“You’re responsible for all consequences of your speech” might work as a decision criterion for yourself, but it doesn’t work as a social norm. See this comment, and this post.
In other words, consequentialism doesn’t work as a norm-set, it at best works as a decision rule for choosing among different norm-sets, or as a decision rule for agents already embedded in a social system.
Politeness isn’t really about consequences directly; there are norms about what you’re supposed to say or not say, which don’t directly refer to the consequences of what you say (e.g. it’s still rude to say certain things even if, in fact, no one gets harmed as a result, or the overall consequences are positive). These are implementable as norms, unlike “you are responsible for all consequences of your speech”. (Of course, consideration of consequences is important in designing the politeness norms)
“You’re responsible for all consequences of your speech” might work as a decision criterion for yourself, but it doesn’t work as a social norm. See this comment, and this post.
In other words, consequentialism doesn’t work as a norm-set, it at best works as a decision rule for choosing among different norm-sets, or as a decision rule for agents already embedded in a social system.
Politeness isn’t really about consequences directly; there are norms about what you’re supposed to say or not say, which don’t directly refer to the consequences of what you say (e.g. it’s still rude to say certain things even if, in fact, no one gets harmed as a result, or the overall consequences are positive). These are implementable as norms, unlike “you are responsible for all consequences of your speech”. (Of course, consideration of consequences is important in designing the politeness norms)
[EDIT: I expanded this into a post here]