We will draw on the discussions of ‘ethical foundations’ in chapters to come as we now turn more to normative issues. In this and the following two chapters, we will review the three most influential theories of moral philosophy. These will inevitably be succinct as our aim is simply to equip ourselves with the basic tools necessary for the debates in applied ethics that follow. These chapters will therefore introduce the key dimensions and ideas of each theory, outline their main strengths and weaknesses and indicate what each contributes to applied ethics. Nothing systematic will be said about addressing social problems and social policy per se until Chapter Five.

The basics of consequentialism

Consequentialism states that what makes an action good or bad depends on the effects that action engenders (Sen and Williams, 1982; Pettit, 1993; Darwall, 2003a). There is something intuitively satisfying about this, for who can deny that consequences are important? Yet in its ‘pure’ form, consequentialism insists that the intention of the person who acts is irrelevant; if I make a hoax phone call that sends a fire engine to a building where, entirely coincidentally, a fire has just broken out, my action was good because it minimised the damage that would have resulted. The intentional nature of the act is also irrelevant to purists; if my lying to you makes you happy, because you believe the deception, that lie cannot be intrinsically immoral. It cannot be intrinsically anything, since actions are moral or immoral only to the extent that they serve non-moral values – happiness in this example.

An immediate objection, therefore, is that consequentialism empties morality of the moral actor. If good or bad motives are beside the point, I act morally or otherwise depending on how effective I am at weighing consequences. Bentham (2000, Ch 4), most obviously, thought of morality at least partly as a calculus. And because effects depend on a vast confluence of factors, sheer luck intervenes at every stage of human activity. On trial for assaulting a blind woman, I am acquitted by the Court of Consequentialism when the blow she received suddenly restores her sight. Can the im/morality of an action be similarly dependent on unanticipated contingencies? Might I in the long term be justified in smashing a vial of smallpox in Times Square because the reduced population may promote environmental sustainability a century from now?