Consequentialism
Consequentialism is the theory that the moral status of an act is determined by its consequences. Consequentialism thus rejects both the virtue ethicist’s view that the moral status of an act is determined by the moral character of the agent performing it, and the deontologist’s view that the moral status of an act is determined by the type of act that it is. According to consequentialism, each of these factors is morally irrelevant. All that matters is what consequences an act leads to.
The only consequentialist theory of any plausibility is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism comes in many forms, but in each of them it holds that we ought to act in the way that has the best consequences, usually that we ought to maximise the good and minimise the bad.
|
