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What is Consequentialism? A Reply to Howard-Snyder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, wsa@dartmouth.edu
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Abstract

If there is a moral reason for A to do X, and if A cannot do X without doing Y, and if doing Y will enable A to do X, then there is a moral reason for A to do Y. This principle is plausible but mysterious, so it needs to be explained. It can be explained by necessary enabler consequentialism, but not by other consequentialisms or any deontological moral theory. Or so I argue. Frances Howard-Snyder objects that this argument fails to establish consequentialism as understood by ‘most philosophers’, because it fails to establish agent-neutrality. I respond by distinguishing consequentialism, which need not be agent-neutral, from utilitarianism, which claims agent-neutrality. Howard-Snyder also presents a schema for a non-consequentialist theory that is supposed to explain moral substitutability. I respond that her explanation cannot be completed without introducing incoherence into deontological moral theories.

Type
Discussions
Information
Utilitas , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , November 2001 , pp. 342 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 Sinnott-Armstrong, W., ‘An Argument for Consequentialism’, Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 6: Ethics (1992), 399–421Google Scholar. All parenthetical page references above 399 are to this article.

2 I also find means-end reasoning more mysterious than many people realize, but that claim is not necessary for my argument here.

3 For example, McNaughton, David and Rawling, Piers, ‘Agent-Relativity and the Doing-Happening Distinction’, Philosophical Studies, lxiii (1991)Google Scholar; ‘Honoring and Promoting Values’, Ethics, cii (1992)Google Scholar; and Howard-Snyder, Frances, ‘The Heart of Consequentialism’, Philosophical Studies, lxxvi (1994)Google Scholar.

4 Howard-Snyder, Frances, ‘A New Argument for Consequentialism? A Reply to Sinnott-Armstrong’, Analysis, lvi (1996)Google Scholar. All parenthetical page references below 115 are to this article.

5 For example, Blackburn, Simon, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, New York, 1994, p. 77Google Scholar; Gaut, Berys, ‘Consequentialism’, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edn., ed. Audi, R., New York, 1999, p. 176Google Scholar; and Pettit, Philip, ‘Consequentialism’, A Companion to Ethics, ed. Singer, P., Oxford, 1991, p. 232Google Scholar.

6 ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’, Utilitarianism: For and Against, by Smart, J. J. C and Williams, B., Cambridge, 1973CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 This assumption is controversial, but defending it here would take us too far afield, and it is not really necessary for my argument, but only for simplicity of formulation. Notice also that my act of promoting the good is the same as and, hence, not a consequence of my act of paying the oil company. Nonetheless, the good that is promoted can still be a consequence of my act of paying, since that good occurs later than my act.

8 Howard-Snyder formulates the deontological rules in terms of what one should do, whereas my argument is about moral reasons. I will assume that she would use similar formulas to spell out the conditions under which there is a moral reason for an agent to do an act in such theories.

9 This was recognized by Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good, Indianapolis, 1988 [1930], p. 44Google Scholar. Ross argues that one's obligation is not just to do what is necessary to enable one to keep a promise but is rather to fulfil the promise. For example, if I put a cheque in the mail, then I have done everything necessary to enable me to pay my bill. However, if my cheque gets lost in the mail and never arrives, I did not ensure that I would pay my bill, and I did not fulfil my moral obligation. One might respond that, if my cheque arrives, then my act of sending it would be an act of paying my bill, since that is all I did to pay my bill. However, my act of sending the cheque is still not an act of paying the bill when the cheque does not arrive, since then I need to send another cheque, after which I cannot claim to have paid twice or to have fulfilled my obligation twice.