The Non-Ethical Argument for the Tyranny of Outcomes in Ethics

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 presents the non-ethical argument for consequentialism. Chapters 2 and 3 demonstrated that the ethical arguments for consequentialism fail. But Chapter 4 demonstrates that the conclusions of each of these failed arguments for consequentialism find apparent support from widely held non-ethical premises supplied by mutually reinforcing outcome-centered accounts of reasons, actions, and attitudes. These are the default accounts in the theory of action and the theory of mind, accounts that are embedded in rational choice theory and the Standard Story of action. The chapter demonstrates the pivotal role played by the default account of the contrasting directions of fit characteristic of practical and theoretical attitudes. This contrast supports an outcome-centered account of desires, and hence outcome-centered accounts of the actions that they rationalize and the practical reasons that they supply in providing such rationalizations. Consequentialism is thus grounded outside of ethics, in default accounts in the theory of action and the theory of mind that are taken to have independent support.