Thanks for your insight. Yes, the “we simplify this for undergrads” thing seems most plausible to me. I guess my concern is that in this particular case, the simplification from “expected consequences matter” to “consequences matter” might be doing more harm than good.
This could well be true. It’s highly possible that we ought to be teaching this distinction, and teaching the expected-value version when we teach utilitarianism (and maybe some philosophy professors do, I don’t know).
Thanks for your insight. Yes, the “we simplify this for undergrads” thing seems most plausible to me. I guess my concern is that in this particular case, the simplification from “expected consequences matter” to “consequences matter” might be doing more harm than good.
This could well be true. It’s highly possible that we ought to be teaching this distinction, and teaching the expected-value version when we teach utilitarianism (and maybe some philosophy professors do, I don’t know).
Also, here’s a bit in the SEP on actual vs expected consequentialism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/#WhiConActVsExpCon