“It's obvious that there are vast variety of consequentialist views, depending on what we think goodness consists in, what our notion of consequence is, and what level (or levels) of human action we think the principle should be applied.” ThinkingShouldHumansActionLevelsViewsPrinciplesGoodnessConsequenceNotionObviousVarietyHuman Actions Author:Dale Jamieson
“Critics of Consequentialism have often assumed that hedonism (or preference-satisfaction) must be the theory of the good, that the deontic principle must be maximizing, and that the principle should be applied to individual acts. Indeed, this version is often called "classical utilitarianism" and attributed to Bentham and sometimes even to Mill. Rather than a "classical" view it is a recent construction foisted on to the tradition.” ShouldSometimesIndividualViewsPrinciplesTheoryTraditionCriticsSatisfactionVersionsConstructionPreferenceMillsHedonismUtilitarianismMaximizingConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“Bentham spent much of his life writing constitutions and proposing legal reform in the light of his utilitarianism. The evaluation of particular acts was hardly his concern. The psychology of his day was hedonistic and he worked in that framework and passed it on to Mill, but it is clear as day that Mill was not a hedonist in the sense in which we use that term today, though he used the language of pleasure and pain to express his views.” WritingUseLightTodayPainUsedLanguageTermPleasureViewsClearPsychologyParticularConcernConstitutionReformFrameworkMillsEvaluationPain And PleasureUtilitarianismHedonisticHedonist Author:Dale Jamieson
“The idea that Bentham and Mill were maximizers is the greatest stretch of all. They were progressivists, committed to improving the societies in which they lived, not utopian maximizers.” IdeasCommittedImprovingMillsUtopian Author:Dale Jamieson
“Progressive Consequentialsm requires us to make the world better but we are under no obligation to bring about the best possible world.” WorldObligationProgressive Author:Dale Jamieson
“In the face of the collective action problems that are at the heart of the environmental crisis, consequentialists should seek to inculcate the "green virtues" which includes the virtue of cooperativeness. This would not bring about the best possible world but it would set us on the path of making it better.” WorldShouldHeartProblemActionFacesVirtuePathCrisisGreenEnvironmentalCollectivesCollective ActionEnvironmental Crisis Author:Dale Jamieson
“Some philosophers think that the idea of a consequentialist virtue theory is strange, but the real strength of consequentialism is that it can emulate the requirements of other moral theories when it is the case that acting on those theories would improve the world.” ThinkingWorldIdeasRealActingMoralCasesVirtueStrangeTheoryPhilosopherRequirementsEmulateReal StrengthConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“What most forms of Consequentialism cannot do is require us to act in such a way as to make the world worse, yet many of the objections to Consequentialism purport to show that Consequentialism requires us to make the world a stinking, bloody mess. The ubiquity of these kinds of arguments shows you just how unseriously many of the critics take Consequentialism.” WorldWayKindShowsFormArgumentCriticsMessBloodyObjectionsUbiquityConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“I take seriously the idea that we are African Apes who (at least for the moment) dominate the planet, but our psychology is pretty much what it was when we were living in small groups on the savanna.” IdeasMomentsPsychologyGroupsPlanetsApesSmall GroupsSavanna Author:Dale Jamieson
“We're good at noticing sudden movements of middle size objects in our immediate visual field, but what is out of sight is for us is largely out of mind.” MindMiddleMovementFieldsObjectsSightSizeVisualsNoticing Author:Dale Jamieson