Consequentialist Ethics or Consequentialism in the Ethics?

Abstract

The problem of the consequentialism in ethics is the subject of this paper. J. Nida-Rümelin, who is a professor of philosophy in Göttingen, criticizes in his book Critique of Consequentialism the following thesis: one acts in a rational way when one endeavors to achieve the best possible effects. In his opinion this thesis gives expression to the false consequentialist rationality which is often used in ethics. The author notices the following errors of the consequentialist rationality: it disturbs the persons’s integrity and one’s individual rights and excludes the possibility of the so-called coordination. This coordination expresses a possibility of the harmonization the individual action led (guided by) the consequentialist postulate on one hand and of the social action on the other hand (also led by consequentialist postulate).

We may say however that some intuitions of the consequentialist thesis are right. In fact everyone who acts, acts towards a certain effect. It does not mean however that one is obliged to act because one’s action achieves the best possible effects. One ought to act when is faced by the value. It depends upon the value which means should be chosen to reach it. So one calculates the means and not the effects. Moreover, before the calculation of the effects one ought to find out the relationship between the agent and the effects. Not all the effects are intended directly by the agent.