Talk:Consequentialism

message: I am on the verge of removing the reference to Broome from this article -- I feel that his definition of consequentialism used here is good for general purposes but not within the standards of wikipedia (that is to say that it manages to pull together most, but not all, of what is generally called "consequentialism"). To put it another way: the language of "agent-neutrality" is not obviously used in every consequentialist theory and the concept of teleology seems, at best, poorly used (at least in this particular article -- consequentialism is teleological, but so too is classical deonotology -- c.f. Kant's  Kritik der prakischen Vernunft). Thoughts?
--Ig0774 01:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defining Consequentialism 

message: This definition of consequentialism is shaky.  
How about:
"Consequentialism is the doctrine that says that the right thing to do is whatever will produce the the most intrinsic good."
I was taught this by N. Sturgeon at Cornell, and I like it's robustness.  For example, since it seems to be agreed that utilitarianism is a derivative of consequentialism, perhaps a utilitarian corrollary therefore could be:
"The only thing that is intrinsically good is happiness."  Ergo, a utilitarian could define his doctrine as "The right to do is always to produce as much happiness as possible."
I believe that those are the definintions given by J.S. Mill and H. Sidgwick.  
In the discussion of for whom conseqentialism should benefit, it should be noted that the philosophy of consequentialism does not give special weight to any individual in particular, including the first person.  
There should also be a discussion of how consequentialism is not really a normative doctrine: nothing is absolutely right or wrong, it all depends on the consequences.
:Since this is undated, its hard to know what version of this document you are referring to. However, the definition on the page, while not as easily memorized or quite as good at capturing the thinking behind consequentialism serves the very useful function of breaking it down into parts and thus making the implications of it somewhat more accessible to someone just checking up on it. Ultimately any moral theory is going to hold that right action "produces the most intrinsic good"; what makes consequentialism unique is that it aims at this.
:As for the notion that consequentialism is not normative: what notion of normative are you relying on? I would hold that normativity is the designation of a particular (action/set of actions/lifestyle/etc) as the (appropriate/right/wrong/etc) (action/etc) for that particular situation. In short, something is normative if it is guides our action or our judgement of an action (even if these two are separate). Consequentialism, if it is to have any value whatsoever, must be normative in this sense; i.e. it must provide a guide to moral action and/or moral judgement. If not, it runs into the risk of being tautological: the best action is the action that turns out to be best and not particularly helpful. This, of course, would undermine the value that Mill, Sidgwick, Scheffler, etc. find in consequentialism.
:-Ian 20 Oct 2005
----
the use of the Nicolo Machiavelli quotation, "the ends always justify the means", seems in contradiction with other wikipedia articles on related topics, see Nicolo Machiavelli and The ends justify the means, and List of famous misquotations for examples...this section should either be reworded, or the other articles should be... --Michael Lynn 23:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  more talk 

message: The Definition of Consequentialism given in the first paragraph seems to be too restricting as to what qualifies as a consequentialist theory of morality. A consquentialist theory is primarily consered with weighing the consequences of an action or a certain set of possible actions (usually in a hedonist fashion) to determine one's moral obligation. However, the article as it stands specifies under the definition heading that "Consequentialism is agent-neutral." This is a specific variation of consquentialism known to most as utilitarianism. However, there are alternate formulations such as Altruism which places the need of everyone else in front of the needs of the self. Or alternatively, one could consider a Randian formulation such as Ethical Egoism which considers the need of the self in priority to the needs of others. This change should be made in the article to stipulate as to the broad scope of consequentialsm as a whole (not accounting for what group takes priority). Specific classications and formulations such as the aformentioned could follow in the article.
:Removed the offending Broome reference (yeah, this article does need citations, but of a little more general sort than that). Aside from the whole "agent-neutral" thing, (which pretty clearly is not a general feature of consequentialism) the terminology "Teleology" is confusing, especially since it seems reducible (in the use here) to "the ends justify the means".  I have not read the Broome piece, but according to this, "Other philosophers prefer a broader definition that does not require a moral theory to be agent-neutral in order to be consequentialist (Bennett 1989; Broome 1991, 5-6; and Skorupski 1995)" (emphasis added). I find it strange that Broome should have asserted that Consequentialism is agent-neutral and that it need not be.Ig0774 08:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For clairification: how is altruism, as outlined above, different from agent-neutral consequentialism? As for ethical egoism, as I understand it, this is not quite identical to Randian (Objectivists) egoism, which is usually described as rational egoism. This is a specie of ethical egoism, but the only version of it (one could, for example, hold a "pure" egoism, which ignores the "it is irrational to harm others" claim). Am I wrong on this? Ig0774 03:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forms of consequentialism 

message: The Good article nomination for  has failed
:There is much that is good here, but some one-sentence paragraphs look bad, and also section headings need to be given normal capitalisation - see WP:MOS.  Worldtraveller 12:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Good articles|Good Article]] [[Wikipedia:Good articles/Nominations|nomination]] has failed 

message: Apologies to the random IP address that inserted that eyesore into the Consequentialism entry, but come on. That is so far from being up to Wikipedia's standards--read, NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH (including half-baked essays from your Ethics 300 class)--that its deletion doesn't even merit a point-by-point explanation. Let's just say that it starts with "I believe that consequentialism is an inadequate account of morality" and goes downhill from there. 
I'm not going to start warring with you over it, so if you post it again I'll leave it to somebody else to delete, but as far as I'm concerned, it's vandalism. Figureground 04:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Hey, What Happened To My Cherished ''Conglomerated Review on The Rejection Of Consequentialism''?" 

message: Removed from page - but valuable material - perhaps someone could add it in appropriately. Anarchia 03:02, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Consequentialism and G.E.M. Anscombe

message: Sorry, I meant to actually include a comment referring people to the talk page for my rationale about deleting those two sections. Anyway, just as a basic matter of content, both of these sections seemed aimed at something quite different from the topic of this page and are aimed more at something like theories of value — strictly speaking consequentialism is not a theory of moral value, but a theory about the sort of facts that are relevant to determining the moral value of something. It is possible, if a little bizarre, to imagine a nihilistic consequentialist, someone who believes that the results of an act are the only facts by which we can judge the goodness of the act, but who also holds that the results are neither good nor bad. Aside from that, both sections read as though they had simply been copied and pasted from somewhere else with no real thought as to how it integrated into the rest of the article. 68.228.150.226 22:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nihilism and moral relativism 

message: Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and others actively used “the ends justify the means” principle to justify the Red Terror and later crimes like the Great Purge. It was a cornerstone of all their ideology. Lenin and Trotsky wrote about it.
No mention in the article about Niccolò Machiavelli either...
Andrew 212.48.133.129 (talk) 13:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is there no mention of Lenin and other Bolshevists? 

message: I quote from page 22 of the book "Capitalism and Freedom" by Milton Friedman, who is often characterized as consequentialist libertarian.
A common objection to totalitarian societies is that they regard the end as justifying the means. Taken literally, this objection is clearly illogical. If the end does not justify the means, what does? But this easy answer does not dispose of the objection; it simply shows that the objection is not well put. To deny that the end justifies the means is indirectly to assert that the end is itself the use of the proper means. Desirable or not, any end that can be attained only by the use of bad means must give way to the more basic end of the use of acceptable means.
I agree with Friedman, and therefore think that the sentence in the current article, "In other words, the ends justify the means." is something that is not well put, misleading and inaccurate.
If one is an utilitarian consequentialist, one will consider all the consequences of the means on the society. And if one is an egoist consequentialist, one will consider all the consequences of the means on himself.
I think the sentence "In other words, the ends justify the means." should be deleted.Cosfly (talk) 11:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequentialism takes the end as justifying the means? 

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:BernardWilliams.jpg

message: I find the quote from Basgen & Blunden on the term 'The Ends justifies the Means' to be biased and inappropriate in the 'Definition' section. To define consequentialism simply as the maxim "the ends justify the means" is arguably oversimplifying the matter, but I would not object to that being mentioned as one of the possible definitions. The etymology of the phrase itself, however, is not relevant to a discussion on consequentialism as a philosophy (unless the contributor is alleging that the philosophy of consequentialism itself arose from accusations by Protestants against Jesuits... and to that end, I'm sure there were plenty of groups who objected to their rivals' actions before there even was a Protestantism). The discussion as to the actions of totalitarian socialists is even less relevant, and highly biased. 
If anything, the portion in question belongs in the Criticism section, not the definition, and unless someone raises an objection, I'm inclined to move it there. Prothonotar (talk) 04:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was looking for the article on the history of the expression, "The ends justify the means" and was redirected to this article.  I really think the expression itself deserves its own article. Steve Dufour (talk) 01:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: “Ends justify means” is at best a shorthand, and inaccurate, characterisation of consequentialism. Perhaps it could be mentioned in the definition section, but with some such qualification. The quote that is currently in that section about totalitarianism, etc. is 100% POV and IMHO should be deleted, or mentioned as criticism (with balance) in a criticism section. David Olivier (talk) 06:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

text: I've removed the offending text. I agree with Prothonotar above that the quotation is inappropriate. Not only does "the ends justify the means" not equate to consequentialism without some sort of argument to that affect (and there are certainly certain varieties of consequentialism that are more resistant to such claims). Furthermore, whatever the etymology of the phrase (and, arguably, similar ways of thinking predate Plato), etc., the fact is that the quoted text (rather long for this article) makes no explicit mention of consequentialism as such. It is therefore dubious that the section in question makes any claims relevant to the text. (This could be the case regardless of whether or not the charge is that utilitarianism necessarily implies that the ends always justifies the means; it is perfectly plausible to imagine a type of consequentialism -- indeed, I think hedonistic utilitarianism is one such example -- where the ends do not justify the means, since such a type of consequentialism aims only at a particular class of means. The criticism in the quote given, aiming at Stalinism in particular and totalitarianism in general thus seems off the mark. Feel free to revert with sufficient justification.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.7.65 (talk) 01:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Why the hell am i redirected to this page when I look up "the ends justify the means" when its not even in the article.  This is why i hate wikipedia  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thprfssnl (talk • contribs) 09:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Information about famous quotes and proverbial aphorisms such as this can often be found by searching Wikiquote instead. See Wikiquote:Means and ends, e.g. ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:50, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then the redirect should be to Wikiquote, not to this article which fails to even include any variant on that phrase. Examining the history of one redirect that leads to this article, a merge was proposed back in 2007, but instead of including any material from the latest version of "The ends justify the means", that article was replaced by a redirect -- which was an unsatisfactory result. I guess in this case, someone thought the ends did justify the means, & information about a famous quotation was removed because the statement was felt to be technically incorrect, ethically speaking. -- llywrch (talk) 18:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

text: The phrase "the ends justify the means" is back in the definition again! It should not be equated with consequentialism because the connotation of "the ends justify the means" includes an inappropriate definition of "the ends". For example, one may attempt to justify NSA mass spying programs by saying "the ends justify the means", thinking that "the ends" refers to "preventing acts of terrorism". But the "means" (mass spying) also has its own consequences (more fear of being watched, loss of business to U.S. companies after the truth got out, usage of spying powers for purposes that have nothing to do with terrorism, etc.) When using "the ends justify the means", one pretends that consequences of "the means" are not part of "the ends", which is simply wrong, and I think that's why "the ends justify the means" has a connotation of moral repugnancy. Consequentialism, more maturely, ackowledges the consequences of the means themselves. - David Piepgrass 66.11.82.73 (talk) 01:43, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not a problem, it is qualified as a saying, so a rigorous definition is not applicable. It means a whole lot of different things to different people, mostly Righteousness and Justice though. 96.28.43.27 (talk) 07:27, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Ends justify the means' discussion in the Definition section 

message: The first to write about "Consequentialism and common sense" פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 11:05, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  mention of Mary Midgley" 

message: *"Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue." —Demosthenes c.333 BCE (Olynthiacs; Philippics (1930) as translated by James Herbert Vince, p. 11)
*"Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!" —Demosthenes c.333 BCE (Speech against Philip II of Macedon, in Olynthiacs; Philippics (1930) as translated by James Herbert Vince, p. 99)
How say you, Is this Consequentialism ? 96.28.43.27 (talk) 03:05, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for these wonderful quotes.  Demosthenes got to the heart of the matter in general, and the issues discussed above in earlier talks specifically.  "The end justifies the means" is a legitimate assertion so long as all those affected by the means participate in identifying which ends are significant and accepting both those means and ends as legitimate, necessary, and proper.  Most objections result from ignoring these conditions.  If these conditions of democratic participation prevailed, I think everyone (maybe not Anscombe) would gladly support consequentialism as well as instrumentalism--a closely-related view of the interdependence of means and ends.  That is precisely the form of consequentialism Amartya Sen argued for in Development as Freedom.TBR-qed (talk) 15:21, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demosthenes 

message: I have added John Dewey after posting on the John Dewey page (section 4) his definition of pragmatism which makes explicit its conformity with consequentialism.  I wonder why Demosthenes is not in the list, after reading the quotes 96.28.43,27 posted here recently.  If such a list is indeed useful, it might clarify one's justification for inclusion by posting a quote after each name.TBR-qed (talk) 13:50, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  add John Dewey as notable consequentialist 

message: The intro terminates on "meaning that if a goal is morally important enough, any method of achieving it is acceptable". This is just plain wrong because "any method" covers all sufficient means while the imperative of a goal can strictly justify only necessary means. In general, side-effects of distinct practicable methods sufficient to an identical goal, may determine a preferability between the methods that's independent from the imperativeness of the goal. ﻿Of course an article about a doctrine or family of doctrines can legitimately make absurd assertions if they reflect the doctrine(s), but this shorthand does appear misleading and unrepresentative when reading the details of the article. In summary, "one can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" would make a better common saying capsule than "the ends justify the means". 178.238.175.250 (talk) 08:43, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsensical phrase at end of intro on "ends justify means" 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Demosthenes wasn't really a philosopher or an important consequentialist, as far as I can tell. Can I replace the picture? Two ideas I have for appropriate people are Epicurus (if we want to stick with the Greek theme) and John Stuart Mill. Maybe these two are more associated with utilitarianism specifically, but I think that's the most common form of consequentialism. I'm also interested to hear if any people have other ideas. GranChi (talk) 02:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: 1. Added a proper reference to Karl Popper's "Open Society and Its Enemies"
2. Decision theoretical approach and operationalization of utility mentioned.
3. Chaos theory (unpredictability of consequences of small actions) and its significance in social science setting mentioned in "Criticism" section, as well as the related J. Lenman's article "Consequentialism and Cluelessness".
Isojarv1 (talk) 08:21, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some new improvements 

message: Looking back at the page history, I noticed that consequentialism was merged with Teleological ethics all the way back in 2009. However, I'm pretty confused about why this was done, since the term "teleological ethics" encompasses both consequentialism and virtue ethics (eudaimonism). A quick read of the cited source here makes it pretty clear that "teleological ethics" refers to any ethical theory that defines morally right actions in terms of what a good state of affairs looks like, which includes both theories that focus on the consequences of an action (consequentialism) and theories that focus on the moral character of a person which can be instantiated in an action (virtue ethics). Since this is said very explicitly in the cited source, and since virtue ethics is definitely not a form of consequentialism, I think that the only right way of handling this would be to once again split teleological ethics into a separate page. Thoughts? --Drevolt (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on the strength of the support for this division in various sources, I think I'm going to split boldly. --Drevolt (talk) 03:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reverted this split.  Partly because a split proposal should be given more than 2 hours to reach consensus, partly because of some potential plagiarism issues.  Teleological ethics as it stood before I reverted, was a very close paraphrasing of Teleological ethics at Brittanica.com.  I haven't chased down where this form of words appeared in this article, but suspect it was quite recent.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: So the astonishing similarity to the Brittanica article is not recent at all.  It dates to this edit in 2007 by a single-edit account, which appears to have been a direct dump of the Brittanica article into WP.  Subsequent massaging of some phrases and re-ordering of sentences has obscured the infringement a little, but it would be hard to claim that the form of words here is not plagiarised from Brittanica.  I'm not sure what to do about such old cases.  You might consider a total rewrite of the section, which seems likely to be necessary however this pans out.  Lithopsian (talk) 19:44, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I've escalated since this is above my pay grade.  The section is tagged out for now, probably best to leave it alone until someone acts on that.  Lithopsian (talk) 20:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Total rewrite seems to be the right way to approach this. Thanks for catching the similarities, not sure how I missed that. --Drevolt (talk) 23:30, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Regardless of the quality of the original merge discussion, there was a discussion.  In general, reversing something that was discussed should only be done after more discussion.  No problem, you made the split, I reversed it, and it will be discussed.  Maybe, if anyone else chimes in.  More importantly, the whole section that would become the new article, appears to be derived from copyrighted text.  If that turns out to be true, it will probably disappear into the ether and you'll have to write it again from scratch, in your own words.  If you look at this article now, you'll see the section replaced by a tag explaining the copyright issue.  It would be best to wait until someone deals with that, either deleting it or reinstating the text, before trying to make the split.  Lithopsian (talk) 14:28, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. I'm honestly just surprised that nobody noticed that the section was taken right from copyrighted material for over a decade, that was a great catch on your part. Also, just thought I should note that I'd be willing to spearhead the rewrite if a consensus to split emerges (or to rewrite the plagiarized section if it doesn't). --Drevolt (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Of note, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on ethics notes in passing "Consequentialist theories are sometimes called teleological theories [...]". Additionally, its article on virtue ethics cleanly sets it off from consquentialism saying things such as "Consequentialist theories are outcome-based and Kantian theories are agent-based. Virtue ethics is character-based." It does note that "The importance of this point of eudaimonistic virtue ethics is that it reverses the relationship between virtue and rightness. A utilitarian could accept the value of the virtue of kindness, but only because someone with a kind disposition is likely to bring about consequences that will maximize utility. So the virtue is only justified because of the consequences it brings about. In eudaimonist virtue ethics the virtues are justified because they are constitutive elements of eudaimonia (that is, human flourishing and wellbeing), which is good in itself." which may be what the other source was referring to. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 19:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should the page merge with [[teleological ethics]] be reverted? 

message: State consequentialism is a variety of interpretation for Mohist consequentialism. Ivanhoe first characterizes the Mohists as state consequentialists in his Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation (2000a, 15).  Ivanhoe may have coined both categories.
The article references Chris Fraiser of Stanford. Christ Fraiser started his website in 2002. 
The state consequentialism wikipedia article was made in 2012.
Chris Fraiser discusses Mohist consequentialism, but his 2016 book , The Philosophy of the Mòzĭ: The First Consequentialists.
It presents an alternative interpretation, Dao Consequentialism, represented by Tao Jiang (2021) as the second category of Mohist consequentialism.
Essentially, whoever wrote the section and article was probably legitimately was under the impression that state consequentialism/Mohist consequentialism and the Mohist consequentialism represented on Fraiser's website were talking about the same thing, since Fraiser's website doesn't use the term dao consequentialism, nor was his book published until after the article was made.
State consequentialism is the theory of Ivanhoe.
If I had to guess, It is almost certainly not the theory of Chris Fraiser, who presents a different theory in his book.
I don't know what those views are, I am just autistic and trace lineages in Sinology. I would have to actually read the works in question.
FourLights (talk) 03:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  state consequentialism