consequentialism examples in everyday life

The objection to this theory is the requirement of sacrifice. For instance, obeying highway speed limits might cause some individuals to miss their destination on time. There is disagreement about how consequentialism can best be formulated as a precise theory, and so there are various versions of consequentialism. In virtue ethics, one's character emerges from a " relevant moral community". But if I desire something slightly and then intensely, which counts? Any one of these collections provides an excellent introduction to consequentialism. According to act utilitarianism, then, the right thing to do tomorrow is to go out and do charity work; it is wrong to stay home and watch television all day. Get custom essays. Applying Virtue Ethics: The Rajat Gupta Case - Seven Pillars Institute Suppose I donate $100 to Malaria Aid, but it turns out this group aids malaria and I have funded an outbreak. The Teleological Ethical Theories are also concerned about the consequences of actions talking about the choice of right or wrong based on the good or bad effects it generates. If people can get where they are going more quickly, they will probably use the time they saved to do things that will add happiness to their lives or the lives of others. Consequentialism and Criminal Justice Practice. Read more. (2021). Perhaps, then, what counts as a good result is the amount of life that the action adds or subtracts in the world? This form of consequentialism suggests that following established rules, even when they may lead to negative outcomes, will produce more desirable results in the long run than acting without any rules at all (Hooker, 2002). Hooker, Brad; Mason, Elinor; and Miller, Dale E. Jackson, Frank. Now, this objection does not directly apply to Plain Consequentialism or Plain Scalar Consequentialism, for these theories do not say that we should think about consequences. When we are thinking about morality, that is usually because we are puzzled about some hard question. A shorter cousin of the above argument, focusing on the fulfillment of desire rather than on happiness, avoids those worries. London: Edward Elgar Publishing. For another example, suppose you are a surgeon with five patients, each about to die for lack of a certain medicine that you can obtain (in sufficient quantity) only by killing and grinding up a sixth patient. If we take the above view that the good is happiness, and plug it into Plain Consequentialism, we get the view that the right action is the one that causes the most happinessmore than would have been caused by any of the available alternative actions. Hence, one might think, in the long run only the results remain, so the only thing that really matters about an action is its results. Hence the reasonable expectation is that harvesting the healthy patient would have bad consequences. But whatever a person does, she does in order to produce some sort of benefit. Deontological Ethics By Kant | Fractus Learning Elements and Types of Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net A different kind of reply to the objection is to propose a new standard for the goodness of consequences. Hence another kind of theory has been suggested, which might or might not be regarded as a version of consequentialism. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes. For if good consequences is meaningless, then it cannot be correct to define right action in terms of good consequences, as consequentialism normally does. The net outcome or consequence of this decision would be the time saved in taking the Uber, versus the cost and potential environmental impact of taking a car. (2010). For the moment, Jill was an authority for Jack on whether these lumps were gold. Consequentialism is based on two principles: It gives us this guidance when faced with a moral dilemma: And it gives this general guidance on how to live: Different forms of consequentialism differ over what the good thing is that should be maximised. Web Accessibility, Copyright 2023 Ethics Unwrapped - McCombs School of Business The University of Texas at Austin, Being Your Best Self, Part 1: Moral Awareness, Being Your Best Self, Part 2: Moral Decision Making, Being Your Best Self, Part 3: Moral Intent, Being Your Best Self, Part 4: Moral Action, Ethical Leadership, Part 1: Perilous at the Top, Ethical Leadership, Part 2: Best Practices, Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research, Curbing Corruption: GlaxoSmithKline in China. So when an individual has a moral choice to make they can ask themselves if there's an appropriate rule to apply and then apply it. Consider the following argument for consequentialism. In other words, it means that the result or outcome of taking a certain course of action will determine whether or not it was morally sound. Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are. Hence the consequences will probably be better. (Premise), It can never be right to choose a worse whole set of consequences over a better. An action that brings about more benefit than harm is good, while an action that causes more harm than benefit is not. Viktoriya Sus (MA) and Peer Reviewed by Chris Drew (PhD), Machiavellianism: 10 Examples and Definition, Latent Inhibition: 10 Examples and Definition, Belief Perseverance: 10 Examples and Definition (Psychology), Transhumanism: 10 Examples and Definition. But if everyone hauled their garbage a few miles to the dump instead, in a year or two everyone would have a nice river, which is much more valuable to each person than the minor convenience of not having to haul ones garbage to the dump. Consequentialism may ask us to meddle too much into other peoples business. Negative consequentialism is the inverse of ordinary consequentialism. For example, if eating a certain food will bring an individual pleasure but harm others, it is considered moral according to this theory. If there were just one option that is obligatory, then the choice would be easy. Rather, fairness is traditionally concerned with distributions of what we might call external goods goods such as money, status, power, and political rights. Chapter Four : Ethical Theories - Queensborough Community College A different kind of reply to the objection is to propose that one of the ultimate standards for goodness of consequences should be equality. If most people who live along a short river toss their garbage in the river, so that it is always full of garbage, then your tossing your own garbage in the river makes no difference to the river, and it saves the inconvenience of driving a few miles to the dump. For one thing, 1 and 2 do not tell us that the ideal spectator would have no concerns other than those she derives from sympathy, but 3 does make that assumption. Hence people can agree on consequentialism while disagreeing about what kind of outcome is good or bad. We need them for practical help, for mental health, and to help us see ourselves clearly. Jack had no idea how to identify gold. If there is truth in the saying that we should love all people, perhaps it is simply that we should actively do what is good for people and not bad for them, as much as possible. To see how someone might question that, think about skills and skill. But he remembers that stealing is generally regarded as wrong. An example here would be providing medical aid during wartime. Before we check out these examples, you should note that a utilitarian considers all people to be of equal value to society. See Sen (1982), Nagel (1986), Scheffler (1994), Bennett (1989), Scheffler (1989), Brink (1986), and Skorupski (1995). Also, in certain situations, consequentialism can lead to decisions that are objectionable, even though the consequences are arguably good. Note that if what matters is the total amount, then it does not matter whether the happiness belongs to you or your friend or a strangeror even a dog, if dogs can have happiness. Further, if you have a big secret that would repel nice honest people, any nice honest person who learns your secret will not want to be your friend. Look at any of the standard anti-consequentialist philosophical examples - trolley car, organ bank, . Now, if you are the sort of person who actually would send money to save distant strangers, anything that cripples your efforts will hurt many people. As I proceed to feed my cat, I almost never think about the consequences of doing so versus not doing so, but surely it would be wrong to say that I have no view or that my view is not reasonable. Having life is something that provides value to people. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. In economics, utility is the pleasure or satisfaction that people derive from consuming a product or service. To find out whether the action is rationally justifiable overall, one must look beyond these specific kinds of reason to find what overall reason there is. Simple forms of consequentialism say that the best action is the one that produces the largest total of happiness. What then, do these two kinds of consequence have in common, that makes them both consequences? Viktoriya Sus is an academic writer specializing mainly in economics and business from Ukraine. One is normally not even choosing the reasonably expectable consequences, because one has not formed any expectation about the actions likely overall consequences. Now, 2 tells us that she is full of desires that conflict with each other. See Firth (1952); Hare (1981), Seanor and Fotion (1988). "You are not acting your age." "That was unprofessional behavior.". Concepts Unwrapped View All 36 short illustrated videos explain behavioral ethics concepts and basic ethics principles. Arguably it was not. Still, it will help reduce car accidents, potentially saving many lives. But in reply to most of these objections, Section 3 presented arguments to show that consequentialism supports those bits of common sense after all. Individuals are put in a position to make a choice between one life vs. multiple lives. Two-level consequentialism combines elements from both rule and state consequentialist theories. If there is an answer, perhaps it is something like this: both A itself and the things A causes are things that happen if you do A rather than the alternatives to A. So far as he can reasonably guess, that scheme would have the best overall consequences. Reasonable estimates of consequences seem to involve a different kind of probability from that discussed in 1.b above. New York: Routledge. Here are three examples of consequentialism ethics playing out in three very different areas: Baby Hitler If you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? is it happiness, pleasure, satisfaction of desire or something else? Act consequentialism is a moral theory that tells us the morally right action is always the one that will produce the best overall outcome in the world. That is a reason to think that promoting equality in external goods will tend to do more total good than promoting inequality. Teleological ethics is further subdivided into 1) Ethical Egoism, 2) Utilitarianism, and 3) Eudalmonism. Perhaps most consequences of most actions we decide on are like that: not actual outcomes, but only probabilities of outcomes. A third worry about the above argument begins from a view about the adjective good. McElwee, B. But common sense may rebel against that idea as being unfair or unjust. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Copyright 2023 Helpful Professor. Many of our actions are aimed at developing a skil. That is, one must look to see whether financial benefit outweighs the health drawback, and whether the benefit to me outweighs the harm to you. Hedonism, on the other hand, says something is "good" if the consequence produces pleasure or avoids pain. List of the Disadvantages of Utilitarianism. But that way of thinking about life is, one might think, inhuman and immoral. The virtue ethics approach focuses on the " integrity" of the moral actor. One argument for consequentialism begins from the premise that whatever a person does, she does in order to produce some sort of good result. The theoretical world of entrepreneurship. Communication. He may or may not find consequentialism plausible, but in any case he knows he does not have a solid theoretical understanding of rightness; so he reasonably decides to trust his communitys confident view and does not pursue the scheme. A Brief Introduction to Consequentialism Ethics - Benjamin Spall Den Uyl, Douglas, & Machan, Tibor R. Recent Work on the Concept of Happiness., Firth, Roderick. Rule Consequentialism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2013 Scheffler, S. (2009). And if you are a skilled surgeon, anything that hampers your operations will hurt people. See Brandt (1979); Hooker et al (2000). For you could have tossed the coin in many slightly different ways, and in many slightly different positions. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3750884. Consequentialism can be broken down into two core beliefs: Today, consequentialism has many different forms from utilitarianism to rule consequentialism and has been applied in various contexts, from business decisions to criminal justice. W-2 BUS 109 DIS.docx - posted 6 months ago last edited 4 Thus, a 'morally right' action would be concluded based on the achievement of the best possible outcome. We cite peer reviewed academic articles wherever possible and reference our sources at the end of our articles. Consequentialism. In, Skorupski, John. One might object that if the objectively right action is the one whose consequences are best, then general social opinion cannot be an authority on objective rightness, even on those issues where the general opinion is clear. But this reason for favoring consequentialism seems confused. Consequentialism and its critics. However, employers may have rules that leave no room for judgment on consequences for violations of the ethics code. Virtue Ethics in Healthcare Case 1. Instead they use ethical rules that are derived from considering the general consequences of particular types of acts. William Haines In general, whatever is being evaluated, we ought to choose the one that will produce the best overall results. Thus, without reasonably thinking about my choice, I have done what it would have been reasonable to estimate would have the best results. About The Helpful Professor Many ethical issues are of this sort. For example, when faced with multiple simultaneous patients in the emergency department it is important to have a way of reaching a decision quickly about which patient to attend to first. There are more versions of consequentialism than are presented above. Consequentialism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Rule Consequentialism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Consequentialism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. Consequentialism's underlying moral framework assumes that good outcomes are preferable to bad ones; that happiness is preferable to pain, and that consequences should be measured accordingly. For example, one important implication of the fact that my speedometers hand is below the 55 is that I am going slower than 55. 58 animated videos - 1 to 2 minutes each - define key ethics terms and concepts. But skill is not one thing. If the greatest total can be created only by exploiting the miserable to make the happy even happier, then such consequentialism would seem to say that you should do it. Two examples of consequentialism are utilitarianism and hedonism. Now, some kinds of thing do not suggest any standards of goodness: consider good pebble. Adams, Robert M. Motive Utilitarianism., Bales, R. Eugene. The criticisms of consequentialism raise a number of fundamental questions that are important in ascertaining the relationship with criminal law and justice practice. So consequentialism would seem to support your tossing your garbage in the river. For example, if a certain action would be good for the bank account but bad for the health, there is a financial reason for it and a health reason against it. Welfarism: The view that only the welfare or well-being of individuals determines the value of an outcome. It suggests two distinct levels when assessing whether an action is morally permissible its immediate effects (rule) and long-term impact (state) (Goodman, 2017).

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