Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [consequentialism]

Consequentialism is the ethical view that normative properties depend only on consequences.

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I'm being drafted to the military but I have the option to refuse (legally), would it be immoral for me to serve?

I’m set to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces but I have the option to exempt from the military if I wish to. So I’m in a big moral dilemma on whether I should serve or not, I’m currently leaning towards not serving being the morally right…
Mimikyu
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Multidimensional utility

I'm an outsider to the philosophy community (I'm a mathematics PhD student), and I'm curious of whether the following critique has been addressed. During some superficial discussions I had on utilitarianism, I frequently encountered the assumption…
Uzu Lim
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Has/can moral relativism be refuted and what are its implications for a true and useful ethical calculus?

It seems that the existence of moral relativism undermines the entire enterprise of ethics, as it devolves into a bunch of, albeit very smart, people abstractly formulating what is ultimately just a particular neurological sentiment. While I hope…
user4634
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Temporally stable determination of value in consequentialism

If one is a consequentialist, one at least implicitly makes decisions based on how good or bad the consequences are. As such, you must implicitly have a function f that maps from the set of attainable potential futures into a totally ordered set…
Rex Kerr
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Is there a difference between utilitarianism and consequentialism?

In the Wikipedia entry about Anscombe, there is a quote where she juxtaposes traditional utilitarianism to 'consequentialism'. In what sense are they different and what are some points of divergence (or convergence, if that is actually the case)?
yosimitsu kodanuri
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Are all ethical systems consequentialist?

Quoting Milton Friedman here "If the end does not justify the means, what does? But this easy answer does not dispose of the objection; it simply shows that the objection is not well put. To deny that the end justifies the means is indirectly…
user22244
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Which philosopher maintained that virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism can be reduced to each other?

I remember skimming an article by a female philosopher that argued that each of the three major kinds of ethics can actually be expressed in terms of each other.
Nowhere man
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What's wrong with aretaic consequentialism?

What problems does it face, either as a classification of Buddhism or as meta ethical theory in general? Another approach [to how to classify Buddhist ethics] is aretaic consequentialism, an indirect form of consequentialism in which the primary…
user64448
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Is Rand's Objectivism consequentialist/consequentially motivated?

Background (not looking to get into the weeds on this; just clarifying my viewpoint): It seems to me that the concept of a moral force or law is not really empirically supported. That is, statements like "it is wrong to kill" are only enforceable…
hunt
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Is there any consequentialist moral theory aside from utilitarianism?

I've noticed that when I read about ethics, "consequentialism" is sometimes described as a broader category of which utilitarianism is only an example, but sometimes the word seems to be used simply as a synonym for utilitarianism. I have never…
Ariel
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How does Consequentialism handle uncertainty?

E.g. Suppose you are a Consequentialist faced with a variation of the trolley car problem. Your options are to save five people with a 20% likelihood or one person with a 100% likelihood. Which option, if either, is better from a Consequentialist's…
b5001
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In utilitarianism, is it better to give 1000 units of happiness to 1 person, or 100 units each to 10 people?

Assume that we have a way of quantifying happiness, and assume that all the people mentioned are equally well-off (not that the second point matters, I don't think). I know what the answer would be if "happiness" was replaced with "money" in my…
harry_m
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Why do some deontological ethical frameworks seem to reduce to consequentialism?

I may have a defunct understanding of deontological ethics, but for some reason it seems to me that deontological ethics ultimately reduce to consequentialist theories. Take, for instance, Kant's Categorical Imperative, "act only according to that…
natojato
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Can someone help me with some arguments and counter-arguments for consequentialism?

I might go into a lot of details but please bear with me. I am going to give an example of what I want to defend consequentialism against (i.e. I am arguing for consequentialism by first refuting some counter-arguments) There is a murderer who…
user276520
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What would a system that aims to maximize my own well-being be called?

I was wondering what a moral system that says things are good if they benefit me would be called. At first I was thinking of normative egoism, but it seems like normative egoism says that everyone should act in their own self-interest, rather than…
bigflick glick
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