It helps drawing a broad distinction between two kinds of demandingness objections to consequentialism. The first deals with the difficulty of reaching judgements about the consequences of moral acts themselves, and the second with the costs involved in performing them.
Any calculation about the consequences of an action, especially beyond the obviously direct ones, is wasteful of time and effort. Calculating all the consequences in most cases is not only hard but practically intractable. Actions can have second order effects, which in turn can have further knock on effects, and so on, resulting in a chain of events whose end as well as individual links are impossible to discern. Judgements about even the most immediate consequences by an agent are usually warped by cognitive biases; an agent might give undue weight to things which are most pressing or mentally accessible. Not only are consequences themselves hard to calculate, but it is also very difficult to ascertain which state of affairs is directly attributable to my act when it is overlain with similar such acts by other agents. And what about consequences of alternative course of actions, which themselves depend on many unknown factors, including alternative choices by other agents? Surely, requiring any such mental exercise even in the most mild form from an agent before he makes an action is asking too much. <Mackie Page. 156>
The second class of demandingness objections is that consequentialism more-often-than-not requires us to perform acts that we would normally consider optional. Consequentialism rests on a denial of the Act-Omission distinction. Since only the end consequences or state of affairs matter, there is no moral distinction between causing an by performing an action as opposed to causing the same end by omitting to perform an action. So consequentialists would maintain that not helping a victim of a road accident in front of you is morally the same as harming the victim by causing the accident in the first place. It is not merely praiseworthy to help the accident; it is morally obligatory. So is donating funds to natural disaster victims located thousands a mile away, if it in your power to do so. The critics also maintain that consequentialism often requires us to sacrifice our individual desires and interests for the maximisation of the greater good, whether this good is pleasure or fairness or some other such criteria. I would be required to sacrifice my own happiness as a moral obligation, if this makes the majority happy. A non-egoistic nature is required of consequentialist actions almost as a necessity.
However, these objections stem from a confusion between a subjective view of reality and an objective one. Consequentialism presents a perspective-free conception of reality, one which is impersonal and universal. One can imagine the ‘moral oughts’ delivered by it as one adopted by the hypothetical figure of an impartial benevolent spectator who doesn’t occupy the perspective of any real individual. [Pg. 85 Benns]. It does not accommodate ‘the separateness of persons’ [Pg85, 7]. Yet this is not a criticism. Our morality has both a personal character as well as a universal one. It is neither strictly solipsistic nor strictly objective. Our rational world consists of both ‘agent-neutral’ reasons, those which do not involve any reference to the person to whom it applies, and ‘agent-relative’ reasons, which belong to particular agents, their circumstances and contexts. Consequentialism is valuable in that it informs our decisions and provides us with ‘agent-neutral’ reasons. Since the an individual is not perspective-free and has reasons which are ‘agent-relative’, it would be morally justified, even rational, to not adopt a consequentialist perspective. In this light, consequentialism is not demanding at all.
Consider the criticisms against the difficulty of incorporating consequentialism into every decision making. Most of these disappear when we consider that consequentialism isn’t meant to be a decision procedure, but an objective standard of rightness for moral claims. It would be a mistake if agents accepted a commitment to regularly and directly evaluate acts in purely consequentialist terms. A person can be a consequentialist, i.e., promote the greatest good in the long run, without adhering to a calculating and alienating procedure. Indeed, a person might even be doing something what might be seen as wrong from an objective point of view and yet practically advancing consequentialist ends. This is highlighted by Peter Railton in Paradox of Hedonism, “Adopting as one’s exclusive ultimate end in life the pursuit of maximum happiness may well prevent one from having certain experiences or engaging in certain sorts of relationships or commitments that are among the greatest sources of happiness”. (Pg. 100, Scheffer) Thus, it might be consequentialism’s recommendation to not behave as a consequentialist at all.
For most parts, this applies to the second class of objections as well. From impartial, impersonal reference point, there is no distinct between an act and an omission as long as they lead to the same end. But from an agent’s viewpoint, notions of integrity, guilt and responsibility are important. At the same time, an agent also constantly changes gears from a personal viewpoint to an impersonal one. Both perspectives play a role in decision making. Consequentialism is simultaneously informative and not demanding.
So if we do not strictly impose on our psyches consequentialist demands, how do they inform and guide our morality? One positive way consequentialist strictures can help is by nudging our social and political arrangements towards objective scientific standards, keeping a room for individual thought and liberty. Peter Railton provides an example. Consider a society where disaster strikes, and people from all over are morally obliged to provide aid. While it would be demanding on individual people to make a special effort, an adequate system of publicly financed disaster relief would do just the job with placing any psychological demands. Consequentialism thus helps by providing a moral standard, a moral end against which we can use to judge our individual actions and shape a collective response.
20 October 2014