This month, I got to interact with students at a local college, as part of a panel hosted by
The Well
club. Four of us answered questions from students about
the nature and evidence of Christianity. One questioner, the president of the
newly-minted atheist club on campus, engaged in a discussion on morality.
I've maintained that if morality is objective it must be grounded in God.
He said that he held to an objective moral standard based on "ethical
consequentialism." In a separate discussion at a later time, another atheist
also offered consequentialism as a basis for morality.
For those that don't
know,
consequentialism is an ethical system that seeks to root moral values and
duties in the consequences one's actions will produce. In other words, an action
is moral if it produces consequences that are seen as beneficial in some sense.
Utilitarianism is the most well-known version of consequentialism, with
philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill arguing that what is moral
is that which promotes the greatest good for the greatest number. I don't think
any kind of consequentialism works to ground moral values and I want to offer
three initial reasons why.
1. Consequentialism results in immoral
acts being identified as moral
The first thing one should realize is that consequentialism makes the claim
that rightness and wrongness are not found in any action itself, but in the
consequence of the action, that is what the action will produce. So, adultery isn't in
itself wrong, it is wrong only when the result is one that causes adverse
effects, like the harm it causes the offended spouse. But what if a "
Same
Time Next Year" scenario were to present itself? In this film, the
once-a-year tryst not only produces no adverse effects on the marriage the rest
of the time, but each participant actually helps the other through different
emotional trials. In such a case consequentialism would say that their
adultery is the moral thing to do and it would be immoral to withhold this
meeting form either party. Calling adultery moral shows the absurdity of
consequentialism played out consistently.
2. Consequentialism asks too much
Another problematic aspect of consequentialism is the fact that one must
determine one's consequences when performing any action. How are we to do this? Many times,
seeing what the actual consequences of an action are is nearly impossible!
How could one see all the ramifications of a simple lie? Sometimes it amounts to
nothing; other times it can have devastating effects on a third party, perhaps a party whom you
never realized would be privy to the lie at all! And is it reasonable to ask
people to really reflect on every consequence of all their actions or should
they do the right thing for no other reason than it's the right thing to do? If
the consequences in question are not personal but are weighed at a societal
level, the problem becomes even more egregious. No one could possibly know the
outcome their actions would inflict upon an entire culture. Such knowledge would truly require a form of omniscience, but then we're arguing for God.
3. Consequentialism fails because it
assumes what it is supposed to prove
While the two problems above are serious issues with consequentialism as a
workable moral system, the biggest problem is with the understanding of how
consequences benefit either the individual or the society. You see, by
appealing to actions that produce a benefit, the consequentialist has smuggled
in a concept of good and evil to measure against. But you cannot do that
if you are talking about a system that is supposed to define what good and evil
are in the first place.
Consequentialist will say, "We can know what is
good because those things allow humans to survive and flourish." But this
doesn't solve the problem. First, why is it "good" that all of humanity flourish
instead of just the individual? Who says that one should sacrifice one's life
for the sake of the society? Just because I would want someone to feed me when
I'm hungry doesn't mean that I want to go hungry for the sake of someone else.
If I can achieve the first and not the second, I have advanced the good for
myself.
Secondly, where did this idea of advancing "the good" for all
humanity come from? Philosopher
Peter Singer
argues that when we think this way, we are committing a kind of speciesism
and other species hold the same rights as humans. Maybe by allowing humans to
thrive we are denying the cockroach a chance to evolve into the next ruling
species on the planet!
No matter which base point one chooses for "the good"
consequentialism has no way of answering "why that point and not this one over
here?" Instead of defining what is "the good", consequentialism assumes
the good and begins to argue from there. It becomes question-begging! Therefore,
consequentialism can never really be considered a basis for understanding good
and evil. It is simply another subjective viewpoint that doesn't ground right
and wrong, but describes them based on assumptions of the individual espousing
it.
Morality
must be prescriptive if it is to be binding. Consequentialism fails to be
even descriptive, since it cannot ground ultimate concepts such as "the good."
Most consequentialists are moral, but only because they borrow from Christian
ideas, like the inherent worth of persons, in order to begin their calculations of
end results. Thus, consequentialism fails as a basis for true morality.