Consequentialism and Teleology

This is Chapter 4 of my Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. In this chapter, I argue that that any plausible nonconsequentialist theory can be consequentialized, which is to say that, for any plausible nonconsequentialist theory, we can construct a consequentialist theory that yields the exact same set of deontic verdicts that it yields.

Disputes about the causal structure of natural selection have implications for teleosemantics. Etiological, mainstream teleosemantics is based on a causalist view of natural selection. The core of its solution to Brentano’s Problem lies in the solution to Kant’s Puzzle provided by the Modern Synthesis concerning populational causation. In this paper, I suggest that if we adopt an alternative, statisticalist view on natural selection, the door is open for two reflections. First, it allows for setting different challenges to etiological teleosemantics that (...) arise if a statisticalist reading of natural selection is right. Second, by providing a different solution to Kant’s Puzzle based on individual causes of evolution, statisticalism promotes a different answer to Brentano’s Problem, what I label as Agential Teleosemantics. (shrink)

Agent-relative consequentialism is thought attractive because it can secure agent-centred constraints while retaining consequentialism's compelling idea—the idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available outcome. We argue, however, that the commitments of agent-relative consequentialism lead it to run afoul of a plausibility requirement on moral theories. A moral theory must not be such that, in any possible circumstance, were every agent to act impermissibly, each would have more reason to prefer the world thereby actualized over the (...) world that would have been actualized if every agent had instead acted permissibly. (shrink)

Consequentialism is a focal point of discussion and a driving force behind important developments in moral philosophy. Recently, the debate has shifted in focus and in style. By seeking to consequentialize rival moral theories, in particular those with agent-relative characteristics, and by framing accounts in terms of reasons rather than in terms of value, an emerging new wave consequentialism has presented - at much higher levels of abstraction - theories which proved extremely flexible and powerful in meeting long-standing and influential (...) objections. This volume of new essays on new wave consequentialism initiates and stimulates novel lines of discussions among proponents and their critics. The contributions explore new directions in new wave consequentialism and present refined conceptual frameworks (in Part I), raise challenging fundamental problems for these frameworks and the new wave's theoretical basis (in Part II), and give a balanced assessment of the new wave's limits and achievements in specific contexts of commonsense moral practice (in Part III). (shrink)

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic (...) theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of life sciences in western culture. (shrink)

This paper is about the epistemology of practical reason and, in particular, the function of trust as an end to be pursued rationally in praxis. Our purpose is threefold: first, to present an outline of the structure of practical reason; secondly, to compare practical reason and scientific reason in order to determine the main differences between these two basic manifestations of human reason; finally, to argue in favour of a non-utilitarian model of practical reason in the light of some results (...) of contemporary economic theory. (shrink)

The paper analyses Rawls's teleology/deontology distinction, and his concept of priority of the right. The first part of the paper aims both 1) to clarify what is distinctive about Rawls's deontology/teleology distinction (thus sorting out some existing confusion in the literature, especially regarding the conflation of such distinction with that between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism); and 2) to cash out the rich taxonomy of moral theories that such a distinction helpfully allows us to develop. The second part of the paper examines (...) the concept of priority of the right. It argues that such a concept should not be identified with that of deontology— indeed, deontological theories do not necessarily assign priority to the right over the good. However, it contends that the concept of priority of the right is essential to explaining what specific kind of deontological theory "justice as fairness" is. Justice as fairness is a deontological theory which assigns priority to the right as a consequence of its commitment to a neutral position with respect to different accounts of what is ultimately valuable and good. (shrink)

One popular line of argument put forward in support of the principle that the right is prior to the good is to show that teleological theories, which put the good prior to the right, lead to implausible normative results. There are situa- tions, it is argued, in which putting the good prior to the right entails that we ought to do things that cannot be right for us to do. Consequently, goodness cannot (always) explain an action's rightness. This indicates that (...) what is right must be determined independently of the good. In this paper, I argue that these purported counterexamples to teleology fail to establish that the right must be prior to the good. In fact, putting the right prior to the good can lead to sets of ought statements which potentially con- flict with the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. I argue that no plausible ethical theory can determine what is right independently of a notion of value or goodness. Every plausible ethical theory needs a mapping from goodness to rightness, which implies that right cannot be prior to the good. (shrink)

This book is about fundamental questions in normative ethics. It begins with the idea that we often respond to ethical theories according to how principled or pragmatic they are. It clarifies this contrast and then uses it to shed light on old debates in ethics, such as debates about the rival merits of consequentialist and deontological views. Using the idea that principled views seem most appealing in dilemmas of acquiescence, it goes on to develop a novel theory of pattern-based reasons. (...) These are reasons to play one’s part in some larger pattern of action because of the goodness or rightness of that pattern. Existing accounts of pattern-based reasons usually assume that such reasons can exist only in cooperative contexts. This book rejects that assumption, and claims instead that we can have pattern-based reasons even when the other agents involved in the pattern are wholly unwilling to cooperate. The result is a pluralist teleological structure for ethics, with similarities to some forms of Rule Consequentialism. Woodard claims that this structure achieves an attractive balance between the two virtues of being pragmatic and being principled. (shrink)

Douglas Portmore has recently argued in this journal for a "promising result" – that combining teleological ethics with "evaluator relativism" about the good allows an ethical theory to account for deontological intuitions while "accommodat[ing] the compelling idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available state of affairs." I show that this result is false. It follows from the indexical semantics of evaluator relativism that Portmore's compelling idea is false. I also try to explain what might have (...) led to this misunderstanding. (shrink)

Ethical relativists and subjectivists hold that fact must be distinguished from value, ‘is’ from ‘ought’ and reason from emotion. Their distinctions have been called into question, notably by Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness 2001), also by Alasdair Macintyre (Dependent Rational Animals 1999). Reason in the form of the life sciences—ethology, biology—indicates that what is good or bad for an individual animal and its species are matters of objective fact. There is nothing relativistic about the idea that fresh meat is good for (...) wolves and it is a fact, a paradigm fact, that polluted water is bad for dolphins. Moreover what is good for an animal is often something that is good about it. Sharp ears and great speed are good for deer and are also what makes a deer a good specimen of its kind. These general remarks apply to the human animal as well as to ‘ordinary’ animals. The good and bad discussed by moral philosophers cannot be radically different from the good and bad known through reason. But if it were it would normally be a remarkably indigent field of study. (shrink)

THERE IS AN IMPORTANT RESPECT in which virtue-centered ethical realism needs to be more Aristotelian than it is typically willing to admit. This concerns the way in which teleological considerations need to be more explicitly acknowledged. Reflection on moral phenomenology, discourse, and practice supports realism and also reveals that teleological considerations cannot be entirely disowned by it. The teleology is not a grand teleology, however; it is not the view that there is a unique perfection of human nature, and it (...) is not the view that ethics is read off of a teleological metaphysics. On the other hand, this is not just the teleology of this and that particular subjective project, concern, or purposive action. (shrink)

To approach the issue of teleology, I will focus on what I regard as the fundamental form of teleological causation: goal-directed action. What is “goal-directed action,” and what kinds of entities act goal-directedly? Consider some representative processes.

In his book, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Samuel Scheffler ends his last chapter in the following way.

In his book, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Samuel Scheffler ends his last chapter in the following way.

PETER KNAUER'S CONCEPTION OF MORAL CHOICE ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CREAITVENESS IN MODERN MORAL THEOLOGY Summary The author undertakes a critical analysis of the ethical views of Peter Knauer who is one of the most influential theological moralist today. The author tends to show the consequences of Knauer's theory which consequences are destructive for morality. The first part of the paper presents Knauer's standpoint in view of the conception of moral choice and shows three crucial points of his system. They are (...) the following: the definition of moral good (lightness) in its relation to physical good; the reinterpretation of the principle of double effect which reinterpretation reduces that principle to its "Ideological explanation"; and, finally, the conception of the so-called non-counterproductivity which decides whether an activity is right. That non-counterproductivity is comprehended as an all-embracing correspondence between the goals which the subject has chosen and means which the subject has taken in order to accomplish the goals. In the second critical part one finds some questions related to the immanent critique of the discussed theory and some consequences of Knauer's claims. If one applies his assumptions strictly, it turns out that in his model of morality there is no place for such an activity of man which, at the same time, would be both rational and free, i.e., sensu stricto moral. In view of Knauer's system the criteria of moral evaluation, which criteria he proposed, do not hold sense. Thus morality and ethics lose their essential normative character. Consequently, the system under scrutiny leads to an antipersonalistic vision of both an individual and society, and in terms of eternity it seems to dismiss the possibility of recognizing the existence of Absolute. The theory rejects values for the sake of which it was construed. Translated by Jan Kłos. (shrink)

Act teleological theories are theories that judge an action permissible just in case its outcome is maximally good.[1] It is usually assumed that act teleological theories cannot be @i, i.e., make the permissibility of actions depend on what the past was like (e.g., on what promises were made, what wrong doings were done, and more generally on what actions were performed).[2] I shall argue that this is not so. Although @u act teleological theories, such as classical act utilitarianism, are not (...) past-regarding, there are other types of act teleological theories that are past-regarding. (shrink)

The recent discussions on “The Right and the Good” show that the reconciliation between formalism and teleology is still a problem. Some of the contending parties lean more strongly towards formalism, others towards teleology; but neither side has, I believe, done equal justice to formalism and teleology. To review the whole discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, I propose to suggest in outline a theory which may possibly harmonize the essential tenets of both parties.

One can reasonably ask whether or not there is any distinct domain of the ethical. That is, one might wonder whether ethical issues are distinct from, for example, prudential or aesthetic ones, perhaps by invoking duty or obligation or a specific kind of value. But that question, at least for now, is outside the scope of our discussion. For now, we’ll assume that there are such things as ethical questions and that you recognize them when you see them.

This paper connects two ideas. The first is that some common responses to ethical views are responses to their degrees of pragmatism, where a view’s degree of pragmatism is its sensitivity to ethically relevant changes in the actor’s circumstances. I claim that we feel the pull of opposing pro-pragmatic and antipragmatic intuitions in certain cases. This suggests a project, of searching for an ethical view capable of doing justice to these opposing intuitions in some way. The second central idea is (...) that a theory of pattern-based reasons looks more promising than the obvious alternatives to fulfil this role, amongst Teleological theories at least. Pattern-based reasons are reasons to perform some action because of the goodness or rightness of a larger pattern of action—such as a pattern that a group could perform or that the actor could perform over an extended period—of which the immediate action is a mere part. Existing theories of such reasons share two features that prevent them explaining the intuitions we wish to explain: they consider only one pattern at a time (they are monist), and they treat patterns as eligible only if the agents concerned are willing to realise them (they accept the Willingness Requirement). But we need not accept these doctrines. Moreover, a theory of patternbased reasons without them is able to explain the pro- and anti-pragmatic intuitions in an elegant way, and has other attractive features. (shrink)