Consequentialism and Criticism

Consequentialism is the name given to a grouping of theories of moral judgement that state that actions may be judged to be right or wrong by virtue of their consequences. Utilitarianism is merely one theory of consequentialism. Ethical theories of this sort can also be called teleological theories. These are in contrast to deontological theories, which insist that we have certain moral duties to fulfil such as not committing murder, not lying, always keeping promises, etc. regardless of whether the consequences of not adhering to these principles would be good. Deontological theories have traditionally had the backing and support of religion, and as such carried great weight in times when the influence of religion was strong. Today, absolutism is the name given to these forms of rule-base moral theories.
However, Locke believes that these two theories are not opposites; indeed, they are very similar. If the definition of a deontological theory is "we must not do x, whatever the consequences," then act-utilitarianism can be shown to be a form of absolutism as well as a form of consequentialism. This occurs because the definition of judging the rightness of an act by act-utilitarian standards is that "any action that promotes maximum happiness is right, whatever else is the case." If we can agree that "whatever the consequences" in the deontological theory above can be changed to "whatever else is the case" without a fundamental change in meaning, then the two theories say the same thing, or rather, act-utilitarians is both consequential and absolute at the same time, and thus the two theories are not opposites.
If we cannot draw a distinction between these two, what other moral theories are there that offer us chances to compare approaches to ethics? Locke offers two suggestions, the first, a theory that proposes that actions have an intrinsic value, an attraction (or repulsion) that we take into account when deciding what to do. The second is a theory that no generalisations can be made regarding actions as what people would (or in fact, do) do varies given differing circumstances in which they find themselves.
Locke's first alternative, which he terms "intrinsicalism," can also be shown to be indistinct from consequentialism on two counts. Firstly, it relies on a distinction between acts and consequences; however, it has been shown many times by various different authors that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the two, as the chain of causality cannot be easily broken down, and different descriptions of actions can incorporate consequences into the action itself, e.g. one action may be called killing, which may be considered intrinsically bad, but if we term the action "firing a gun," then the wrongness of the action becomes attached to the consequence of the firing of the gun, namely, the death of the person the gun was pointing at when it was fired.
In this way, the distinction between absolutism and Locke's second theory, which he calls "situationalism," can also be shown to be weak. When a situationalist describes an action as being right or wrong in a particular situation, he must maintain that, in identical, or broadly similar stances, the action is still right or wrong. If he/she decides that one action is right or wrong in one particular situation, but not another, then there must be a morally relevant difference between the two situations. However, once all the morally relevant features of a particular situation have been identified, we have a list of rules about rightness or wrongness of certain actions, which is a form of absolutism.
It seems then that there are few crystal-clear differences between the moral theories offered here, and most can be said to be similar, if not identical to consequentialism. Thus it is necessary to concentrate on the weaknesses of this sole theory regarding its role in judging actions.
There are three categories of objection to consequentialism. The first category is concerned with the practical objections, which have already been met in studying the different forms of utilitarianism. They would appear to be very similar to the weaknesses of act-utilitarianism in particular; namely, the difficulty of evaluating all possible consequences of an action, and the inability to place exact cardinal values on utility in order to make comparison of different actions straightforward.
At this stage, we can expand on the objection concerning drawing a line in the chain of causality. Not only is this, as we have seen on previous occasions, a difficulty for this theory, but there is also the question of whether inaction can be sufficient grounds for attaching responsibility for the consequences of inaction to someone. Although it may seem obvious that it is the case that, as with any course of action, inaction yields a set of consequences that must be considered, there are many examples that seek to illustrate that there can be a great deal of confusion and dispute in borderline cases.
Perhaps the first of these examples would be donating money to charity, or rather, the abstention of doing this. Surely, as most people do not give huge sums to charity, we should all be racked with guilt over the consequences, be they starvation in Africa, or homelessness in India. Yet clearly, this is not the case. Why is this? One could say that, as we have not experienced the conditions that our charity would alleviate, we do not feel as strongly towards preventing them. Or perhaps as we have never met, nor are ever likely to meet those who will receive our charity, it does not seem particularly relevant to us. Finally, it may be the case that this is an example of "act verses omission," where the inaction of not giving to charity, whilst maybe bad in not preventing famine, homelessness, etc. we are not saying that we do not want these people to suffer and/or die. There are worse things that we could do if we believed this, for example we could send crates of poisoned food to famine victims in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus inaction is clearly not the course of action with the most distasteful consequences that is open to us, and while we may not consciously acknowledge the worse alternatives, they are sufficient justification for our lack of guilt over not giving to charity.
Two other moral dilemmas that happen to be key issues in today's world are those of abortion and euthanasia. An example concerning abortion might run as follows: the baby is positioned in such a way as it is harming the mother, and will, if left there, kill her. The gynaecologist may perform a post-mortem Caesarean section and save the baby's life, but at the expense of the mother's, or he can kill the baby and save the mother's life. Which does he choose? In this case, inaction will lead to the death of the mother, but action would involve his killing the child. Depending on one's view as to the rights of unborn children, or the greater emotional impact the death of one or other would have, one must choose between lives. However, this example illustrates that inaction would not always be a guilt-free option as in the case of not giving to charity. Could both actions be termed forms of "killing," through action in one case, or inaction in another? We may find that one could be termed killing (the child) whereas the other could be called letting die (the mother). This is however, as with the question of the rights of unborn children, a subjective and divisive view.
Perhaps reference to euthanasia will serve to illustrate this point more fully. The conflict between pro- and anti-euthanasia groups certainly involves a good deal of emphasis from the "anti" supporters that omission, i.e. the withholding of treatment (as opposed to say, the over prescribing of morphine) is killing by omission, as much as injecting someone with a lethal dose of a drug is killing by action. Again, opinion on this question is divided, and it is a personal, subjective choice.
Thus we have the debate as to whether omission is as much a reason for holding someone to account for the consequences as action itself. In some cases, it would appear not to be so (in the charity example), in others, we can see there is a broad spectrum of opinion, which will not be resolved in the near future.
Secondly, one may say that consequentialism is self-defeating, or at least, impractical as a means of making judgements in today's, or indeed, any world. This is because of the necessity of an incorporation of an element of calculation when assessing consequences. Apart from being impractical from the point of view of performing this experiment every time we are faced with a decision to make, it also kills off spontaneity of doing things based on a split-second decision. Whilst a consequentialist would defend themselves against this point by saying that it is only right to identify the consequences of an action, and choose one based on them, others would say that it is, quite frankly, a dull and boring doctrine, that would turn people into cold, heartless, utility-evaluating machines.
The final category of objection concerns moral objections, i.e. when what a consequentialist would term right or wrong after application of their criteria for judging actions appears to contradict our traditional moral opinion. Thus all kinds of tyrannies can theoretically be justified by appeals to consequences in terms of the phrase "the end (s) justify (ies) the mean (s)." Consider the Holocaust. A Nazi, or anyone else who was convinced that the existence of Jews was burdening society and incurring unhappiness on non-Jews, and that removing them would resolve this situation and make everyone else's lives more happy would justify the rounding up and mass-execution of the Jews as the consequences would yield great happiness, despite the unfortunate actions that needed to be taken in order to achieve this.
Consequentialism can also be attacked on the grounds that it would sometimes place agents in a position where they had to go against what they believe as the lesser of two evils. Williams presents two examples in which utilitarianism seems to suggest clearly which courses of action to take - these are the cases of George, who feels pressured into taking a job researching chemical weapons, which makes him uneasy as he believes these sorts of weapons to be wrong, and Jim, who is faced with the choice between killing one Indian and allowing 19 to go free, or watching all twenty be killed.
The seemingly obvious utilitarian replies would suggest that George should take the job, and that Jim should kill one Indian, thus allowing the others to go free. However, this assumes no other courses of action are available, and that both individuals are willing to pursue the stated courses of actions, despite the fact that they go against their traditional moral inclinations. In this way, consequentialism can be said to threaten the integrity of people's ethical decision-making. Again, in the second example, the question arises of whether Jim, if he didn't shoot the single Indian, could be held responsible for the deaths of all twenty by omission, given that he had the opportunity to save nineteen of them.
It can thus be said that consequentialism fails to provide adequate safeguards against the ability to condone actions that we would generally consider wrong. It is for this, and other reasons that we have come across when examining the different forms and characteristics of utilitarianism, that Williams is pessimistic in his opinion as to whether a suitable all-inclusive moral theory will ever be developed, maintaining as he does that "There cannot be any interesting, tidy or self-contained theory of what morality is, nor . . . can there be an ethical theory, in the sense of a philosophical structure which, together with some degree of empirical fact, will yield a decision procedure for moral reasoning."