Consequences Of Act Consequentialism

Act consequentialism supports the idea that actions are made right or wrong based solely on their consequences. This means that a person would look to the consequences of a certain action to determine whether or not that action is right or wrong. A ‘right’ action would be one that leads to the best results where as a ‘wrong’ action would be one with less than ideal consequences. According to this basic theory, one would always choose the ‘right’ action because it leads to the most favorable consequences. Though this theory can sound appealing, I do not agree fully that actions are determined solely based on consequences. I think that everyone has their own set of moral ethics or values and these can affect whether or not a person sees a particular action as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. One definition of
act consequentialism found in our notes is the following: “an action is required just because it produces the best results (2012:119).” According to this definition, it is one’s duty to perform a certain action if it has the best overall results.
I think that it is difficult to determine what constitutes the ‘best’ results and that this may vary depending on the person making the decision. Another problem I have with act consequentialism is that particular actions may have ‘favorable’ consequences, but does that make them ethically (or morally) correct? I do not think that it does all of the time so I do not agree that actions are determined to be right or wrong solely because of their consequences. Utilitarianism claims that everyone shares a common intrinsic value of happiness and that because this is seen as the most important value in life, we should try to maximize
the happiness in the world. According to utilitarianism our actions are determined to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ according to the amount of happiness (or pleasure) they provide. This means that actions should be made based on the greater good even if this means there is a sacrifice for minority happiness. I think that this is a difficult idea to understand because people value happiness and evaluate what makes them happy in different ways. It is hard to quantify a qualitative characteristic such as happiness. One person’s idea of an action that would bring happiness might not actually bring happiness to the people that it affects. Also, like I mentioned above in reference to act consequentialism, I think that it is hard to base actions on what you think will bring happiness (or the ‘best’ results) to other people because you may not know what brings them happiness. I think that morally it is questionable as to whether it is alright for minority happiness to suffer for the ‘greater good’. I think that it is tricky to determine whether or not this is a moral concept because according to utilitarianism it is morally correct to act in a way that brings higher levels of happiness to the greater amount of people. I do not think that this is the best way to decide if an action is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ therefore I have a hard time justifying that it is morally acceptable to base one’s actions on what is seen as the greater good (because I think that people may disagree over what is actually the greater good).