A Causal Problem for Consequentialism

[Consequentialism] is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. [...] Consequentialists hold that choices — acts and/or intentions — are to be morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about.

Despite thinking that some variant of utilitarianism is the ethical system which produces the fewest number of counter-intuitive results, I have always found the basic premise of consequentialist theories of morality to be somewhat strange. According to this definition of consequentialism, it looks like moral judgements should be handed out to states of affairs or actions rather than the agents who execute the action that brings about the state of affairs. I think this creates two problems for consequentialism. The first is that actions which accidentally bring about a state of affairs which are worse should seem to be judged as "wrong" actions even if the intent of the person executing the action was to improve the state of affairs. The converse also applies. But this is not the focus of this thread.

The problem that I would to bring attention to is that it is not very clear what is meant by "the consequences of an action". I think it a very good assumption to believe that the universe (at least on the macroscopic scale) is a deterministic one, and I believe that human beings (although they have "free will") are a part of a deterministic causal chain originating in the beginning of space-time and that all future events of the world will be determined by events of the past. Surely, a consequentialist does not want to admit that every action is responsible for all future events after that action takes place; this would be ridiculous. How should a consequentialist reconcile this?

I personally think that consequentialism should consider abandoning placing value on states of affairs and instead focus on the intents of individuals performing those actions, but this is irrelevant and I wanted to know what others thought. Is this a serious problem for consequentialism? Or is it a non-problem and I am just not understanding the language of consequentialism very well?

Yes, the problem seems to go away when you focus on decision-making, which would be done according to what has the best expected consequences. Of course, that wouldn't mean that we are to say that someone who just accidentally tortured a hundred people "did good" just because the person meant to bring about a much more desirable state of affairs. In such a case, one would just differentiate outcome from intent. The outcome is clearly undesirable, the intent may be right. Would it still make sense to say the person made a mistake?

That depends. Maybe sometimes things go wrong without there being any way to anticipate it. In such a way, we must still hold that a person acted the right way -- given all the information she had -- even though it led to a bad outcome. In most cases, however, there are indeed criticisms we can bring up. For instance, a suicide bomber thinks he's acting good, because he does the infidels a favor by killing them, and prevents them from influencing his fellow believers so their faith may get weak and they too would end up being tortured eternally. The suicide bomber is convinced his action is right. Can we say he made a mistake? Obviously. He didn't take his epistemic duties seriously enough, if you're going to do something that causes death and suffering and that most of the world disagrees with, you better make damn sure that you're right about your assumptions. You spend days training yourself in critical thinking, you seek out the best arguments against your views, you consider all the objections. Only if you can be reasonable sure that there even is such a thing as Paradise, and that all your assumptions fit, then you may put the plans into practice.

That was only tangentially related to the topic, to get back to it: Even though determinism is probably right, that doesn't mean there's no useful sense we can talk about different possible actions. The notion of "possible worlds" is quite common in philosophy, and since imagining different paths of action is part of what makes up our decision process, it makes sense to frame ethical issues in terms of "action with the best consequence".

[Scott]

If the consequentialist says, "You are morally responsible for your the causal consequences of your actions (or inactions)", my response is what do you mean by "morally"? If the consequentialist says, "In situation Y when choosing between A which would lead to X or B which would lead to Z, one ought to choose A", then I would respond what do you mean by "ought"? The same goes for other morals terms like immoral, unethical, duty and should. I think at best these words are equivocal, referring to any one of numerous possible things that could be more clearly described amorally. Alternatively, they may refer to some vague mystical claim regarding some insentient valuing system apparently exiting on some other realm of metaphysical existence -- nothing I see any reason to believe. My objections here apply not only to consequentialism but to all moral claims.

However, in amoral terms, I think in situations in which people do things that we feel some need to make judgements, such as a corporation setting policies for its employees or members of a political democracy creating laws which they will violently enforce, then we generally find it necessary and most effective to use methods amorally corresponding to all classifications of so-called moral theories: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. For example, in the legal system of most countries today such as the USA, for a person to be convicted of a crime they must (1) break a strict rule (i.e. law) to do or not do something specific which I think corresponds to deontology, (2) in court, prosecution must show the actus reus which I think corresponds to consequentialism, and (3) in court, prosecution must show the mens rea and intent which I think corresponds to virtue ethics. In practice, we make judgements based on all 3 ways.

Normative moral claims seem to claim there is some other mystical objective way in which things actually are valued or matter and that only one of those three forms of such judgement (or some other form of amoral judgement) matters in that mystical objective way. Other times when people use the moral terms equivocally to refer to things that can be described more clearly with amoral terms, they may simply be using the terms to refer to a specific form of action, but in such case there is no debate about whether morality is consequential or deontological rather it is simply a matter of equivocation like using the word lightness to refer to non-heaviness as opposed to non-darkness.

Great comment/question!

I have a couple comments.

(1) I was surprised to see that definition of consequentialism. I expected that it meant that the normative theories "include" consideration of the state of affairs. To say that it ONLY involves consequences, and no other considerations, is a very strong position. I won't say SEP is wrong. I am just surprised by that definition.

(2) This is a little off-topic but it got my attention when you mentioned free-will within a deterministic world view. Is this an compatablist view like Hume's. That's worth it's own discussion.

(3) I see your point about how "intent" may be a more important consideration in questions of morality. People's motives can be judged in a relative way by evaluating whether they act(or intend to act) in a way that is consistent with whatever normative beliefs they have about what conduct is right or wrong. I think this does not entirely replace discussions of what is right or wrong, good or bad.

(4) I'm not sure how meaningful it is to talk about moral behavior(or intent) in a determined universe. I don't believe in any sort of free will so I kind of put that opinion in my back pocket when I think about what people "ought" to do.

(I know, Scott, you don't like me using these words without explicit definition. Don't bother questioning what I mean by "good" or "right". )

Zeno

-- Updated May 16th, 2012, 2:06 pm to add the following --

If the consequentialist says, "You are morally responsible for your the causal consequences of your actions (or inactions)", my response is what do you mean by "morally"? If the consequentialist says, "In situation Y when choosing between A which would lead to X or B which would lead to Z, one ought to choose A", then I would respond what do you mean by "ought"? The same goes for other morals terms like immoral, unethical, duty and should. I think at best these words are equivocal, referring to any one of numerous possible things that could be more clearly described amorally. Alternatively, they may refer to some vague mystical claim regarding some insentient valuing system apparently exiting on some other realm of metaphysical existence -- nothing I see any reason to believe. My objections here apply not only to consequentialism but to all moral claims.

Hi Scott, you should resurrect your old post explaining your objection/reluctance to using moral and ethical terminology. Is there a way to re-post "The clarity of Amorality," for new discussion, or is that against forum rules?

You have all missed the main point of this thread (which I must take some blame for, as I only mentioned it once briefly in a sentence). I am not questioning whether or not we can be held responsible for our actions in a deterministic world.

Rather, I am saying that is is difficult for us to decide which outcomes should be attributed to which actions.

Right now, I exhaled in a certain direction which disturbed the air molecules of Canada a little bit. Over time, I expect that this will contribute to the formation of a deadly hurricane somewhere on the other side of the world, perhaps causing a lot of suffering. It might happen in a few years, or it might happen in a few millenia. Who knows. The problem is that if consequentialism places value on just the consequences, then I would be responsible for everything that happens in the universe after I was born (or at least achieved sentience)! The fact is, I interact with every other body of matter in the universe in some way however slight, so I am the cause of a lot of things.

This is a little off-topic but it got my attention when you mentioned free-will within a deterministic world view. Is this an compatablist view like Hume's. That's worth it's own discussion.

Yes, it is probably a bit off-topic, but perhaps clarifying my views on this slightly-relevant subject might help prevent further confusions in this discussion. I am a compatibilist, and I use the same reasoning as Hume; when we say that "it is impossible for that rock to tumble down that hill in any other way than it was already going to", we are referring to what is known as "contingent possibility". But when we say that "it is possible that I might tip the waitress 15% rather than 10%", we are referring instead to a different sort of possibility altogether; I use the word "epistemic possibility" to describe this. I think that, as long as we have access to epistemically possible actions, we can say that we have "free will" and that we are responsible for our actions, even though we contingently could not have done any different.

Normative moral claims seem to claim there is some other mystical objective way in which things actually are valued or matter and that only one of those three forms of such judgement (or some other form of amoral judgement) matters in that mystical objective way.

I am actually rather divided on this issue. I certainly do not think that morality refers to, as you say, "some mystical objective way in which things actually are valued". I think that when we say "when you robbed that store, you did a bad thing", we are really just saying "I experienced a certain emotion called "immorality" when I considered the fact that you robbed that store". This is the emotivism that Ayer advocated, and although I think it is basically true, I still find that as long as we define certain axioms such as "the most ethical action is the one which maximized pleasure in the world" and "an unethical action is one which causes you to feel a certain emotion when you consider that action", we do get rather coherent language that works in its own logical framework. So, I think that the line between amoralism and noncognitivism is not really all that clear.

I personally think that consequentialism should consider abandoning placing value on states of affairs and instead focus on the intents of individuals performing those actions…

But then it wouldn't be consequentialism.

[Scott]

Normative moral claims seem to claim there is some other mystical objective way in which things actually are valued or matter and that only one of those three forms of such judgement (or some other form of amoral judgement) matters in that mystical objective way.

I am actually rather divided on this issue. I certainly do not think that morality refers to, as you say, "some mystical objective way in which things actually are valued". I think that when we say "when you robbed that store, you did a bad thing", we are really just saying "I experienced a certain emotion called "immorality" when I considered the fact that you robbed that store". This is the emotivism that Ayer advocated, and although I think it is basically true, I still find that as long as we define certain axioms such as "the most ethical action is the one which maximized pleasure in the world" and "an unethical action is one which causes you to feel a certain emotion when you consider that action", we do get rather coherent language that works in its own logical framework. So, I think that the line between amoralism and noncognitivism is not really all that clear.

Yes, that is one of the things that equivocal moral terms can refer in which I do believe (i.e. emotions), but that isn't normative or prescriptive then. To say you feel an unpleasant or off-putting emotion when someone does something such as robbery is descriptive not specially prescriptive.

Ophiocus wrote:

You have all missed the main point of this thread (which I must take some blame for, as I only mentioned it once briefly in a sentence). I am not questioning whether or not we can be held responsible for our actions in a deterministic world.

Rather, I am saying that is is difficult for us to decide which outcomes should be attributed to which actions.

Right now, I exhaled in a certain direction which disturbed the air molecules of Canada a little bit. Over time, I expect that this will contribute to the formation of a deadly hurricane somewhere on the other side of the world, perhaps causing a lot of suffering. It might happen in a few years, or it might happen in a few millenia. Who knows. The problem is that if consequentialism places value on just the consequences, then I would be responsible for everything that happens in the universe after I was born (or at least achieved sentience)! The fact is, I interact with every other body of matter in the universe in some way however slight, so I am the cause of a lot of things.

This is like saying that the natural sciences can establish causal connections to a high degree of probability but because we cannot exclude variables in the human sciences, the human sciences are inexact.Historiography is a case in point.The history writer is more or less an interpreter of what original sources are available for her to interpret. The historiographer also is biased to a greater or lesser extent as to her metahistorical stance. For instance to what extent are great men or to what extent is the natural environment or human nature the cause of change in the human past?

This is why I believe that there is no correspondence between the narratives by which we explain the world and some supposed objectively true world. I personally believe that some narratives, those that are informed by reason, are better than badly informed narratives. The narratives that are informed by reason are not only well judged but have more information fed into them , so that as many contributory causes as are humanly possible to know about are fed into the narrrative that explains the event.

I agree, Belinda. I vaguely recall a satirical short story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges which reached the logical conclusion that every human being who has ever lived is responsible for every moral infringement that has ever occurred and ever will occur.

I find myself bothered that the definition given of consequentialism connotes (at least to me) that a judiciary action per se, based in consequentialist justification, should not itself be fully subject to its own consequentialist tenets.

As an example, I have three liberal friends who fully believe that former president George W. Bush and his vice-president Dick Chaney should be tried and executed for treason. They have carefully demonstrated to me how, given the constitutional definition of treason, these 2 men unequivocally acted as traitors to the U.S. The fact that their intentions were to help the country, not harm it, are seen as irrelevant by these individuals but I find it impossible to believe a U.S. court would think so. I also find it impossible to believe that any due process in a U.S. court would be able to "objectify" specific actions by these men as treasonous, despite an objective (constitutional) definition of treason. I suspect this would be so because the consequences of executing the head of State without proof of malicious intent would set a precedent whose consequences would be forseen as unacceptable. Yet in principle such a consideration should have nothing to do with any such objectification. I feel there is more that needs to be said for a definition of consequentialism.

Poster, what about the power of deterrence when we come to simply selfish or psychopathic criminals? Either the ethical criminal justice system tries to deter purely selfishly motivated would-be criminals or the system deems them to be events in the web of of circumstances like the rest of us. If the former, the punishment is indistinguishable from retribution, if the latter the punishment, if I may still call it punishment, is something like locking them up in reasonable comfort for the safety of the socialised majority.

There will be some who are capable of being socialised, and in any decent criminal justice system this will already be being done.

I agree that we humans are each responsible for each other's errors, either the causes of the errors or the results of the errors or, more likely, both. No man is an island, someone else wrote.

...I believe that there is no correspondence between the narratives by which we explain the world and some supposed objectively true world. I personally believe that some narratives, those that are informed by reason, are better than badly informed narratives. The narratives that are informed by reason are not only well judged but have more information fed into them , so that as many contributory causes as are humanly possible to know about are fed into the narrrative that explains the event.

I do largely agree with belinda's view here. I would just add that the premises or assumptions on which a narrative informed by reason are built can, however, be even more important. These a priori assumptions are not necessarily amenable to reason : not reason. To take an example in Economics I've been studying. The complicated mathematical models by which major investors move in and out of stocks and shares assume the banking system will not collapse. That their own machinations might precipitate such a collapse is not one of the variables they choose to deal with. Before 2008 they were making erroneous assumptions about how the housing market worked. So an elaborate system may be built on 'reason' but at heart be foolish.

Indeed, Poster. By 'reason' I should have said that I include the reason which pertains to the brain work of a whole individual with the social parts of the brain intact. I understand that those are specifically forebrain, and amygdala, although someone who knows more neuroscience than I may well correct me in this factual detail. I also claim that intuition may be correct in its conclusions only when the brain is whole and undamaged.

I'd also say that the reason which assumes that the reasoner is in outer space ,or otherwise elevated beyond the empirical world, is not the better reason. The better reason includes the experimenter, observer, or executive as one of the causes of whatever event is to be predicted. This effect is apparent when a virgin society is being observed(typically participant observation) during anthropological social research. After the first anthropologist has left a footprint,however carefully she treads, the society no longer exists in its original purity.

"Surely, a consequentialist does not want to admit that every action is responsible for all future events after that action takes place; this would be ridiculous" This is not entirely "ridiculous". The observation that energy in any form cannot be detroyed, only converted into differing forms ("conservation of energy"), leads one to the conclusion that indeed, every action (energy) will have an effect (even if it is miniscule) on future events (engergy states). An awareness of this interaction and the possible "consequences" of those future effects, should lead one to a consideration of the effects of each and every action or decision one takes. This, IMHO, should be a guideline to a code of ethical behaviour. The weakness in this argument is evaluating whether the consequences of one's acton are desirable - and to whom???

Indeed, Poster. By 'reason' I should have said that I include the reason which pertains to the brain work of a whole individual with the social parts of the brain intact. I understand that those are specifically forebrain, and amygdala, although someone who knows more neuroscience than I may well correct me in this factual detail. I also claim that intuition may be correct in its conclusions only when the brain is whole and undamaged.

I'd also say that the reason which assumes that the reasoner is in outer space ,or otherwise elevated beyond the empirical world, is not the better reason. The better reason includes the experimenter, observer, or executive as one of the causes of whatever event is to be predicted. This effect is apparent when a virgin society is being observed(typically participant observation) during anthropological social research. After the first anthropologist has left a footprint,however carefully she treads, the society no longer exists in its original purity.

I apologise to McDoodle, to whom I should have addressed my post.

I apologise to McDoodle, to whom I should have addressed my post.

No problem Belinda, no identity crisis ensued