Eliezer is usually viewed as a Utilitarian, which would make him a consequentialist. His point in that article seems to be an acknowledgement that because human thinking is so prone to self-justification, deontology has its merits. Which I thought related to your point on caring about intentions as well as effects.
Rather the opposite. Utilitarianism cares about outcomes, so to first order it doesn’t factor intentions in at all. Of course, if someone intends to harm me, somehow fails and instead unintentionally does me good, while I haven’t been harmed yet, I do have a reasonable concern that they might try again, perhaps more successfully next time. So intentions matter under Utilitarianism to the extent that they can be used to predict the probabilities of outcomes. Plus of course to the extent that they hurt feelings or cause concern, and those are actual emotional harms.
Eliezer is usually viewed as a Utilitarian, which would make him a consequentialist. His point in that article seems to be an acknowledgement that because human thinking is so prone to self-justification, deontology has its merits. Which I thought related to your point on caring about intentions as well as effects.
It’s not a given that utilitarianism involves caring about intentions.
Rather the opposite. Utilitarianism cares about outcomes, so to first order it doesn’t factor intentions in at all. Of course, if someone intends to harm me, somehow fails and instead unintentionally does me good, while I haven’t been harmed yet, I do have a reasonable concern that they might try again, perhaps more successfully next time. So intentions matter under Utilitarianism to the extent that they can be used to predict the probabilities of outcomes. Plus of course to the extent that they hurt feelings or cause concern, and those are actual emotional harms.