>[!abstract] >Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is simply the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This historically important and still popular theory embodies the basic intuition that what is best or right is whatever makes the world best in the future, because we cannot change the past, so worrying about the past is no more useful than crying over spilled milk. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is probably consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same kind. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2025a). ## Classification Consequentialism is a class of normative, [[Teleology|teleological]] ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics, or deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central, derives the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character of the behavior itself, rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with both virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics, which treats morality like science: advancing collectively as a society over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision. (Wikipedia, 2025b). ## Variants | Variant | Claim | | ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Consequentialism | Whether an act is morally right depends only on consequences (as opposed to the circumstances or the intrinsic nature of the act or anything that happens before the act). | | Actual consequentialism | whether an act is morally right depends only on the actual consequences (as opposed to foreseen, foreseeable, intended, or likely consequences). | | Direct consequentialism | Whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of _that act itself_ (as opposed to the consequences of the agent’s motive, of a rule or practice that covers other acts of the same kind, and so on). | | Evaluative consequentialism | Moral rightness depends only on the _value_ of the consequences (as opposed to non-evaluative features of the consequences). | | Hedonism | The value of the consequences depends only on the _pleasures_ and _pains_ in the consequences (as opposed to other supposed goods, such as freedom, knowledge, life, and so on). | | Maximizing consequentialism | Moral rightness depends only on which consequences are _best_ (as opposed to merely satisfactory or an improvement over the status quo). | | Aggregative consequentialism | Which consequences are best is some function of the values of _parts_ of those consequences (as opposed to rankings of whole worlds or sets of consequences). | | Total consequentialism | Moral rightness depends only on the _total_ net good in the consequences (as opposed to the average net good per person). | | Universal consequentialism | Moral rightness depends on the consequences for _all_ people or sentient beings (as opposed to only the individual agent, members of the individual’s society, present people, or any other limited group). | | Equal consideration | In determining moral rightness, benefits to one person matter _just as much_ as similar benefits to any other person (as opposed to putting more weight on the worse or worst off). | | Agent-neutrality | Whether some consequences are better than others does not depend on whether the consequences are evaluated from the perspective of the agent (as opposed to an observer). | | | | >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): — >- **West** (similar): — >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): [[Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus]]