, 2006), pp. 17–20, and Pettit, ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’, pp. 163–9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Vallentyne correctly warns against this (Vallentyne, ‘Against’, pp. 26–7; see also Scheffler, Rejection, p. 10).

7 Vallentyne, ‘Against’, pp. 26–7.

8 Pettit, P., ‘Satisficing Consequentialism’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 58 (1982), pp. 165–76, at 174Google Scholar.

9 Pettit, ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’, p. 128.

10 According to Shelly Kagan, the defenders of many morally permissible options must both (i) accept that there are options to allow harm to happen, and yet (ii) deny that there are moral options to harm others. Kagan then claims that any defence of the morally permissible options to allow harm to happen (usually based on the costs to the agents from not being able to allow harm to happen for others) will also justify options to harm others which the defender of moral options has already rejected. As a result, the views which try to defend ordinary moral options will be incoherent unless the defender of those options can also defend moral constraints against causing harm to others (Kagan, Limits, pp. 19–24 and ch. 7). The problem then is that such constraints also seem equally paradoxical (Kagan, Limits, pp. 24–32, Scheffler, Rejection, ch. 4). For a response to this argument, see Vallentyne, ‘Against’, p. 24.

11 For a recent investigation of this difference, see Scanlon, T. M., Moral Dimensions (Cambridge, Mass., 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 1. Consequentialists also tend to understand criticizing an agent as an action. They then often think that we should do this action when it maximizes the good. It may then be that criticizing someone for failing to maximize the good doesn't itself maximize the good in many situations. For these consequentialists it is natural to think that wrong and that which ought to be criticized come apart. Other consequentialists distinguish between wrongness and appropriateness of reactive attitudes such as blame. These consequentialists can think that it is appropriate to blame even if criticizing an action would not maximize the good. The consequentialists who use the evasive strategy can use either one of these distinctions.

12 Pettit, ‘The Consequentialist Perspective’, pp. 164–8.

13 For sophisticated formulations of the view, see Brandt, R., A Theory of Good and the Right (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Hooker, B., Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; Mulgan, Future People, chs. 5–9.

14 Mulgan, Future People, p. 165.

15 Scheffler, Rejection, ch. 2.

16 Scheffler, Rejection, p. 20.

17 Scheffler, Rejection, ch. 3.

18 Slote, ‘Satisficing’; Vallentyne, ‘Against’.

19 Slote, ‘Satisficing’, p. 158.

20 Mulgan, T., ‘Slote's Satisficing Consequentialism’, Ratio 6 (1993), pp. 121–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bradley, B., ‘Against Satisficing Consequentialism’, Utilitas 18 (2006), pp. 97–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Consequentialists who reject the strong commensurability of values include Griffin, J., Well-Being (Oxford, 1986)Google ScholarPubMed and Chang, R., ‘Introduction’, Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason, ed. Chang, R. (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), pp. 1–34Google Scholar.

22 Vallentyne, ‘Against’, p. 26.

23 Portmore, ‘Position-Relative’, sect. 5.

24 Portmore, ‘Position-Relative’, p. 322.

25 Portmore has recognized this himself (Portmore, Commonsense, p. 135 n. 22).

26 Portmore, Commonsense, pp. 137 and 232–3.

27 Dancy, J., ‘Enticing Reasons’, Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, ed. Wallace, J. et al. (Oxford, 2004), pp. 91–118Google Scholar.

28 The objection here is not simply that Portmore's view takes reasons to be more basic than value. If the so-called buck-passing theories are correct, then this is true in any case (Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), ch. 2)Google Scholar. Rather, the problem is that he has to introduce two new irreducibly deontic dimensions on which the strengths of reasons vary. These are the requiring and non-requiring strengths of reasons. It is no surprise that we can give an account of what we are permitted to do in terms of which considerations require acts from us. My aim below is to avoid relying on such deontic notions in order to give an account of what is permissible.

29 I believe that we should therefore prefer my view because it can explain more of the deontic realm in terms of the evaluative and without a commitment to additional deontic distinctions in doing so. It is open for Portmore to argue that the deontic distinctions he relies on are independently motivated and so can be made use of without extra ontological cost. In any case, it seems like a prima facie advantage of my view that it can do without such distinctions.

30 For instance, making a choice between many permissible options can itself have information-gathering and deliberation costs (Dworkin, G., The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge, 1988), p. 66)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other potentially negative effects of having freedom to choose in certain contexts, see Dworkin, Autonomy, pp. 67–78. Carter argues that such negative effects of freedom do not outweigh the positive value of having a choice between many permissible options (Carter, I., ‘The Independent Value of Freedom’, Ethics 105 (1995), sect. 6)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Dworkin, Autonomy, pp. 78 and 80.

32 Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 143Google Scholar; Dworkin, Autonomy, p. 79.

33 Carter, ‘Independent’, p. 832.

34 Dworkin, Autonomy, p. 79.

35 Hurka, T., ‘Why Value Autonomy?’, Social Theory and Practice 13 (1988), pp. 361–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sen, A., ‘Freedom of Choice: Concept and Content’, European Economic Review 32 (1988), pp. 269–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carter, ‘Independent’, pp. 830–1.

36 The view that choices between many permissible options are intrinsically valuable is criticized in Dworkin, Autonomy, p. 80; Kymlicka, W., ‘Liberalism and Communitarianism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18 (1988), pp. 181–204, at 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dworkin, R., ‘Why We Do Not Have a Right to Liberty’, Liberty and the Rule of Law, ed. Cunningham, R. L. (College Station, 1979), pp. 167–81, at 170–1Google Scholar. It is defended in Carter, ‘Independent’, sects. 2–3; Hurka, ‘Why Value’; Sen, ‘Freedom of Choice’.

37 Dworkin, Autonomy, p. 80.

38 Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 252.

39 Dworkin, Autonomy, p. 80; Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 253.

40 It could also be argued that choices between many permissible options are a constitutive element of other intrinsically valuable complexes such as human agency and self-respect (Carter, ‘Independent’, p. 839).

41 I thank Daniel Elstein for this formalization.

42 Note that the relevant options here include only actions which it is possible for the agent to do. For this reason, whether it is permissible for an agent to just fly away from the situation does not arise.

43 This element of my proposal raises interesting questions in moral metaphysics. I will discuss these questions in sect V.5.

44 The value of the consequences of the acts when they are required is just the standard value of their consequences when the freedom to choose the given alternative from some set of morally permissible options is not taken into account. Thus, I assume here that having a set of morally permissible options of just one action cannot make the consequences of the given action better in any way.

45 To be clear, here we compare the consequences of three options. Call option A Jill's act of going to Paris when it is permissible for her either to do charity work or to go to Paris. Call option B Jill's act of going to Paris when she is required to do so. Call action C Jill's act of doing charity work when she is required to do so. The claim here is that because of the value of having a free choice the consequences of A have more value than the consequences of either B or C.

This claim might sound implausible. How could whatever little pleasure Jill gets from being able to choose to go to Paris from a set of morally permissible options outweigh the amount of pleasure added by the charity work? This objection relies on the assumption that the defender of the Consequentialist Options principle accepts a hedonistic value theory. But, given that the defenders of this principle can recognize other symbolic and constitutive values discussed above, there's no reason why the defenders of the principle are committed to such an axiology. They can argue that free choices have good-making properties that are more important than the value of pleasure (see sect. V.4 below). The defenders of the principle can also still accept that, even if going to Paris and doing charity work are both permissible options, it would still be better if Jill did charity work.

46 Here we compare the value of freely visiting parents to whichever free choice would have the least valuable consequences from the smaller set of morally permissible options {do charity work, go to Paris}. I assume that going to Paris would have fewer valuable consequences in this case than doing charity work. This requires that the value of the consequences of doing charity work increases when Jill gets to choose between charity work and going to Paris. Table 1 would need an additional column to illustrate this.

47 I assume that consequentialism should be understood as a criterion of permissibility rather than as a decision-procedure (Mill, J. S., Utilitarianism (London, 1861), ch. 2, para. 19)Google Scholar. For this reason, it is not an objection to my proposal that the consequentialist options principle will be difficult to apply in practice.

48 This would mean that, contrary to what Campbell Brown has argued, it is possible to consequentialize moral theories which contain moral options. This is because my version of consequentialism does not entail his ‘dominance’ condition (Brown, C., ‘Consequentialize This’, Ethics 121 (2011), pp. 749–71)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 This would allow the consequentialist also to reply to one understanding of the so-called integrity objection (see Williams, B., ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’, in Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, B., Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 77–150Google Scholar, at 116–17, and Scheffler, Rejection, pp. 7–9). If consequentialism provides a significant number of permissible options to choose from in usual circumstances, then it no longer requires each agent in all cases to produce the best available outcome. Hence, there would not usually be a requirement to neglect one's personal projects. If this is right, then consequentialism will no longer alienate one's integrity in an objectionable way.

50 In giving this response, I am not assuming any lexical orderings of different values or doing/allowing distinctions. I am merely assuming that a single short pleasure or satisfaction of a single desire has little value when compared to the value of a whole human life.

51 Hooker, Ideal Code, pp. 129–31.

52 Parfit, D., On What Matters, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 178–9Google Scholar.

53 Nolan, D., ‘Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach’, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (1997), pp. 535–72Google Scholar.

54 Smith, M., ‘Neutral and Relative Value after Moore’, Ethics 113 (2003), pp. 576–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Hooker, Ideal Code, p. 6, see also Smart, J. J. C., ‘Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics’, in Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, B., Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 3–74, at 5–6Google Scholar.

56 I would like to thank Douglas Portmore and Daniel Elstein for their assistance.