Of course, the other possibility is that the consequentialist decides that the repugnant action isn’t so repugnant after all and commences torturing children.
For the consequentialist to actually start torturing children for this reason, he would have to know, to a high degree of certainty, that the utility function is maximized by torturing children. It may be that, given that he doesn’t have perfect knowledge, he is incapable of knowing that to the required degree. This would mean that he remains a consequentialist but could not be induced to torture children.
Edit: There’s also the possibility that his decision affects how other people make decisions, which is itself a sort of consequence that has to be weighed. If many of the people around him are deontologists, torturing children may have the side effect of making torturing children more acceptable to the deontologists around him, leading to those deontologists torturing children in cases that have bad consequences.
That you can pick hypothetical conditions where your deontological intuition is satisfied by your “utility function” tells us nothing about the situations where the intuition is in direct conflict with your “utility function”.
Let’s make this simple: if you were certain your utility function was maximized by torturing children, would you do it?
As a side note, the topic seems to be utilitarianism, not consequentialism. The terms are not interchangeable.
For the consequentialist to actually start torturing children for this reason, he would have to know, to a high degree of certainty, that the utility function is maximized by torturing children. It may be that, given that he doesn’t have perfect knowledge, he is incapable of knowing that to the required degree. This would mean that he remains a consequentialist but could not be induced to torture children.
Edit: There’s also the possibility that his decision affects how other people make decisions, which is itself a sort of consequence that has to be weighed. If many of the people around him are deontologists, torturing children may have the side effect of making torturing children more acceptable to the deontologists around him, leading to those deontologists torturing children in cases that have bad consequences.
That you can pick hypothetical conditions where your deontological intuition is satisfied by your “utility function” tells us nothing about the situations where the intuition is in direct conflict with your “utility function”.
Let’s make this simple: if you were certain your utility function was maximized by torturing children, would you do it?
As a side note, the topic seems to be utilitarianism, not consequentialism. The terms are not interchangeable.
I am not Omega. I can’t be “certain”.