"Resisting the Seductive Appeal of Consequentialism"

Robert Noggle

Impartially Optimizing Consequentialism (IOC) is a family of theories that require agents to act so as to bring about the best outcome, as judged by a preference ordering which is impartial among the interests of all agents. Proponents of Impartially Optimizing Consequentialism often suggest that their theory is the only rational response to the recognition that each agent is only one among many agents with an equal moral status. They suggest that agents who adopt less impartial deontological alternatives to IOC fail to take seriously the fact that other persons matter in the same way that one takes oneself to matter. This paper examines this "seductive appeal" on behalf of IOC. It argues that IOC is not in fact the only rational way to recognize the fact that each other person matters morally. The paper presents an alternative conception of how to recognize the fact that other persons are equally beings-who-matter, an alternative that leads in a Kantian rather than a consequentialist direction. Finally, the paper responds briefly to several objections commonly put forward by defenders of IOC against less impartial moral theories.