Agent-relative value is often considered as central for the consequentialization of deontological theories.Footnote 24 As indicated, consequentialization amounts to a reconstruction of deontological ethics as a value maximizing variant of act consequentialism. Consequentializers usually claim that all important tenets of deontology, and especially all deontic demands (duties, rights, prerogatives, etc.), can be salvaged in this process. Of course, the viability of the process is controversial, but it would still be good to know whether consequentialization could also proceed on the basis of agent-relative accountability, shunning agent-relative value in the process.
This is what I want to show in the present section. Deontological assumptions concerning accountability can be salvaged in consequentialization without any need to rely on agent-relative value. Moreover, the principle of Separate Accountability (‘Any mature person is accountable for her own actions and not for the actions of mature others’) can be combined with the maximization of outcome value within a set of actions for which an agent is accountable. Of course, maximization of outcome value within a set of actions for which an agent is accountable is also demanded by consequentialism. According to standard act consequentialism, everybody is uniformly accountable for everything he or she can bring about and be it the prevention of other persons’ violations of deontological constraints. Consequentialist accountability thus comprises the whole feasible set A of an agent’s actions. Whatever is attributable to an agent (i.e., what the agent might be held responsible for) is subject to her obligation to maximize value. In contrast, Separate Accountability leads to a restriction of A. Thus, accountability is narrower in the suggested understanding of deontology than in consequentialism. In the consequentialization of deontological theories we may therefore assume that moral agents maximize value in a reduced choice set RC which only contains actions for which they are accountable from a deontological perspective.Footnote 25
The value to be maximized (or disvalue to be minimized) in RC is agent-neutral. Take, for instance, the disvalue of torturing a human being. An agent, who refuses to torture although she thereby would prevent two instances of equally horrible torture, fails to minimize overall agent-neutral disvalue. The agent may, indeed, agree that two acts of torture are agent-neutrally worse than a single act of the same kind of torture. However, the agent minimizes the agent-neutral disvalue accountable to her. Acts of torture done by others are to be registered on their moral accounts and do not undercut our agent’s account-relative value maximization.
It is conceivable that consequentializers (and consequentialists) will not be satisfied with this solution since it fails to derive all deontic demands from a betterness ranking of states of affairs. As presently modeled, deontological constraints are justified by assumptions concerning accountability and value (or disvalue) but not derived from considerations of value (aka goodness or betterness) alone. Consequentialization should therefore include a further step that justifies deontological accountability by representing it as result of value maximization. In fact, it is not difficult to add such a further step. RC and Separate Accountability are both grounded in the values of freedom, autonomy, or dignity of human beings. Of course, not all deontologists may want to start from there. Kantians may insist that accountability is not determined by considerations of value but by reason. Thus put, accountability follows from the meaning of the concepts of freedom, autonomy, or dignity and not from any value they might have. For many Kantians, therefore, consequentialization cannot succeed because their assumptions concerning accountability cannot be derived from a value ranking. Nevertheless, other deontologists and even other kinds of Kantians may accept that Separate Accountability follows from the values of freedom, autonomy, and dignity, which for ease of reference are called ‘values of personality’ here. What is far from clear, however, are the details of the assumed process of derivation. It therefore helps to keep the structure of the present argument in mind. We are giving consequentialization the benefits of doubt, that is, we ask for the implications of consequentialization assuming it would be feasible. Let us therefore assume that Separate Accountability is the model of accountability that represents maximal concern for the ‘values of personality’ from a deontological point of view (some defense of this assumption follows below). Would it then be appropriate to announce: Consequentialization accomplished?
In fact, the announcement would be premature. There is still a lingering problem with the resulting theory structure. The outlined process of consequentialization leads to a two-step consequentialist procedure. In the first step, maximization of the agent-neutral ‘values of personality’ produces a structure of accountability which reduces A to RC. In a second step of maximization, agent-neutral value is maximized in RC, i.e., on the agent’s moral account. The two steps of maximization are strictly separate and sequential. The second step builds on the results of the first. The emerging picture is, of course, familiar to consequentialists. It resembles the modus operandi of strict rule consequentialism, a two-step procedure which selects the best rule for action and then strictly demands compliance with the selected rule. Many consequentialists and non-consequentialists alike regard strict rule consequentialism as a spuriously consequentialist doctrine. It is called consequentialist and displays some elements of consequentialism, but, on reflection, it is no more consequentialist than a strawberry is a real berry according to botanical classification. Indeed, if maximization of value (in effect or expected) is characteristic of consequentialism, strict rule consequentialism fails because it eschews value maximization in cases where non-compliance with an otherwise optimal rule would produce more value than compliance (all things considered and even in the long run).Footnote 26 From this perspective, the only truly consequentialist rule consequentialism is one of rules of thumb but not of strictly binding rules.
However, the two-step procedure suggested here differs in a crucial respect from strict rule consequentialism. Under the assumed deontological premises, no act of non-compliance with deontological accountability can all things considered be better than compliance. Compliance with deontological accountability engenders the deontologically best feasible world. Thus, the two-step procedure always produces the best consequentialized outcome. Nothing in the process of consequentialization compels us to abandon this claim. It just needs to be translated into appropriate ranking assumptions for values. One possibility is to assume that the values of personality (i.e. a compound of freedom, autonomy, dignity) are lexically prior to other values. Since the other values are then irrelevant for the maximization of the values of personality, the latters’ maximization may precede that of other values. However, this does not yet fully accomplish the job.
It needs to be considered whether maximizing the values of personality might justify accountable violations of personality. That is, it needs to be explained why, under deontological premises, such offsetting cannot occur within the range of lexically prior values. (So far, I have only argued for the lexical priority of values of personality). In fact, two times a lexically prior value v* would be more than one times v*. Lexical priority allows for this kind of arithmetic. Yet, crucially, the system of deontological accountability embodies the values of personality from a deontological point of view. In fact, on the present account of deontology, the system of deontological accountability promotes the values of personality so much that this effect cannot be outweighed by losses of value incurred by upholding the system of accountability. In choices between worlds in which the system of deontological accountability is implemented and worlds in which it is not implemented, the former are always better from a deontological point of view (as presently conceived), and they always promote the values of personality to a higher degree. In consequence, in all possible worlds in which the ‘values of personality’ are maximized and deontological accountability is an option (as in our world), maximization will demand deontological accountability.
However, is it not outrageous to assume that a defense of the deontological system of accountability, which is supposed to embody the values of personality, would justify the non-prevention of arbitrary losses of individual freedoms, dignity, or autonomy? Imagine an evil emperor threatening to torture all humans unless a consequentialist system of moral accountability is universally accepted. Consequentialists, of course, will prefer to comply with the evil emperor. What matters presently, however, is only the reaction of deontologists, and specifically hard-nosed deontologists. For them, it is constitutive of our personality that all of us are accountable for their actions and not for the actions of others. This is a basic concomitant of what is often called the ‘separateness of persons’. In possible worlds, in which this separateness is violated, our personality is denied, and hard deontologists assume that these are worlds not worth defending or living in. Hard choices might force us to choose between such a world and death, but preferring death to being unfree or becoming a torturer is recommendable from a deontological perspective. Note that I am not discussing the reasonableness of such a stance here. Our present concern is solely to comprehend or rationally reconstruct the internal logic of strict deontological reasoning, and my claim is that the offered considerations fit this logic much better than any assumption of agent-relative value.
In any case, our exercise of consequentializing deontological accountability documents that deontologists need to embrace two separate claims and not merely the claim that values of personality have lexical priority. Deontologists should also assume that deontological accountability has its own, supreme value. Under this premise, it cannot be optimal to minimize constraint violations since this process would lead to a violation of deontological accountability. This second claim is a crucial insight which otherwise might easily get lost. Attempts at consequentialization thus prove helpful for deontologists.
Under the outlined premises, a two-step approach of value maximization is compatible with the act-consequentialization of the underlying deontological theory. The resulting rule consequentialist surface structure is, on reflection, unproblematic. The reason is that act maximization will in each single case lead to the imposition of deontological accountability. Subsequent maximization in accordance with deontological accountability can be regarded as a posterior step of a single instance of value maximization, because the maximization of a set of values that includes insuperably superior values may proceed by level of priority.
Such maximization is therefore also compatible with the Compelling Idea. The Compelling Idea, which accounts for much of consequentialization’s attractivity, states that the best action must always be permissible.Footnote 27 This claim is usually assumed to refer to the best action in a feasible set A of an agent’s actions. Prima facie, a prohibition of torture even though an act of torture would overall minimize torturing will ceteris paribus not permit the best action in A to be performed because prima facie less torture is better than more torture. Yet, such considerations of balancing miss crucial implications of the presently assumed maximization process. Under the assumed deontological premises, an appropriately comprehensive valuation of personality needs to heed the value of separate moral accountability. Hence, all things considered, a refusal to torture is better than preventing multiple acts of torturing if the value of an appropriate system of accountability is weighed in. In the end, thus, the Compelling Idea is vindicated, and its intuitive attractiveness is harvested for deontological ethics.
All this is possible without invoking agent-relative value. Agent-relative value has no role in the outlined maximizing considerations. In the first step, accountability is agent-neutrally determined by the universal ‘values of personality’ (freedom, autonomy, dignity). That is, accountability is determined by choosing the system of accountability that optimally promotes human freedom, autonomy, and dignity for all agents. In a second step, agents are called up to maximize the agent-neutral value they are morally accountable for. Again, it is not necessary to assume agent-relative value. Attempts to saddle deontological ethics with a deep-sitting necessary relationship to agent-relative value therefore misrepresent the normative structure of deontological theories and lead us astray.