## 1. How Consequentializing Differs from Other Attempts to Reconcile Utilitarianism with Common Moral Opinion



There are at least two ways of trying to modify utilitarianism in the
hopes of reconciling some portion of it with common moral opinion. One
way is to keep its act-consequentialism but trade in its simplistic
ranking of outcomes for a more sophisticated one. Consider, then, that
utilitarianism (which, recall, is short for "Benthamite
utilitarianism") ranks outcomes according to *quantitative
hedonism:* the view that the only things that ultimately matter in
ranking outcomes are the intensities and durations of the pleasures
and pains that they contain. Yet, it seems that many more things
matter, including whether those outcomes are ones in which we violate
people's rights or affect the quality--and not just the
quantity--of their pleasures and pains. And this has led to
theories such as *rights consequentialism* (Sen 1982) and
*qualitative utilitarianism* (Mill 1861), respectively. The
other is to keep utilitarianism's quantitative hedonism but
trade in its act-consequentialism. For instance, whereas Bentham held
that we should evaluate acts in terms of their own utilities, we could
instead evaluate actions in terms of whether they accord with the code
of rules that, if accepted by the vast majority of everyone
everywhere, would produce more hedonic utility than the vast majority
of everyone everywhere accepting some alternative code. And this has
led to theories such as rule-utilitarianism. (Perhaps, there's
even a third way: holding that the outcomes that are to be ranked are
to be individuated not only metaphysically but also presentationally,
such that they themselves can be agent-relative--see N. R. Howard
2022.)



Of course, these different ways of trying to reconcile some portion of
utilitarianism with common moral opinion are not mutually exclusive.
Brad Hooker's (2000) rule-consequentialism not only trades in
utilitarianism's act-consequentialism for rule-consequentialism
but also trades in its simplistic ranking of outcomes for one that
admits that other things besides pleasures and pains matter in the
ranking of outcomes. The result is a moral theory that is very close
to commonsense morality in its deontic verdicts.



But although there may be more than one way of reconciling some
portion of utilitarianism with common moral opinion,
consequentializing involves doing so by revising its method of ranking
outcomes while keeping its act-consequentialism intact. This is
because many (including non-consequentialists) believe that when we
move away from utilitarianism's act-consequentialism, we give up
the very thing that we found most compelling about it in the first
place. For, as Philippa Foot has argued, utilitarianism's



> 
> 
> [act-]consequentialist element is one of the main reasons why
> utilitarianism seems so compelling
> 
> 
> 



as well as the main reason why



> 
> 
> the move to rule utilitarianism seems to be an unsatisfactory answer
> to the problem of reconciling utilitarianism with common moral
> opinion. (1985: 196 & 198)
> 
> 
> 


## 2. Consequentializing Commonsense Deontic Verdicts



As we've seen, one of the main motivations for
consequentializing certain commonsense deontic verdicts is to
reconcile utilitarianism's putatively compelling
act-consequentialism with common moral opinion. This section considers
the various kinds of deontic verdicts that consequentializers have
sought to accommodate and the sorts of moves they have historically
made to do so.



Interestingly, consequentializing seems to go nearly as far back as
act-consequentialism itself (see Hurley 2020: 27). Indeed, it goes at
least as far back as John Stuart Mill's development of
qualitative hedonism in response to the objection that (Benthamite)
utilitarianism is, given its commitment to quantitative hedonism,
"a doctrine worthy only of swine". Mill argued that there
are certain kinds of pleasures (e.g., intellectual pleasures) that
human beings, but not swine, are capable of and that these
"higher" pleasures are qualitatively different than the
"lower", bodily pleasures of which both swine and human
beings are capable--so much so that no quantity of these lower
pleasures could ever be as good as a sufficient quantity of higher
pleasures (1861 [1991: 14-17]).



G. E. Moore (1903) went even further, arguing


1. that pleasure isn't the only intrinsic good,
2. that not all goods are good *for* someone, and
3. that the goodness of a whole needn't equal the sum of the
goodness of its parts taken individually.



And this wholesale rejection of hedonism was, as W. D. Ross pointed
out, a significant development, allowing the act-consequentialist to
account for the fact



> 
> 
> that pleasure is not the only thing in life that we think good in
> itself, that for instance we think the possession of a good character,
> or an intelligent understanding of the world, as good or better. (1930
> [2002: 17])
> 
> 
> 



This move to reject hedonism can take the consequentializer even
further when it's combined with the rejection of
utilitarians' narrow conception of an act's outcome.
Utilitarians tend to think of an act's outcome as consisting
solely in what's causally downstream from the act. For they hold
that hedonic utility is all that matters and that things that are not
causally downstream from the act--things such as whether the act
is an instance of keeping a promise, whether the agent's motive
in performing it was virtuous, and whether there's a victim of
some past injustice who would be compensated by it--don't
themselves affect how much hedonic utility it produces. But
there's no reason why the act-consequentialist can't be
concerned with more than just the causal consequences of an act. And,
so, it's now standard to construe the outcome of an act broadly
to include everything that would be the case if it were performed. (Of
course, if it's indeterminate what would be the case if it were
performed, we would need to switch from talking about the act's
*outcome* to talking about its *prospect*, which is a
probability distribution consisting of all its possible outcomes and
their associated probabilities. But I'll ignore this
complication in what remains.)



Once the act-consequentialist both rejects hedonism and construes an
act's outcome broadly, they can hold that certain types of
actions are intrinsically bad--that, for instance,
"breaking a promise is intrinsically bad" (Ewing 1948:
187). The consequentializer can, then, insist that whatever features
of actions that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to be
intrinsically wrong-making are instead features of outcomes that make
them rank poorly--the idea being that what's most salient
is not whether an act has the property of being a promise-breaking but
whether its outcome has the property of being one in which this
promise-breaking occurs. The consequentializer can thereby accommodate
our intuition that breaking a promise is wrong even if breaking it
would produce just as much hedonic utility as keeping it. It's
wrong because outcomes in which promises are broken are, other things
being equal, worse than those in which they are kept.



But although these moves are significant, they are insufficient to
allow the consequentializer to accommodate other commonsense
intuitions. For commonsense holds that breaking a promise is wrong
even if breaking it would produce just as much good as keeping it
(Ross 1930 [2002: 18]), and the overall goodness of breaking a promise
must take into account whatever intrinsic badness there is in the act
itself. For instance, commonsense holds that it would be wrong, other
things being equal, for Abe to break his promise even to prevent Bert
and Carl from breaking their promises. Yet, clearly, it must, other
things being equal, be better for Abe to break his promise than for
Bert and Carl to break theirs. For even if promise-breakings are
intrinsically bad, two promise-breakings would have to be worse than
just one, other things being equal.



To accommodate such commonsense intuitions, consequentializers have
typically appealed to an evaluator-relative ranking of outcomes, one
where the agent's ranking differs from that of, say, some
bystander (see, e.g., Sen 1983--but see Dougherty 2013 and Setiya
2018 for an approach that doesn't appeal to evaluator
relativism). Whereas the bystander has no good reason to prefer
Abe's breaking his promise to two others' breaking theirs,
Abe has a good reason to prefer two others' breaking their
promises to his breaking his promise in that Abe has a special
responsibility for his own promises, a responsibility that he
doesn't have for ensuring that the others keep theirs. Thus,
given an agent's special responsibility for their own agency,
Abe should rank the outcome in which he keeps his promise and two
others break theirs above the outcome in which he breaks his promise
and two others keep theirs. And, so, the act-consequentialist can
accommodate the intuition that breaking a promise is wrong even if
breaking it would produce just as much good as (or even more good
than) keeping it.



Now, commonsense morality differs from utilitarianism not only in
taking there to be restrictions on performing certain types of
action--such as promise-breakings--even for the sake of
bringing about the overall best outcome (i.e., *agent-centered
restrictions*), but also in taking there to be options either to
bring about the overall best outcome or to refrain from doing so
(i.e., *agent-centered options*). To accommodate the latter,
consequentializers have typically appealed to a dual ranking of
outcomes (see Sider 1993 and Portmore 2011). To illustrate, recall
self/other utilitarianism and imagine that you must choose between (a)
giving your last aspirin to some stranger, alleviating their
*mild* headache, or (b) taking it yourself, alleviating your
*severe* headache. Assuming that everything else is equal,
utilitarianism requires you to take the aspirin yourself, as this will
bring about the overall best outcome: the one with less overall pain.
But, intuitively, you are also permitted to give it to the stranger.
Self/other utilitarianism accommodates this intuition by holding that
the permissibility of actions depends on two different rankings of
their outcomes: one that ranks them in terms of how good they are
overall and another that ranks them in terms of how good they are for
everyone but the agent. More specifically, self/other utilitarianism
holds that an act is permissible if and only if there is no available
alternative whose outcome outranks its outcome on both of these two
rankings. And since taking the aspirin yourself outranks giving it to
the stranger in terms of what's best overall but giving it to
the stranger outranks taking it yourself in terms of what's best
for others, both are permissible.



Unfortunately, however, self/other utilitarianism accommodates only
one of two types of agent-centered options: namely,
*agent-sacrificing options*. Agent-sacrificing options are
options to either maximize the overall good or sacrifice your own
greater interests (and the overall good) for the sake of doing more to
promote the lesser interests of others. But just as important are
*agent-favoring options*. Agent-favoring options are options to
either maximize the overall good or favor promoting your own interests
over promoting the overall good. To illustrate, suppose that you
legally and justifiably possess two tablets of an opioid drug. Now,
given your built-up tolerance to this drug, you would need to take
both tablets to alleviate your moderate pain. But there are two
strangers who are also in moderate pain, and they would each need only
one tablet to alleviate their pain, for they have no built-up
tolerance to this drug. Thus, you can either take both tablets
yourself or give the two strangers one tablet each. And the latter
would be better overall, as it would alleviate twice as much pain.
Nevertheless, it seems that you are permitted to do either, which is
an intuitive verdict that self/other utilitarianism cannot
accommodate.



But, as consequentializers have shown, other act-consequentialist
theories can. One is *Schefflerian utilitarianism* (see
Portmore 2011: 93-7). It holds that an act is permissible if and
only if there is no available alternative whose outcome outranks its
outcome both in terms of utility for others (other than the agent,
that is) and in terms of *egoistically-adjusted* utility, where
egoistically-adjusted utility includes everyone's utility but
adjusts the overall total by giving the agent's utility ten
times the weight of each other's. Schefflerian utilitarianism
implies that you are permitted to either take the two tablets yourself
(as this would produce the most egoistically-adjusted utility) or give
the two strangers one tablet each (as this would produce the most
utility for others). What's more, Schefflerian utilitarianism
allows that in the previous case you can either take the aspirin to
alleviate your own severe headache (as this would produce the most
egoistically-adjusted utility) or give it to the stranger to alleviate
their mild headache (as this would produce the most utility for
others). Thus, Schefflerian utilitarianism is an act-consequentialist
theory that accommodates both agent-favoring options and
agent-sacrificing options. Still, it is a rather simplistic theory,
and one that seems both arbitrary in setting the egoistic multiplier
at ten and *ad hoc* in its appeal to a dual ranking of outcomes
solely as a means to avoiding counterintuitive implications. But
consequentializers have tried to come up with ever more sophisticated
consequentialist theories that seek to address these issues--see,
e.g., Portmore 2011: chaps. 5-6.



There are, of course, other commonsense deontic verdicts that
consequentializers may wish to accommodate as well as other moves they
may need to take to do so. But the above should serve as a brief
history of some of the significant moves that consequentializers have
made.


## 3. Three Motives for, and Types of, Consequentializing



We can consequentialize, but why should we? As we'll see, there
are three different answers, resulting in three distinct types of
consequentializing.


### 3.1 Earnest Consequentializing



We've already seen what is perhaps the original, and most
common, motivation for consequentializing: to avoid
utilitarianism's counterintuitive deontic verdicts while
retaining what's most intuitively compelling about it--its
act-consequentialism (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1477). Following Sergio
Tenenbaum (2014), I'll call those with this motive for
consequentializing *earnest consequentializers*. Earnest
consequentializers (e.g., Sen 1983 and Portmore 2011) give
what's known as *the intuitive argument for
consequentializing* (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1477):


1. On the one hand, there is something intuitively compelling about
utilitarianism: its act-consequentialism.
2. On the other hand, standard versions of non-consequentialism avoid
most, if not all, of the counterintuitive deontic verdicts associated
with utilitarianism. Still, they do so at the cost of abandoning
act-consequentialism.
3. Thus, by consequentializing standard versions of
non-consequentialism, we can produce an act-consequentialist
counterpart theory that retains what's most compelling about
utilitarianism while avoiding most, if not all, of the
counterintuitive deontic verdicts associated with it.
4. And, in doing so, nothing nearly as compelling is lost.
5. Therefore, by consequentializing standard versions of
non-consequentialism, we can produce a theory that's more
intuitively attractive than both utilitarianism and standard versions
of non-consequentialism.



Earnest consequentializing is made possible because theory selection
is underdetermined by the data that our theories seek to explain (see
Duhem 1914 [1954]; Quine 1951 [1953]; and Baumann 2019). To
illustrate, consider two moral theories: *utilitarian theological
voluntarism* and *utilitarian act-consequentialism*. These
two explain the same data set: that all and only acts that maximize
hedonic utility are permissible. However, their explanations are quite
different. Utilitarian theological voluntarism holds that the
explanation lies with the fact that the ultimate right-making feature
of an act is that it accords with God's will along with the fact
(as they see it) that God is perfectly good and, so, wills each of us
to maximize hedonic utility (see Paley 1802). Utilitarian
act-consequentialism, by contrast, holds that the explanation lies
with the fact that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is that
its outcome is not outranked by that of any available alternative
along with the fact (as they see it) that an act's outcome is
not outranked by that of any available alternative if and only if it
maximizes hedonic utility. Thus, the moral data (i.e., the given set
of deontic verdicts) can be explained either in non-consequentialist
terms or in act-consequentialist terms. And, to consequentialize, we
just need to opt for the latter.



The fact that data underdetermines theory selection also makes
*Kantianizing* possible. And, so, just as we can
consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, we can Kantianize a
non-Kantian theory (Hurley 2013; Sachs 2010). For instance, if we
wanted to Kantianize utilitarianism, we need only combine Kantianism
(which, on at least one interpretation, is the view that the ultimate
right-making feature of an act is that it shows the proper respect for
humanity) with the assumption that an act shows the proper respect for
humanity if and only if it maximizes hedonic utility. Indeed, the
point generalizes: for any moral theory *X* that holds that the
ultimate right-making feature of an act is that it is *F*, we
can *X*-ize a non-*X* theory that holds instead that it
is *G* simply by combining *X*'s account of the
ultimate right-maker with the assumption that an act is *F* if
and only if it is *G*. (This will be possible so long as
*F* and *G* are such that it's possible that an
act is *F* if and only if it is *G*.)



We can even *theologically voluntarize* a
non-theological-voluntarist theory such as Kantianism. To do so, we
need only combine theological voluntarism's view that the
ultimate right-making feature of an act is that it accords with
God's will with the assumption that an act accords with
God's will if and only if it shows the proper respect for
humanity. The result is a version of theological voluntarism (viz.,
*Kantian theological voluntarism*) that yields the same set of
deontic verdicts that Kantianism delivers.



But if we can account for the moral data on various types of theories,
why opt to do so in terms of act-consequentialism rather than
non-consequentialism? In other words, why consequentialize rather
than, say, Kantianize? The earnest consequentializer answers that it
is because there is something uniquely compelling about
act-consequentialism (what's often called "the Compelling
Idea") and nothing nearly so compelling about Kantianism or any
other non-consequentialist theory. This claim is, of course,
controversial, but we'll address this controversy both in the
next section and in
 section 4.1
 below.


### 3.2 Notational Consequentializing



Some are motivated to consequentialize out of a desire to establish
both that the consequentialist/non-consequentialist distinction is
unimportant and that there is nothing uniquely compelling about
act-consequentialism (see Dreier 2011 and Louise 2004). Because these
philosophers hold that the act-consequentialist counterpart of a
target non-consequentialist theory is a mere notational variant on
that theory, I'll call them *notational
consequentializers*. They give what's known as the
*assimilation argument for consequentializing* (S. A. Schroeder
2017: 1480):


1. Every plausible non-consequentialist theory has an
act-consequentialist counterpart theory such that the two are
necessarily co-extensive in their deontic verdicts (Dreier 2011:
104-111).
2. If an act-consequentialist theory and a non-consequentialist
theory are necessarily co-extensive in their deontic verdicts, then
they are equivalent in the strong sense of being mere notational
variants of each other, just as the view that the average kinetic
energy of the molecules in a pot of boiling water at one atmosphere of
pressure is 100 degrees Celsius is a mere notational variant of the
view that the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a pot of
boiling water at one atmosphere of pressure is 212 degrees Fahrenheit
(Dreier 2011: 111-115).
3. If every plausible non-consequentialist theory is a mere
notational variant of some extensionally equivalent
act-consequentialist counterpart theory, then the
consequentialism/non-consequentialism distinction is unimportant (and,
indeed, empty), for every plausible moral theory has, then, both an
act-consequentialist notational variant and a non-consequentialist
notational variant (Dreier 2011: 114-115).
4. Thus, the consequentialism/non-consequentialism distinction is
unimportant (and, indeed, empty).



The first two premises are the most controversial. And, so,
we'll examine objections to each of them in
 section 4.2
 and
 section 4.5,
 respectively.



But, for now, let us examine why the notational consequentializer
thinks that the first premise is true. It's because they have
high hopes for what's known as *the Footian Procedure*
(Portmore 2011: 112), a procedure for generating an
act-consequentialist counterpart theory for any plausible target
non-consequentialist theory. To follow this procedure, we simply
combine act-consequentialism's view that an act is permissible
if and only if its outcome is not outranked by that of any available
alternative with the assumption that an act's outcome is not
outranked by that of any available alternative if and only if it is
*F*, where "*F*" stands for whatever feature
of actions that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to be the
ultimate right-maker (e.g., "showing the proper respect for
humanity" in the case of Kantianism). In other words, we
generate a ranking of outcomes as follows: we rank the outcome of
every act that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to be
permissible above the outcome of every available alternative that the
target non-consequentialist theory takes to be impermissible.
What's more, if the target non-consequentialist theory allows
that some acts are morally better than others in that we have more
moral reason to perform them than to perform those others, then we
rank their outcomes above those of the others, and we do so by
whatever degree the target non-consequentialist theory takes them to
be morally better. Because, on this procedure, whether one outcome
outranks another on the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart
theory just depends on whether the act that would produce the one is,
on the target non-consequentialist theory, morally better than the act
that would produce the other, it guarantees that the resulting
act-consequentialist counterpart theory delivers, in every possible
world, the same deontic verdicts that the target non-consequentialist
theory yields.



But this procedure doesn't guarantee that the first premise in
the assimilation argument is true. For it may not always be possible
to employ the Footian Procedure. It won't be possible if the
structural features of the target non-consequentialist theory's
morally-better relation are incompatible with those of
act-consequentialism's ranking of outcomes (see Brown 2011). To
illustrate, suppose that act-consequentialism's ranking of
outcomes must be transitive, whereas the target non-consequentialist
theory's morally-better relation is intransitive. For suppose
that the target non-consequentialist theory holds:


1. that act *A* is morally better than act *B*,
2. that act *B* is morally better than act *C*,
but
3. that act *C* is morally better than act *A*.



In that case, there will be no way to employ the Footian Procedure to
consequentialize this non-consequentialist theory if
act-consequentialism's ranking of outcomes must be
transitive.



In any case, notational consequentializing aims to use the Footian
Procedure, if possible, to demonstrate that every plausible
non-consequentialist theory has an extensionally equivalent
act-consequentialist counterpart theory with the goal of establishing
that, in every instance, the target non-consequentialist theory and
the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory are mere
notational variants of each other. In doing this, the notational
consequentializer hopes to establish that the
consequentialist/non-consequentialist distinction is unimportant (and,
indeed, empty). And this would mean that there is nothing uniquely
compelling about act-consequentialism and, so, no reason (or, at
least, no non-pragmatic reason) for us to consequentialize rather
than, say, Kantianize (cf. Dreier 2011: 115).


### 3.3 Pragmatic Consequentializing



Most recently, some have consequentialized for purely pragmatic
reasons (see Colyvan, Cox, & Steele 2010 and Lazar 2017). For
instance, Seth Lazar tells us:



> 
> 
> My interest in consequentializing is purely instrumental. It allows me
> to represent my moral theory in a way that makes it amenable to
> decision theory. ...Consequentializing [my] deontological moral
> theory allows [me] to apply it to situations with imperfect
> information. It makes deontological decision theory possible. (2017:
> 586-87)
> 
> 
> 



I'll call those with this or some other pragmatic motive for
consequentializing *pragmatic consequentializers*. They give
what's known as *the pragmatic argument for
consequentializing* (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1488). And if we take
the relevant pragmatic motive to be the one that Lazar cites, the
corresponding version of this argument would be as follows:


1. Whereas consequentialist theories are amenable to decision theory,
non-consequentialist theories are not, which gives consequentialist
theories a distinct advantage over non-consequentialist theories when
dealing with imperfect information.
2. But, by consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory, we can
faithfully represent its extension even if we do thereby misrepresent
(or, at least, make opaque) its explanation for that extension
(Colyvan et al. 2010: 523).
3. Thus, if we consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, we can
then apply decision theory to the resultant act-consequentialist
counterpart theory and thereby determine the target
non-consequentialist theory's deontic verdicts in situations
involving imperfect information.



Thus, pragmatic consequentializing aims to consequentialize some
plausible non-consequentialist theory using the Footian Procedure to
come up with an act-consequentialist counterpart that can then be
employed for some practical purpose. For instance, Lazar (2017)
consequentializes the deontic verdicts that his non-consequentialist
theory yields in situations involving perfect information so that he
can then use the tools of decision theory on the resulting
act-consequentialist counterpart to determine what deontic verdicts
his non-consequentialist theory yields in situations involving
imperfect information.



So, for the pragmatic consequentializer, the reason for
consequentializing rather than, say, Kantianizing is that
there's supposedly something unique about act-consequentialism
that makes it amenable to decision theory, which is pragmatically
useful.


## 4. Objections to Consequentializing



Consequentializing has its fair share of detractors. Some deny that
it's possible to consequentialize every plausible
non-consequentialist theory. Others see it as possible but consider it
a mere gimmick. Others, still, take it to be possible and more than a
mere gimmick but find the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart
theories to be explanatorily inadequate. Unfortunately, though, those
leveling such objections haven't always been careful to note
that there are different types of consequentializing and that many of
these objections apply only to certain types. Below, I'll
consider these and other objections to consequentializing as well as
which types of consequentializing are subject to them.


### 4.1 There Is Nothing Uniquely Compelling about Act-Consequentialism



As we've seen, even those who refuse to accept utilitarianism
find that there is, nonetheless, something quite compelling about it:
its act-consequentialism. But what's so compelling about
act-consequentialism? Let's call whatever it is "the
Compelling Idea". For earnest consequentializing to succeed,
this so-called Compelling Idea must be both genuinely compelling and
something that all and only act-consequentialist theories share. Both
claims have been denied. So, let's look at various proposals for
the Compelling Idea and see if any of them are both genuinely
compelling and unique to act-consequentialism.



One proposal is as follows.



*Best Option:* It is always morally permissible for you to
perform your morally best option--that is, the best option in
terms of whatever morally matters (Hurley 2017).



Although this seems to be a genuinely compelling idea (but see
Portmore 2019 for some doubts), it is not at all unique to
act-consequentialism. For, arguably, most, if not all, moral theories
endorse it (Hurley 2017: 40). So, the earnest consequentializer must
look elsewhere. Perhaps, then, the Compelling Idea concerns the best
*outcome* as opposed to the best *option*.



*Best Outcome:* It is always morally permissible for you to
perform the option that would bring about the best outcome (Scheffler
1982 [1994]; Ewing 1948: 188).



Unlike
 *Best Option*,
 this idea is undoubtedly unique to act-consequentialism, but some
argue that it isn't compelling--or, at least, not
uncontroversially so (see Hurley 2017). After all, many find it
intuitive to think that certain types of acts (e.g., breaking a
promise) are wrong even if they bring about the best outcome. For
instance, deontologists believe that there are agent-centered
restrictions that prohibit you from performing certain act-types even
in some situations in which your performing an instance of one of
these act-types would prevent two or more others from each performing
a morally comparable instance of this act-type (see Scheffler 1985:
409). So, as we saw above, even if there's something
intrinsically bad about acts of this type, the outcome in which you
perform an instance of this act-type would, other things being equal,
have to be better than the outcome in which two or more others each
perform a morally comparable instance of this act-type. So, if the
Compelling Idea is to be genuinely compelling even to those who
endorse agent-centered restrictions, it better not appeal to
*the* best outcome. For *the* best outcome is the
outcome with the most good, the good being what's desirable from
a universal point of view rather than what's desirable from the
agent's point of view. And this has led some earnest
consequentializers to appeal instead to the following.



*Best-Relative-to:* It is always morally permissible for you to
perform the option that would bring about the outcome that's
*best-relative-to* you (Sen 1983; Smith 2003).



The problem with this proposal is that the better-relative-to relation
seems to be a purely theoretical notion. In which case, it would be
impossible for us to have any pre-theoretical grasp on claims
involving it, such as
 *Best-Relative-to*
 (M. Schroeder 2007). And if that's right, then
*Best-Relative-to* cannot be something that we find
compelling--at least, not pre-theoretically. Of course, some
believe that we can avoid this worry by defending, via a certain
conception of the good, the idea that what's best-relative-to
someone is just what that someone has most reason to desire (see,
e.g., Smith 2003). Others, though, have sought to avoid the
controversy by instead appealing to the following.



*Most Reason to Desire:* It is always morally permissible for
you to perform the option that would bring about the outcome that you
have most reason to desire--or, in other words, the outcome that
you ought, or that it is fitting for you, to prefer to every available
alternative (Portmore 2007).



One advantage of this proposal is that it explains why utilitarianism
and ethical egoism



> 
> 
> have something deep in common that is the source of their common
> appeal, as demonstrated by Sidgwick [1907]. (M. Schroeder 2007:
> 290)
> 
> 
> 



For the two theories share a commitment to
 *Most Reason to Desire*
 in that they are both act-consequentialist theories, broadly
construed. That is, they both hold that whether an agent ought to
perform an act is determined solely by whether that agent ought to
prefer its outcome to those of the available alternatives. It's
just that whereas the ethical egoist holds that agents ought always to
prefer that they themselves have more hedonic utility, the utilitarian
holds that agents ought always to prefer that there is more hedonic
utility overall.



*Most Reason to Desire*
 also seems to be what Philippa Foot (1985) had in mind. Foot
said,



> 
> 
> What is it...that is so compelling about [act-]consequentialism?
> It is, I think, the rather simple thought that it can never be right
> to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better. It is this thought
> that haunts us. (1985: 198)
> 
> 
> 



But, of course, act-consequentialism is not a theory about what it is
right to *prefer*, but rather a theory about what it is right
to *do*. Nevertheless, we can charitably interpret Foot as
assuming that the Compelling Idea is
 *Most Reason to Desire*.
 This idea in conjunction with her claim that it can never be right to
prefer a worse state of affairs to a better one entails the thought
that it is always morally permissible to bring about the best outcome,
and this is the thought that she sought to debunk by arguing that we
have no grasp of the notion of the best outcome except as the outcome
most favored by benevolence from among those actions permitted by
justice. The problem, though, is that Foot is wrong about its never
being right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better one. For,
as Jamie Dreier has pointed out,



> 
> 
> it is perfectly intelligible and pretty plausible that it is fitting
> for me to prefer, say, the safety of my children to the safety of
> yours, and for you conversely to prefer your children's safety
> to mine. (2011: 101)
> 
> 
> 



So, even if we should accept Foot's assumption that
 *Most Reason to Desire*
 is the Compelling Idea, we should reject her assumption that it can
never be right to prefer a worse outcome to a better outcome. After
all, the outcome in which my less gifted child is saved is, other
things being equal, worse than the one in which your more gifted child
is saved (that is, it should, other things being equal, be
dispreferred from a universal point of view), but I should,
nevertheless, prefer it from my own point of view.



Although
 *Most Reason to Desire*
 is quite compelling, it is not unique to act-consequentialism. For it
turns out that consequentializing is a double-edged sword in that it
can just as easily be employed to render non-consequentialism
compatible with *Most Reason to Desire* as it can be used to
render act-consequentialism compatible with commonsense deontic
verdicts (Sachs 2010). For in showing that there is a ranking of
outcomes that renders act-consequentialism compatible with some
non-consequentialist theory's deontic verdicts, the
consequentializer also shows that there is a ranking of outcomes (the
very same one) that renders this non-consequentialist theory
compatible with *Most Reason to Desire*. As Benjamin Sachs
points out,



> 
> 
> all the non-consequentialist has to do in order to make her theory
> compatible with the Compelling Idea is accept the fruits of the
> consequentialist's labor. (2010: 261)
> 
> 
> 



But although this works so long as we hold that the Compelling Idea is
something like
 *Most Reason to Desire*,
 it doesn't work if we think that the Compelling Idea includes a
claim about what, on act-consequentialism, *grounds* the
deontic statuses of actions. Consider that Sachs's objection
rests on the assumption that the best version of non-consequentialism
is compatible with the Compelling Idea if the best version of
act-consequentialism is compatible with the Compelling Idea. And, as
even he admits, this assumption holds only if the Compelling Idea
doesn't include a claim about what, on act-consequentialism,
grounds the deontic statuses of actions (Sachs 2010: 266-9). So,
if the earnest consequentializer wants to avoid Sachs's
objection, they need only to adopt something like the following
proposal.



*Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses:* An
act's deontic status is grounded in the agent's reasons
for preferring its outcome to those of the available alternatives.
Consequently, it is always morally permissible for an agent to perform
the option that would bring about the outcome that they ought (or that
it is fitting for them) to prefer to every available alternative
(Portmore 2011: 5).



Like
 *Most Reason to Desire*,
 this proposal has the advantage of accounting for the thought that
the Compelling Idea is something that both utilitarianism and ethical
egoism hold in common. What's more, it seems quite attractive to
many--or, at least, to those who accept a teleological conception
of action. On this conception, actions are attempts to affect how the
world goes. And, thus, whenever one acts intentionally, one acts with
the aim of making the world go a certain way. The aim needn't be
anything having to do with the causal consequences of the act. The aim
could be nothing more than to perform the act in question. One could,
for instance, run merely with the aim of running. But the fact remains
that, for every intentional action, there is some end at which the
agent aims. Thus, it's natural to suppose that the reasons for
performing an action derive from the reasons for desiring the ends
that it would achieve. And, so, one has most reason to act in whatever
way will make the world go as one ought to prefer that it goes (see
Mill 1861 [1991]: Ch. 1; Portmore 2019: 262-3; Thomson 2003: 8;
Wood 2017: 266). After all, wouldn't it be odd to think that one
isn't permitted to do what would best achieve the aims that one
ought to want to achieve? In any case, given
 *Most Reason to Desire*'s
 inclusion of the claim that an act's deontic status is grounded
in the agent's reasons for preferring its outcome to those of
the available alternatives (which earnest consequentializers take to
be definitive of act-consequentialism), it is at least unique to
act-consequentialism.



So, if
 *Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses*
 is indeed compelling, then there is something uniquely compelling
about act-consequentialism. And, in that case, the earnest
consequentializer is off and running. But, some--such as Paul
Hurley (2018)--deny that it is compelling. But even if he is
correct, this poses no problem for either notational
consequentializers or pragmatic consequentializers, for neither
insists on there being something uniquely compelling about
act-consequentialism. So, this would be a worry for only earnest
consequentializers.


### 4.2 Some Key Features of Commonsense Morality Cannot Be Consequentialized



Some argue that it's not possible to consequentialize every
plausible non-consequentialist theory (see, e.g., Brown 2011). As
we'll see below, their being correct would be a problem for both
notional consequentializers and pragmatic consequentializers, but not
necessarily for earnest consequentializers.



Both the notational consequentializer and the pragmatic
consequentializer are committed to what's known as *the
Extensional Equivalence Thesis*: for every plausible
non-consequentialist theory, there is an act-consequentialist
counterpart theory that yields, in every possible world, the same set
of deontic verdicts that it yields (Dreier 2011: 98). The notational
consequentializer is committed to this, for it is just the first
premise in their assimilation argument for consequentializing. And the
pragmatic consequentializer is committed to this, for the second
premise in their pragmatic argument for consequentializing assumes
that, in consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory, we can
faithfully represent its extension.



Nevertheless, the Extensional Equivalence Thesis is controversial. For
instance, Campbell Brown (2011) has argued that the consequentializer
cannot accommodate prohibition dilemmas: situations in which every
available act is impermissible. Now, whenever there are certain
deontic verdicts that the act-consequentialist supposedly cannot
accommodate, there are two options for proponents of the Extensional
Equivalence Thesis. One option is to concede that the
act-consequentialist cannot accommodate such verdicts but argue that
any non-consequentialist theory that includes such verdicts is
implausible. This is what Dreier does concerning prohibition dilemmas
(see Dreier 2011: 105-6). The other option is to argue that,
despite appearances, there's a way for the act-consequentialist
to accommodate these deontic verdicts. Some argue, for instance, that
the consequentialist can accommodate prohibition dilemmas by adopting
a cyclic ranking of outcomes (Peterson 2010: 158). Thus, if the target
non-consequentialist theory holds that all three of an agent's
options--say, *A*, *B*, and *C*--are
impermissible, then the consequentialist can just adopt a ranking
where *A*'s outcome outranks *B*'s outcome,
*B*'s outcome outranks *C*'s outcome, and
*C*'s outcome outranks *A*'s outcome. Since
each outcome is outranked by that of some available alternative, each
available act is impermissible. But, of course, this assumes, as noted
above, that the act-consequentialist can adopt an intransitive ranking
of outcomes, which Brown contests.



Whereas pragmatic consequentializing and notational consequentializing
will succeed only if the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart
theory yields the same set of deontic verdicts that the target
non-consequentialist theory yields, earnest consequentializing can
succeed even without such perfect coextension (cf. Tenenbaum 2014:
233). After all, the success of earnest consequentializing requires
only that the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory is
better overall than both utilitarianism and standard versions of
non-consequentialism; it doesn't require that it can yield all
the same deontic verdicts that any plausible non-consequentialist
theory can. Given the earnest consequentializer's goal of coming
up with an act-consequentialist theory that is more intuitively
compelling than both utilitarianism and standard versions of
non-consequentialism, they eschew the Footian Procedure. For although
employing the Footian Procedure ensures that the resulting
act-consequentialist counterpart theory will be perfectly co-extensive
with the target non-consequentialist theory, it doesn't
guarantee that it will be more intuitively compelling than that
non-consequentialist theory. For it could be that the
act-consequentialist would have to accept some very implausible
rankings of outcomes to ensure its perfect co-extension with the
target non-consequentialist theory. And, as we'll see below,
this is indeed what some philosophers have argued (e.g., Emet 2010 and
C. Howard 2021).



In any case, the earnest consequentializer adopts a different
procedure for consequentializing: what's known as *the
Coherentist Procedure* (Portmore 2011: 113). On this procedure, we
don't just adopt whatever ranking of outcomes is necessary to
ensure that the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory will
be perfectly co-extensive with the target non-consequentialist theory.
Instead, we hold constant the idea that one act is morally better than
another if and only if its outcome outranks that of the other while
revising, in light of each other and in light of our various
background beliefs, both our pre-theoretical judgments about whether
one outcome outranks another and our pre-theoretical judgments about
whether the act that produces the one is morally better than the act
that produces the other. And we do this until we reach wide reflective
equilibrium--a state in which we have arrived at an acceptable
coherence among our entire set of beliefs (see Daniels 2003 [2020]).
And it may be that, to reach wide reflective equilibrium, we must
reject some of the target non-consequentialist theory's deontic
verdicts rather than adopt the ranking of outcomes needed to
consequentialize them.



Admittedly, no one has pre-theoretical judgments about the ranking of
outcomes in the abstract. But these are *evaluative* rankings,
and arguably such evaluative rankings concern what the agent ought (or
what it is fitting for the agent) to desire/prefer (see Portmore 2011:
59-62 and 112-114). Hence, the earnest consequentializer
holds that the judgment that one outcome outranks another is just the
judgment that the agent ought (or that it is fitting for the agent) to
prefer the one to the other. And we clearly have judgments both about
which outcomes an agent ought to prefer and about which outcome it
would be fitting for them to prefer--but I'll talk only of
what they ought to prefer in the remainder. Many would, for instance,
judge both that, if my child has fallen into the sea, I ought to
prefer that she does not drown and that, if Sergio can rescue only one
of two groups of people drowning, I ought to prefer that Sergio
rescues the group that includes my child even if the other group is
somewhat larger. And these judgments seem to be independent of our
judgment about what Sergio ought to do, for we may judge that,
although Sergio ought to save the larger group, I ought, nevertheless,
to prefer that Sergio saves the smaller group--that being the
group that includes my child. And, in some instances, the Coherentist
Procedure may call for revising such pre-theoretical judgments. For
suppose that the target non-consequentialist theory holds that my
turning in my daughter to police is morally better than my refraining
from doing so but our pre-theoretical judgment is that I ought to
prefer the outcome in which I refrain from turning her in to the
outcome in which I turn her in. In that case, the act-consequentialist
counterpart theory must either deny that my turning her in is morally
better than my not doing so (and, thus, give up being perfectly
co-extensive with the target non-consequentialist theory) or reject
the intuitive judgment that I ought to prefer the outcome in which I
refrain from turning her in to the outcome in which I turn her in.
But, even so, it could be that the resulting act-consequentialist
counterpart theory is more intuitively plausible than both
utilitarianism and standard versions of non-consequentialism.



But even if the earnest consequentializer doesn't need to
accommodate every deontic verdict that every plausible
non-consequentialist theory can accommodate, they do need to
consequentialize a good number of them. Moreover, they need to do so
without sacrificing whatever the Compelling Idea is. And whether they
can do that depends on what the Compelling Idea is. To illustrate,
suppose that we take the Compelling Idea to be
 *Best Outcome*.
 Since the best outcome is the outcome that's best from what
Sidgwick (1907) described as "the point of view of the
universe", it seems that we must abandon this idea if we want to
consequentialize certain deontic verdicts, such as those stemming from
agent-centered restrictions (but see Dougherty 2013; N. R. Howard
2022; and Setiya 2018 for a contrary position). And this is why many
earnest consequentializers reject
 *Best Outcome*
 in favor of
 *Best-Relative-to*,
 *Most Reason to Desire*, or
 *Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses*.


### 4.3 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Gimmicky



Some philosophers claim that consequentializing a target
non-consequentialist theory results in a gimmicky act-consequentialist
counterpart theory--and, thus, one that's implausible (see,
e.g., Nozick 1974: 29). And, admittedly, the resulting
act-consequentialist counterpart theory can seem gimmicky when we
arrive at it via the Footian Procedure. In that case, the
consequentializer just takes whatever features of actions that the
target non-consequentialist theory holds to be intrinsically
wrong-making and insists that they are instead features of outcomes
that make them rank poorly. So, if the non-consequentialist theory
holds that an act's being a promise-breaking is, other things
being equal, what makes it wrong, the consequentializer will hold
instead that an outcome's including a promise-breaking is, other
things being equal, what makes it rank lower than one that
doesn't. And this move can seem *ad hoc*.



But the fact that the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart
theories are gimmicky (and, thus, *ad hoc*) is no objection to
either notational consequentializing or pragmatic consequentializing.
Such consequentializers will readily concede that these resulting
theories are gimmicky. The notational consequentializer will argue
that all extensionally equivalent theories are gimmicky
representations of each other in that they are all just arbitrarily
different notational variants on the same moral view. So, the fact
that consequentializing produces gimmicky act-consequentialist
counterpart theories is no objection to notational consequentializing.
And it's no objection to pragmatic consequentializing either.
The pragmatic consequentializer is happy to admit not only that the
resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theories are gimmicky but
also that they are, consequently, implausible. For pragmatic
consequentializers reject the resulting act-consequentialist
counterpart theories that they construct merely for certain pragmatic
purposes.



Of course, things are different for the earnest consequentializer. It
would be a problem if they produced an act-consequentialist
counterpart theory that was gimmicky. But, arguably, the result of
earnest consequentializing isn't gimmicky given that it employs
the Coherentist Procedure rather than the Footian Procedure. Of
course, when the earnest consequentializer accommodates, say, our
intuition that it's wrong for Abe to break his promise even to
prevent both Bert and Carl from breaking theirs, they do so by
insisting that Abe ought to prefer the outcome in which he keeps his
promise and Bert and Carl break theirs to the outcome in which he
breaks his promise and Bert and Carl keep theirs. But the motivation
for this move isn't the *ad hoc* one that making it
allows them to accommodate this intuition. Instead, the earnest
consequentializer motivates this move on independent grounds: agents
bear a special responsibility for their own agency and, thus, for
their own promises. Thus, an agent should, other things being equal,
blame themselves more harshly for breaking one of their own promises
than for letting two others each break one of theirs. And this
motivation should appeal even to non-consequentialists. For
non-consequentialists, such as Bernard Williams, have powerfully
argued that agents have a special responsibility for their own
actions, a responsibility that they don't bear for what they
allow others to do. In any case, this thought that agent's bear
a special responsibility for their own agency can motivate the earnest
consequentializer's claim that agents should prefer, other
things being equal, the outcome in which two others violate an
agent-centered restriction to the outcome in which they themselves
violate that restriction--see Otsuka 2011: 42; Portmore 2011:
100-103; and Williams 1973: 93-100. And, so, there
needn't be anything gimmicky about the way in which the earnest
consequentializer motivates these sorts of moves in accommodating our
commonsense moral intuitions.



So, on the one hand, it's clear that both notational
consequentializing and pragmatic consequentializing produce gimmicky
act-consequentialist counterpart theories by employing the Footian
Procedure but unclear why this should be objectionable. On the other
hand, it's clear that it would be objectionable for the earnest
consequentializer to produce a gimmicky act-consequentialist
counterpart theory but unclear why we should think that they would
given that they employ the Coherentist Procedure rather than the
Footian Procedure.


### 4.4 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Explanatorily Inadequate



Even if the act-consequentialist counterpart theories that earnest
consequentializers produce aren't gimmicky, they could be
objectionable for other reasons. Indeed, some argue that they are
explanatorily inadequate. For whereas many earnest consequentializers
adopt
 *Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses*
 and, so, hold that the deontic statuses of actions are grounded in
the reasons that agents have for preferring (or dispreferring) the
outcomes in which they are performed, others believe that it's
the other way around. As they see it, these act-consequentialist
counterpart theories invert the true explanatory direction. For
whereas the earnest consequentializer holds that the impermissibility
of Abe's breaking his promise is grounded in the fact that he
ought to prefer the outcome in which he keeps it, they believe instead
that Abe's reason for preferring the outcome in which he keeps
it is grounded in the fact that it's impermissible for him to
break it. And precursors of this objection go as far back as E. F.
Carritt (1928: 72-3) and W. D. Ross (1939: 289), both of whom
argued that even if we think that promise-breakings are bad, we should
think this only because it's wrong to break a promise. And, so,
the wrongness of promise-breakings explains their badness, not the
other way around, as the act-consequentialist might suppose.



Earnest consequentializers retort that it's actually
non-consequentialists who invert the true order of explanation. They
argue that the deontic statuses of actions are grounded in reasons for
performing them and that it's more plausible to think that
reasons for actions are grounded in reasons for preferring their
outcomes than vice versa (see, e.g., Portmore 2011: chap. 3,
especially 78-82).



More recently, however, Stephen Emet (2010) and Christopher Howard
(2021) have argued that act-consequentialist counterpart theories are
explanatorily inadequate for a different reason. They argue that, in
taking the Compelling Idea to be something such as
 *Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses*,
 the earnest consequentializer is forced to give up a plausible
rationale for certain deontic verdicts. Take, for instance, the
deontic verdict that it would be wrong for you to kill even in a
situation in which the mafia has credibly threatened to kill five
innocent strangers unless you kill a sixth (C. Howard 2021: 728).
Howard claims that, in providing a rationale for this verdict, the
earnest consequentializer must eschew the plausible view that it lies
with the fact that your potential victim has the kind of value that
calls for your not treating them as a mere means and must instead
embrace the implausible view that it lies with the fact that you, the
agent, ought to have a self-centered, and self-indulgent, preference
for keeping your own hands clean. He argues that since your reasons
for refraining from treating your potential victim as a mere means



> 
> 
> have their source in the value of [your potential victim],
> ...they're reasons...[that] don't derive
> from...[your] reasons for preferring some outcomes to others.
> (2021: 749)
> 
> 
> 



But this reasoning is fallacious. From the fact that *A*
ultimately derives from (and, thus, has its source in) *C*, it
doesn't follow that *A* doesn't derive from
*B*. For it could be that *A* derives from *B*,
which in turn derives from *C*.



Act-consequentialists are committed to the evaluative rankings of
outcomes being explanatorily prior to the deontic statuses of the
actions that produce them, but they're not committed to the
evaluative rankings of outcomes being explanatory prior to the deontic
statuses of attitudes, such as the attitude of respect towards
ends-in-themselves. Given this, earnest consequentializers can argue
that there's nothing that precludes them from holding either
that persons are ends-in-themselves who are owed respect or that this
fact is explanatorily prior to the evaluative rankings of outcomes.
That is, earnest consequentializers can argue that you have a duty to
respect persons and that this duty gives rise to a duty to prefer that
you not treat them as a mere means--even as a mere means to that
of preventing the mafia from killing five others. What's more,
given this duty to prefer the outcome in which you refrain from
killing the one to the outcome in which you kill the one as a mere
means to preventing the mafia from killing the five, the former
outranks the latter from your evaluative position. And this, given
act-consequentialism, explains the impermissibility of your killing
the one to prevent the five from being killed by the mafia. Thus, the
earnest consequentializer hopes to consequentialize the deontic
verdict that it's wrong for you to kill the one even to prevent
the mafia from killing the five without giving up the plausible
thought that the rationale for this *ultimately* lies with your
would-be victim and their value as an end-in-themself (see Portmore
forthcoming and Portmore 2019: 235-7).



Now, one may object that if someone concedes that the rationale for
the impermissibility of your killing the one to prevent the five from
being killed by the mafia ultimately lies with your would-be victim
and their value as an end-in-themself, then they thereby commit
themself to Kantianism as opposed to act-consequentialism. But earnest
consequentializers argue that this is a mistake. They believe that the
difference between Kantianism and act-consequentialism is that whereas
the former holds that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is
that it shows the proper respect for humanity, the latter holds that
the ultimate right-making feature of an act is instead that its
outcome is not outranked by that of any available alternative. Thus,
the act-consequentialist can hold that what determines whether one
outcome is outranked by another is anything other than the deontic
statuses of the acts that produce them. So, they can even hold that
what determines whether the one outranks the other is whether the
agent treats someone who is an end-in-themself as a mere means in the
one but not the other.



As the earnest consequentializer sees things, moral theories are to be
differentiated by what they take the ultimate right- and wrong-making
features of actions to be, not by what they take the ultimate
rationale for an act's being right or wrong to be. To
illustrate, consider utilitarian theological voluntarism again. It
holds both that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is that it
accords with God's will and that God is perfectly good and, so,
wills each of us to maximize the good, which they take to be hedonic
utility. In their view, the ultimate rationale for an act's
being obligatory is that it produces the best outcome. For they hold
that an act's outcome being best is what explains why God (being
perfectly good) wills the agent to perform it. And God's willing
the agent to perform it, in turn, explains why it's obligatory.
But, as earnest consequentializers see things, this doesn't make
the view act-consequentialist. Indeed, they see it as a rival to
act-consequentialism given that it holds that the ultimate
right-making feature of an act is that it accords with God's
will, not that its outcome is not outranked by that of any available
alternative. And this does seem to be a significant difference. For if
the theological voluntarist were to be convinced that, in fact, God
isn't perfectly good and even wills us to torture children for
fun, they would be forced to concede that it would be right to do so.
By contrast, the act-consequentialist's view of what's
right is independent of their view on what God wills. Given this,
earnest consequentializers think that we should conclude that a theory
that holds that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is that
its outcome is not outranked by that of any available alternative is
act-consequentialist even if it holds that the rationale for the
wrongness of your killing the one to prevent the mafia from killing
the five ultimately lies with your would-be victim and their value as
an end-in-themself.



There is, of course, more to be said on this topic of explanatory
adequacy, including whether the earnest consequentializer can give a
plausible explanation for the idea that it's sometimes wrong to
violate an agent-centered constraint even to minimize one's own
violations of that constraint--see, e.g., Brook 1991; Kamm 1996;
Lopez et al. 2009; Otsuka 2011; and Portmore forthcoming. Still, the
above should give the reader a sense of why non-consequentialists
might find act-consequentialist counterpart theories to be
explanatorily inadequate and how the earnest consequentializer might
reply to such worries.


### 4.5 "Has an Outcome that Outranks Every Available Alternative" Isn't Equivalent to "Ought to Be Performed"



This last objection applies only to notational consequentializers. As
we saw above, notational consequentializers accept two controversial
assumptions: the first two premises of their assimilation argument. We
already considered their defense of the first premise in
 section 4.2.
 And now it's time to see how they defend the second premise:
the assumption that if an act-consequentialist theory and a
non-consequentialist theory are necessarily co-extensive in their
deontic verdicts, then they are equivalent in the strong sense of
being mere notational variants of each other.



Before we get to this defense, though, it's important to get
clear on what the assumption is. It's that just as we can refer
to the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a pot of boiling
water at one atmosphere of pressure using either the metric expression
"100 degrees Celsius" or some equivalent non-metric
expression such as "212 degrees Fahrenheit", we can refer
to what makes an act one that ought to be performed using either the
consequentialist expression "has an outcome that outranks every
available alternative" or some putatively equivalent
non-consequentialist expression such as "is necessary to show
the proper respect for humanity". The thought, then, is that
what matters is only what Dreier calls the "active
ingredients", not the expressions that we use to label them.
And, in the case of what makes a pot of water boiling, the active
ingredient is the average kinetic energy of the water's
molecules, whereas, in the case of what makes an act one that ought to
be performed, it is, according to Dreier, the features of its outcome
(which includes the act itself) that contribute to its deontic
status--see Dreier 2011: 114.



Now, one way of defending this underlying thought is to claim, as A.
C. Ewing did, that "the good" just means "what ought
to be brought into existence, other things being equal" (1939:
8). But, on this view, a non-consequentialist who claims that it can
be wrong to bring into existence what's best is just misusing
the word "best". And this may seem too quick.



Dreier is less quick. He claims only that insofar as we have some
pre-theoretical notion of a good outcome,



> 
> 
> its specific content is too weak and thin for it to come apart from
> the notion of what we are to choose. (Dreier 2011: 115)
> 
> 
> 



Thus,



> 
> 
> Dreier's idea (following Foot) is that we don't have a
> concept of goodness (applied to outcomes) that is independent of
> thoughts about what we ought to do. (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1482)
> 
> 
> 



For, as Dreier sees it, the notion of an act whose outcome outranks
every available alternative cannot come apart from the notion of an
act that ought to be performed.



One reason to doubt this, however, is that whereas some theories hold
that whether an agent ought to perform an act just depends on whether
*its outcome* outranks every available alternative, other
theories hold that it depends instead on whether *the outcome of
the best option in which the agent performs it* outranks every
available alternative. Thus, an act whose outcome outranks every
available alternative needn't be one that ought to be performed,
contrary to Dreier's assertions. To illustrate, consider the
following example from Frank Jackson:



> 
> 
> Wonderful things will happen if I raise both my arms at some given
> time *t*. OK things will happen if I raise neither arm at
> *t*, and also if I raise my right arm but not my left arm at
> *t*. Dreadful things will happen if I raise my left arm but not
> my right arm at *t*. If I raise my left arm at *t*, I
> will not raise my right arm at *t*. I am completely free to
> raise or not to raise either of my arms at *t*. Let's
> suppose that all the foregoing is known for certain by me at the time
> in question. (2014: 645)
> 
> 
> 



According to some theorists, I ought not to raise my left arm at
*t*, because the outcome of my raising my left arm at
*t* is outranked by that of an available alternative: that of
my raising neither arm at *t*. These theorists include both
*omnists* and *actualists*--see Portmore 2019 and
Timmerman & Cohen 2019 [2020], respectively. Given that I will not
raise my right arm at *t* if I raise my left arm at *t*,
dreadful things will happen if I raise my left arm at *t*. But
OK things will happen if I instead either raise neither arm at
*t* or raise only my right arm at *t*. So, these
theorists hold that I should not raise my left arm at *t*.



But other theorists hold that I ought to raise my left arm at
*t*, because although its outcome is outranked by that of
refraining from raising my left arm at *t*, the outcome of the
best option in which I raise my left arm at *t*--that is,
the option in which I raise both my arms at *t*--outranks
every available alternative. These theorists include both
*maximalists* and *possibilists*--see Portmore 2019
and Timmerman & Cohen 2019 [2020], respectively. After all,
wonderful things will happen if I raise both my arms at *t*.
And I have no option where something better than wonderful things
would happen. So, I ought to raise both my arms at *t*. And
since this entails raising my left arm at *t*, I ought to raise
my left arm at *t*.



This suggests, contrary to Dreier's assertions, that the notion
of an act whose outcome outranks every available alternative can come
apart from the notion of an act that ought to be performed. For these
two types of theorists agree that the outcome of my raising my left
arm at *t* (the outcome in which dreadful things happen) is
outranked by that of my raising neither arm at *t* (the outcome
in which OK things happen). And they agree that the outcome of my
raising both my arms at *t* (the outcome in which wonderful
things happen) outranks those of every available alternative. But
despite their agreeing on how all the outcomes rank, they disagree on
whether I ought to perform the option of raising my left arm at
*t*. In other words, the two theories agree on how to rank all
the available outcomes but disagree on whether the act whose outcome
outranks every available alternative must always be the one that ought
to be performed--see Nair 2020. Thus, the two theories disagree
on what the active ingredients are and not just on how to label them.
For whereas omnists (and actualists) hold that the active ingredient
in making an act one that ought to be performed is that *its
outcome* outranks every available alternative (as Dreier
assertions entail), maximalists (and possibilists) hold that it is
instead that *the outcome of the best option in which the agent
performs it* outranks every available alternative. Of course,
Dreier could try to argue that these two types of theories are somehow
equivalent, but, as Shyam Nair points out, doing so would involve
uncharitably insisting that one of them accepts a very implausible
claim about how to rank outcomes--see his 2020. Unfortunately,
Nair's argument is too long and complex to summarize here. But
the reader should at least have a sense of this objection and how it
might be rebutted.


## 5. Conclusion



As Campbell Brown (2011) has noted, arguing with an
act-consequentialist can be frustrating. You describe some
action--say, your killing one innocent person to prevent the
mafia from killing five other innocent people. And then you claim that
although your doing this would clearly be wrong, the outcome in which
you do this is one that you should prefer to (and, thus, one that
outranks) the outcome in which you don't do this. You conclude,
therefore, that act-consequentialism is false: an act can be wrong
even though its outcome is not outranked by that of any available
alternative. But the act-consequentialist retorts that, to reach this
conclusion, you had to presuppose a particular account of how outcomes
rank, one that the act-consequentialist needn't accept. So, you
were wrong to conclude that act-consequentialism is false. All that
you've shown is that a certain version of act-consequentialism
is false. But we already knew that act-consequentialism yields
counterintuitive deontic verdicts when combined with certain
assumptions about how outcomes rank. We learned that long ago by
studying the implications of utilitarianism.



Note, then, that arguing against act-consequentialism is a complex
task. You can't test it in isolation from various background
assumptions. Instead, you must evaluate it along with various
background assumptions, including assumptions not only about how to
rank outcomes but also about the nature of actions and the reasons for
performing them.



This entry suggests that evaluating the merits of consequentializing
is similarly complex. First, there's no consequentializing
*tout court*, but only three different types of
consequentializing. Objections that apply to one don't
necessarily apply to the others. Second, each type of
consequentializing has a different motivation. So, there's no
way to assess whether consequentializing is, in general, unmotivated.
We can assess only whether a particular type of consequentializing is
unmotivated. And, in the case of earnest consequentializing, this is
further complicated by the fact that earnest consequentializers offer
different motivations for different moves--e.g., the idea that we
have a special responsibility for our own agency as a motivation for
why agents should prefer that others rather than themselves violate
agent-centered restrictions. Third, there are two different procedures
for consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory. And this means
that we can't just assess whether, in general,
consequentializing produces a gimmicky theory. We must instead look at
whether either of these two procedures produces a gimmicky theory.