PHIL 1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Consequentialism, Homeless Shelter
2 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Often considered to be a moral theory, however we are looking at it as a political theory. It has famous slogans: morally right act/policy= great happiness for greatest number. As a political theory there are 2 major advantages: Its conforms to our intuitions that human well-being matters: and what that matters are our actions or moral laws must be tested by their consequences on human well-being- that is, it is consequentialist. Therefore, defines good and right, bad and wrong by consequences: gay marriage was illegal but people still did it because they still thought it was the right thing to do regardless of consequences. Was advanced late 18th century when the dominant way is when everything was about god"s way of being right, was revolutionary at the time. Okay to lie when increasing good consequences to do so. What makes actions right or wrong is consequences and so we think it matters.
