Broadening Consequentialism for Environmental and Medical Ethics

Abstract

Utilitarianism has the strength of taking into account all the foreseeable consequences of actions, but the weakness of heeding only their impacts on subjective states such as happiness and unhappiness. This omits many impacts of positive and negative value for human beings, let alone non-humans. Thus it fails to take into account the value of people’s lives developing in accordance with their autonomous wishes, one of the emphases of modern medical ethics. John Stuart Mill wrote as if autonomy and happiness co-incided, people being the best judges of where their happiness lies. But there is no guarantee of this coincidence. The omission of autonomy also points to the omission within utilitarianism of the value of the fulfilment of people’s capacities, insofar as these are central to their humanity. Ignoring the value of fulfilled capacities suggests that people are living well if their lives are pleasant but many central capacities are underdeveloped, whether through lack of education, of encouragement, or of love and care. Nor should subjective states be prioritised as favoured by utilitarianism, for happiness is compatible with a stunted life, and unhappiness with one fulfilled in most but not all respects. Thus a broader value-theory is needed than that of utilitarianism, including the fulfilment of capacities central to one’s inherited nature. This brings in the flourishing of non-human creatures as well as of humans. The capacity of captured wild animals to function in the wild is, on this basis, of significant value, even if the fulfilment of reflective capacities has greater value. Moral standing should be seen as attaching to whatever has a good of its own, and thus of whatever is alive [1]. The range of ethical concern extends to future creatures, as well as current ones, and all the foreseeable impacts of current actions and policies should be taken into account when decisions are being made. This already helps show how consequentialism may comprise an acceptable environmental ethic. Some philosophers, however, maintain that wholes such as ecosystems and species are valuable and are not yet taken into account. However, both ecosystems and species can be understood as composed of their living members, present and future, and the good of all of these in recognised by the broadened consequentialism just presented. Ecosystems also include non-living components, but there is no need (or point) in ascribing intrinsic value to these. Ecosystems, including their non-living components, are of great importance, but their importance is instrumental to the lives and the flourishing of their living members. As ecosystems, they lack a good of their own, partly because they have no clear boundaries and criteria of identity, and partly because they lack inherited capacities by reference to which their good could be appraised. Species, understood as populations, include both their present and future members, the flourishing of all of which counts within broad consequentialism. They can alternatively be construed as abstractions, but have no value as such. Thus broad consequentialism omits nothing of value, and potentially comprises an acceptable environmental ethic.