I think this post is asking questions a lot of people ask, and most of the natural responses are already in the comments.
I’d note that when evaluating a choice or action, a consequentialist should ideally consider all of its effects, throughout the entire future light cone (aka there’s no such thing as an end result, only a succession of intermediate states that ripples out forever). That’s obviously computationally infeasible, but we also aren’t so limited that we have to phrase desires with short sentences that can be so trivially shown are not what we really want.
Beyond that, consequentialism doesn’t tell you what you’re allowed to want. There’s nothing non-consequentialist with a desire being, “No I want to actually climb the mountain, the old fashioned way.” But it does give you a framework from which to say, “Given that I want to climb the mountain, the course of action where you put me up there or give me a feeling or false memory of having climbed up there doesn’t achieve it.” Similarly, there’s nothing non-consequentialist about wanting to play, or wanting to respect others’ desires. You want what you want. Consequentialism evaluates whether a given choice or action gets you more or less of what you want.
I think this post is asking questions a lot of people ask, and most of the natural responses are already in the comments.
I’d note that when evaluating a choice or action, a consequentialist should ideally consider all of its effects, throughout the entire future light cone (aka there’s no such thing as an end result, only a succession of intermediate states that ripples out forever). That’s obviously computationally infeasible, but we also aren’t so limited that we have to phrase desires with short sentences that can be so trivially shown are not what we really want.
Beyond that, consequentialism doesn’t tell you what you’re allowed to want. There’s nothing non-consequentialist with a desire being, “No I want to actually climb the mountain, the old fashioned way.” But it does give you a framework from which to say, “Given that I want to climb the mountain, the course of action where you put me up there or give me a feeling or false memory of having climbed up there doesn’t achieve it.” Similarly, there’s nothing non-consequentialist about wanting to play, or wanting to respect others’ desires. You want what you want. Consequentialism evaluates whether a given choice or action gets you more or less of what you want.