Consequentialism Quotes

A recent canvass of professional philosophers found the percentage of respondents who "accept or leans toward" various positions. On normative ethics, the results were deontology 25.9%; consequentialism 23.6%; virtue ethics 18.2%. On metaethics, results were moral realism 56.4%; moral anti-realism 27.7%. On moral judgment: cognitivism 65.7%; non-cognitivism 17.0% (Bourget and Chalmers 2009). ~ Nick Bostrom

Until this century, most of mankind lived in small communities. What each did could affect only a few others. But conditions have now changed. Each of us can now, in countless ways, affect countless other people. We can have real though small effects on thousands or millions of people. When these effects are widely dispersed, they may be either trivial, or imperceptible. It now makes a great difference whether we continue to believe that we cannot have greatly harmed or benefited others unless there are people with obvious grounds for resentment or gratitude. ~ Derek Parfit

What now matters most is how we respond to various risks to the survival of humanity. We are creating some of these risks, and discovering how we could respond to these and other risks. If we reduce these risks, and humanity survives the next few centuries, our descendants or successors could end these risks by spreading through this galaxy.

Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche's words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea.

If we are the only rational beings in the Universe, as some recent evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the Universe exists. ~ Derek Parfit

It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones. To inform a traveler respecting the place of his ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of land-marks and direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish. And this, as long as foresight is a human quality, it is to be presumed they will continue to do. Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate principles to apply it by: the impossibility of doing without them, being common to all systems, can afford no argument against any one in particular: but gravely to argue as if no such secondary principles could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now, and always ~ John Stuart Mill

We have a special name, here, for a certain kind of failure to defer to the greater good - for putting a personal sense of doing right above any objective measure of the outcome. It's called 'moral vanity'. ~ Greg Egan

What is the difference between Utilitarianism and Communitarianism? Let me explain to you based on my modest and humblest understanding by using an analogy of Ham Sandwich and Egg Sandwich. To prepare and serve a Ham Sandwich, a poor pig's life must be sacrificed to serve the majority of the consumers - that is Utilitarianism. To serve an Egg Sandwich, on the other hand, a cheerful hen must dutifully lay an egg every day to serve the majority of the consumers - that is Communitarianism. In utilitarianism, the means is not important, as long as it produces the beneficial result (consequentialism) for the majority, then it is ethically and morally justifiable. It does not matter if you bomb the enemy's innocent women and children, so long as it maims the enemy's capability to retaliate, then your act is defensible for the greater good of your country. In communitarianism, however, individual life and individual contribution to the community are both important. As long as you continue laying eggs willingly and happily, you contribute to the common good of the community as a dependable and responsible hen, I mean, individual. (Danny Castillones Sillada, Inusara Journal, October 8, 2016). ~ Danny Castillones Sillada

No morally imperfect human being(s), born into "the double darkness of sin and ignorance" could ever qualify for the position of Master Utilitarian Manipulator that Consequentialism needs to be put into practice. ~ John C. Wright