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Ethics Week 13 Lecture 1

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31 views12 pages

Ethics Week 13 Lecture 1

Uploaded by

shaima
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Consequentialism and Non

Consequentialism Principles
Lecture 1
Week 13
Consequentialism
• Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something
is right by what its consequences are.
• For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie
would help save a person’s life, consequentialism says it’s the right thing to
do.
Cont..
• Two examples of consequentialism are utilitarianism and hedonism.
• Utilitarianism judges consequences by a “greatest good for the greatest
number” standard.
• For example, assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon
receiving organ transplants: a heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy
person wanders into the hospital, his organs could be harvested to save four
lives at the expense of one life. This would arguably produce the greatest
Cont..
• good for the greatest number. But few would consider it an acceptable
course of action, let alone the most ethical one.
Cont..
• Hedonism, on the other hand, says something is “good” if the consequence
produces pleasure or avoids pain.
• For example, If you’ve ever eaten too much candy at one time, you know
how this works. You may enjoy the candy at the time, but soon after you get
a terrible stomachache, and in the long run, your teeth will rot away.
Cont..
• Consequentialism is sometimes criticized because it can be difficult, or even
impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time.
• Indeed, no one can know the future with certainty. Also, in certain situations,
consequentialism can lead to decisions that are objectionable, even though
the consequences are arguably good.
Example 1
• Let’s suppose economists could prove that the world economy would be
stronger, and that most people would be happier, healthier, and wealthier, if
we just enslaved 2% of the population. Although the majority of people
would benefit from this idea, most would never agree to it. However, when
judging the idea solely on its results, as classic consequentialism does, then
“the end justifies the means
Example 2
• A skincare salesman who gets to know that the product of Company X that
he is selling is actually good for skin at initial stage but causes burns after
using it for a few weeks. As a consequentialist he will think about all the pros
and cons of selling that product further but will eventually think that I get
profit in selling these what happens to the skin of customers is none of my
concern all I should do is sell as many products I can and that my role and
my duty towards the company. He will think about all the consequences and
then take a decision which will give him happiness at the end.
Nonconsequentialism
Cont..
• Nonconsequentialism is a type of normative ethical theory that denies that
the rightness or wrongness of our conduct is determined solely by the
goodness or badness of the consequences of our acts or of the rules to
which those acts conform.
• It does not deny that consequences can be a factor in determining the
rightness of an act. It does insist that even when the consequences of two
acts or act-types are the same, one might be wrong and the other right.

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