Consequentialism, Cluelessness, Clumsiness, and Counterfactuals

Alan Hajek (Australian National University)

Abstract:

According to objective consequentialism, a morally right action is one that has the best consequences. (These are not just the immediate consequences of the actions, but the long-term consequences, perhaps until the end of history.) I will argue that on one understanding this makes no sense, and on another understanding, it has a startling metaphysical presupposition concerning counterfactuals. Objective consequentialism has faced various objections, including the problem of “cluelessness”: we have no idea what most of the consequences of our actions will be. I think that on these understandings, objective consequentialism has a far worse problem: its very foundations are highly dubious. Even granting these foundations, a worse problem than cluelessness remains, which I call “clumsiness”. Moreover, I think that these problems quickly generalise to a number of other moral theories. But the point is most easily made for objective consequentialism, so I will focus largely on it.

I will consider three ways that objective consequentialism might be improved:

1. Appeal instead to short-term consequences of actions;
2. Understand consequences with objective probabilities;
3. Understand consequences with subjective/evidential probabilities.

But even here, there be dragons.

Chaired by David Sosa (UT Austin).