Abstract
This paper sets out a novel challenge to consequentialism as a theory in normative ethics. The challenge is rooted in the ontological claim that consequences of actions do not exist at the time required to be that in virtue of which actions are right or wrong, and so consequences cannot play the role attributed to them by consequentialists. The challenge takes the form of a dilemma. The consequentialist is confronted with a set of propositions she will find individually plausible but incompossible if taken in conjunction with consequentialism. The task is to restore consistency. There are ways of maintaining the view that consequences are right-makers, but they come at the cost of endorsing highly implausible and unattractive theses. Versions of what might be called quasi-consequentialism can be rendered metaphysically coherent, but these are consequentialisms in name only, and they are best seen as components of an account of practical rationality that has strong echoes of traditional Natural Law theory. Since this is unlikely to appeal to contemporary consequentialists, their best bet is to reject consequentialism altogether.
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Notes
Of course few if any normative theorists adopt such a point of view as they go about their business. No doubt this is why the metaphysical difficulties consequentialism gives rise to have not received the attention they deserve. But if truth is one, then surely our normative theories have to cohere with our metaphysical commitments. There is also a heuristic gain to be had by bringing metaphysical reflection to bear on normative theory: Such a stance suggests new and unfamiliar lines of thought on a very old and well-aired topic indeed.
Questions regarding the very coherence of varieties of utilitarianism have been raised before. For example, Castaneda (1968) and Bergstrom (1973, 1976) debated the coherence of act-utilitarianism. But no one to my knowledge, with the possible exception of Arthur Prior (see below), raises a general problem for all varieties of utilitarianism by highlighting the metaphysical problem discussed here which arises for any form of consequentialism.
Proposition 2 is consistent with both realism and anti-realism in metaethics if we characterize the anti-realist as maintaining that an action’s having a moral status depends on an agent having some subjective attitude, either positive or negative, towards the action. On this account the property of rightness, say, would be a relative property of being approved of by some agent.
Because of the centrality of this claim to the logical problem being developed here it is worth quoting some authors expressing it explicitly. Sinnott-Armstrong (2011) writes: ‘Consequentialism = whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences (as opposed to circumstances, or the intrinsic nature of the act or anything that happens before the act).’ (Emphasis added) Driver writes: ‘When a theory holds that the only thing relevant to determining whether or not an action is right are the consequences produced by that action, that account is consequentialist’ (2007, 40). Similarly Pettit writes: ‘Every option … has its value fixed by the value of its prognoses: its value is a function of the value of its different prognoses’ (1997, 232). Anthony Quinton expresses the consequentialist principle as follows: ‘…that the rightness, or wrongness, of an action is determined by the goodness, or badness, of the results that flow from it…’ (1989, 1). It is true, as we shall see below, that some consequentialists will be tempted to qualify this principle. Douglas Portmore, for example, while claiming to be a consequentialist, maintains that an act’s moral status is determined by the agent’s reasons for performing it, and that these reasons are the agent’s reasons for preferring its outcome to those of the available alternatives (Portmore, 2011). But an agent’s reasons are on the scene prior to the act itself, and by Sinnott-Armstrong’s portrayal of consequentialism, nothing that ‘happens before the act’ can be relevant to its rightness or wrongness. Indeed, by Portmore’s own admission, it is not obvious that this is consistent with the consequentialist principle (2011, 34–38), if only because the agent’s reasons, understood as mental states, are not themselves consequences of the action. Nor will it do to characterize the agent’s reasons by the content of the mental states, i.e., by the anticipated consequences of an act, for these anticipated consequences exist only in the mind’s eye or fail to exist altogether. It would seem that Portmore’s commitment to an additional principle, i.e., that morality cannot require us to do anything irrational, has actually led to a form of quasi-consequentialism, i.e., the abandoning of consequentialism in all but name.
In a similar vein he writes: ‘Does Queen Anne’s death getting more past mean that Queen Anne has changed from having died 250 years ago to having died 251 years ago, or whatever the precise period is? – that she is “getting older”, though in a slightly extended sense? The trouble with this, of course, is just that Queen Anne doesn’t exist now any more than her death does’ (ibid., 11).
Something like this contradiction might just have been hinted at by Prior. In his ‘The Consequences of Actions’ we read: ‘…there may indeed be a number of alternative actions which we could perform on a given occasion, but none of these actions can be said to have any “total consequences”, or to bring about a definite state of the world which is better than any other that might be brought about by other choices. For we may presume that other agents are free beside the one who is on the given occasion deciding what he ought to do, and the total future state of the world depends on how these others choose as well as on how the given person chooses; … And while I speak here of one’s calculations being spoilt, the trouble of course goes deeper than that-it’s not merely that one cannot calculate the totality of what will happen if one decides in a certain way; the point is rather that there is no such totality’(1968, 51–2). Given his defence of presentism it is just possible that Prior was insisting here on the ontological point that forms the crux of the problem as I am developing it in this paper, not merely the epistemological challenge of ascertaining just what the “total” consequences of a given action might be.
Of course a consequentialist might bite the bullet and accept that contradictory propositions can be true simultaneously. But this approach should be resisted because it entails that reality is ultimately unintelligible. This is simply too high a cost to incur on behalf of propositions 1–6. But a consequentialist might refuse to reject any of the propositions in the hope that the dilemma will be solved eventually as new information comes to light. This line is open to the consequentialist; but it comes at the cost of conceding that, as things stand, consequentialism fails to cohere with other apparently unproblematic beliefs.
Another way out of the aporia is to reject all of props. 1–6. One might suggest that the problem has arisen because our cognitive powers or ordinary language have been applied in domains beyond their competence, and so the solution is to desist from entertaining these propositions. But this approach will not appeal to the consequentialist since it involves the rejection of consequentialism.
A possible quibble. Some might insist, plausibly, that “exists” cannot be used in exactly the same sense of entities in different ontological categories. Thus there is an equivocation here on “exists” because actions and consequences are entities in distinct ontological categories. But this Aristotelian line of thought is really highlighting differences in the mode of existence of entities in the different categories, rather than asserting that “exists” has fundamentally unrelated senses when applied to entities in distinct categories. But more important for present purposes is the fact that consequentialists are not going to deny that either actions or consequences exist in some sense that can be applied to both.
It is this consideration which rules out attempts to construe consequences not as the results of actions, but as an agent’s reasons for preferring one action over another à la Portmore (2011).
This sleight of hand is aided and abetted by the fact that justificatory reasons, i.e., right-makers (usually taken to be non-mental facts or states of affairs) and motivating reasons (beliefs and desires of agents) are not always as clearly distinguished as they ought to be.
It is important to distinguish between an object’s propensity to X and its manifesting its propensity to X. An object might require certain external enabling conditions to be met before its propensity to X can be manifested, but this does not make the propensity itself a relational property.
This has been a common place for some time. For an extended discussion of the issue see Francisco Suarez (2006) On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysica XLVII). Translation by John Doyle. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. See also Section VI of his (1995) On Beings of Reason (Disputatio Metaphysica LIV). Translation by John Dolye. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
This is certainly the view of Aristotle (Metaphysics, Book III, ch. 3, 998b20–27, all references to aristotle found in Aristotle (1941).), and it is echoed by Aquinas (Summa theol. 1a2ae, q. 18, a.5, found in Aquinas (1997).); but it is likely to strike most as plausible independently of the respect one may or may not accorded to Aristotle or Aquinas. Of course one might say that I am currently at least potentially a great-great-great grandfather, but I do not have this property in virtue of my non-existent progeny but in virtue of current biological facts about me. The same point applies to any causal relation. A cannot literally be the cause of B until B exists because to be a cause is to bring about an effect, and until B has been brought into existence there is no effect. Of course A may have the ability to bring about B in the right circumstances prior to B’s existence, but this ability to cause B is distinct from actually bringing about B.
Imagine someone arguing as follows: ‘I know this war is wrong now; but don’t worry, it will be right in a couple of years. Of course it might very well revert to being wrong again, but let’s keep our fingers crossed.’
Imagine some one arguing as follows: ‘Don’t worry about this war; it won’t be wrong till we’re long gone.’
It is worth noting that this is more than a theoretical possibility. Dasgupta has suggested something very close to this position as a way of overcoming what he takes to be the overly crude distinction between acts and consequences upheld by deontologists and utilitarians. He writes: “If actions matter intrinsically, they can be made part of the description of consequences, and then the distinction collapses (1993, p.30).”
This was a relatively common view amongst the Scholastics. Aquinas (1997), Summa theol. 1a2ae.q. 20, a. 5, provides a detailed discussion of this possibility: ‘It would seem that the consequences of the external act increases its goodness or badness. For the effects pre-exist virtually in its cause. But the consequences result from the act as an effect from its cause. Therefore they pre-exist virtually in the acts.’
Eternalism is a species of four-dimensionalism, according to which ‘…there are past or future objects (or both); and in saying this, [four-dimensionalists] mean to put such things ontologically on a par with present objects. According to the four-dimensionalist, non-present objects are like spatially distant objects; they exist, just not here, where we are’ (Rea, 2005, 246).
The literature on possibilia is enormous. For a useful discussion of the problems associated with such entities see Fine (2005).
This is not a particularly attractive line of thought anyway since it has little to recommend it on independent grounds. It certainly does not receive any support from the standard views of the ontology of action. See Lowe (2010) for discussion. For example, if we take it that actions are ultimately movements of an agent’s body, then an action’s consequences cannot be part of the action itself, contra the suggestion, since the vast majority of an action’s consequences as standardly conceived are not movements of the agent’s body. But if we revise our notion of consequences, limiting them to the movements of the agent’s body, then the action’s consequences will seldom (if ever) be that in virtue of which an act is right or wrong. On the other hand, if we hold that an action is the exemplification of a certain property by a certain object at a certain time, then again the consequences of an action cannot be part of the action itself since the vast majority of these cannot be plausibly construed as properties of any one particular object at any time.
This notion of virtual or potential existence has its roots in Aristotle (1941). In On Generation and Corruption, Bk 1, ch. 10 he writes: ‘Since, however, somethings are-potentially while others are-actually, the constituents combined in a compound can ‘be’ in a sense and yet ‘not-be’. The compound may be-actually other than the constituents from which it has resulted; nevertheless each of them may still be-potentially what it was before they were combined and both of them may survive undestroyed.’ As a side note it might be worth pointing out that this view remained common in the early stages of the development of modern chemistry, but has now been replaced by the actual components thesis following the adoption of Mendeleev’s Periodic Table of Elements.
See note 18 above. See note 31 below for more on Aquinas and consequentialism.
Perhaps the most pressing difficulty is doing justice to the intuition that we currently occupy the present. If eternalism is true it becomes very difficult to determine whether one is living in the past, present or future. See Bourne (2006) for discussion.
Some have taken this problem to constitute perhaps the most serious challenge eternalism faces. See chapter 7 of Bardon’s (2013) for extended discussion.
This is not an unproblematic assumption. The seriousness with which possible worlds talk has been taken in the analytic tradition is one of the most perplexing features of the revival of metaphysics in twentieth century. Originally the idea was that progress could be made in the domain of modal logic by trading on similarities between the logical relations of “all/some” propositions on the one hand and those of “necessary/possible” propositions on the other. Since the logic of “all/some” propositions is well known, it was thought that great strides would be made in modal logic if it could be seen as simply a special case of the logic of “all/some” propositions since a necessary truth was taken to be a truth in all possible worlds, a possible truth a truth in some possible world. However, it was always obvious that no real insight into the metaphysical nature of necessity and possibility was going to be forthcoming from this approach since modal notions were built into the very notion of a possible world. As Lowe trenchantly points out: “…this explication is no clearer than the key notion of a ‘possible world’ upon which it draws…[but] this notion is thoroughly obscure and really of no use at all in explicating either the notion of necessity or the metaphysical grounds of necessary truth” (2015, 6). The deeper complaint against the seriousness with which possible worlds talk has been taken by metaphysicians is that it conflates logical necessity and possibility with metaphysical necessity and possibility. But modal logic is the study of entailment relations obtaining between modal propositions, while metaphysics is (in part) the study of the non-logical relations obtaining between extra-mental entities in the various ontological categories. Unless one believes that the only necessities and possibilities are logical necessities and possibilities, this conflation of logic and metaphysics is unwarranted, and one cannot take possible worlds talk as a serious contribution to metaphysical reflection. But ethicists can perhaps be forgiven for helping themselves to possible worlds talk since there was a licence to do so given its currency among contemporary metaphysicians.
I set aside for present purposes the possibility of accepting a mixed view according to which some possible worlds are concrete entities (i.e., this actual world) while others are abstract objects (all the remaining possible worlds). I set this aside because it does not affect our argument.
The case for this claim lies beyond the bounds of this paper, but it is to be found in metaphysicians of some repute. For example Lowe writes: ‘It is incumbent on metaphysicians to explain what it is that grounds metaphysical possibility – and to do so in a way that allows our knowledge of metaphysical possibility to be something that is itself possible [...] My own belief [...] is that the only coherent account of the ground of metaphysical possibility and of our capacity for modal knowledge is to be found in a version of essentialism: a version that I call serious essentialism, to distinguish it from certain other views which may superficially appear very similar to it but which, in fact, differ from it fundamentally in certain crucial respects’ (2006:1).
This account sticks very closely to traditional Natural Law theory, but leans heavily on Murphy (2001).
Here is Aquinas (1997) on the identification of right and reasonableness: “Now in human actions, good and evil are predicated in relation to the reason, because… the good of man is to be in accordance with reason, and evil is to be against reason” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a.5).
This is the principle of synderesis in the terminology of traditional Natural Law theory. Here ‘possible’ is to be taken as sketched at the end of §6.
Again, in the terminology of traditional Natural Law theory, one would say that the good or the virtuous is that which is “conducive to well-living” - utlitas ad bene vivendum (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 3). Uncontroversial goods include whatever preserves human life – adequate nutrition, potable water, serviceable clothing, shelter – and whatever preserves human society and the benefits derived from the social order – security, education, health care, to name only a few examples.
Examples of plausible kinds include those correlated with Ross’s (2002) prima facie duties: duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, beneficence, justice.
On the importance of circumstances, see Aquinas (1997), Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 3. This is essentially Aristotle’s point that an action is right if it is done at the right time, to the right extent, by the right person, to the right people, in the right way, with the right implements, etc.
Aquinas (1997) writes: “Nothing hinders an action that is good in one of the ways mentioned above from lacking goodness in another way. And thus it may happen that an action which is good in its species or in its circumstances is ordained to an evil end, or vice versa. However, an action is not good absolutely, unless it is good in all those ways; for evil results from any single defect…” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 4).
Consider Aquinas (1997): “…the goodness of an action is not caused by the goodness of its effect, even though an action is said to be good from the fact that it can produce a good effect” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 18, a. 2, ad. 3). Aquinas’s point is that an action has a nature in virtue of its type which contributes to the rightness or wrongness of tokens of that type. This is inconsistent with consequentialism, and it goes against the commitment to the moral neutrality of actions in and of themselves, but it is precisely what a quasi-consequentialist could endorse.
This is another way of making the point Aquinas draws attentions to in note 39.
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Boulter, S. Can Consequences Be Right-Makers?. Philosophia 45, 185–205 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9757-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9757-0