Writing down costs and benefits is clearly an application of consequentialism ethics.
No, because “costs” and “benefits” are value-laden terms.
Suppose I am facing a standard moral dilemma; should I give my brother proper funerary rites, even though the city’s ruler has forbidden it. So I take your advice and write down costs and benefits. Costs—breaching my duty to obey the law, punishment for me, possible reigniting of the city’s civil war. Benefits—upholding my duty to my family, proper funeral rites for my brother, restored honour. By writing this down I haven’t committed to any ethical system, all I’ve done is clarify what’s at stake. For example, if I’m a deontologist, perhaps this helps clarify that it comes down to duty to the law versus duty to my family. If I’m a virtue ethicist, perhaps this shows it’s about whether I want to be the kind of person who is loyal to their family above tawdry concerns of politics, or the kind of person who is willing to put their city above petty personal concerns. This even works if I’m just an egoist with no ethics; is the suffering of being imprisoned in a cave greater or less than the suffering I’ll experience knowing my brother’s corpse is being eaten by crows?
Ironically, the only person this doesn’t help is the utilitarian, because he has absolutely no way of comparing the costs and the benefits—“maximise utility” is a slogan, not a procedure.
What are you arguing here? First you argue that “just maximize utility” is not enough to make a decision. This is of course true, since utilitarianism is not a fully specified theory. There are many different utilitarian systems of ethics, just as there are many different deontological ethics and many different egoist ethics.
Second you are arguing that working out the costs and benefits is not an indicator of consequentialism. Perhaps this is not perfectly true, but if you follow these arguments to their conclusion then basically nothing is an indicator of any ethical system. Writing a list of costs and benefits, as these terms are usually understood, focuses one’s attention on the consequences of the action rather than the reasons for the action (as the virtue ethicists care about) or the rules mandating or forbidding an action (as the deontologists care about). Yes, the users of different ethical theories can use pretty much any tool to help them decide, but some tools are more useful for some theories because they push your thinking into the directions that theory considers relevant.
No, because “costs” and “benefits” are value-laden terms.
Suppose I am facing a standard moral dilemma; should I give my brother proper funerary rites, even though the city’s ruler has forbidden it. So I take your advice and write down costs and benefits. Costs—breaching my duty to obey the law, punishment for me, possible reigniting of the city’s civil war. Benefits—upholding my duty to my family, proper funeral rites for my brother, restored honour. By writing this down I haven’t committed to any ethical system, all I’ve done is clarify what’s at stake. For example, if I’m a deontologist, perhaps this helps clarify that it comes down to duty to the law versus duty to my family. If I’m a virtue ethicist, perhaps this shows it’s about whether I want to be the kind of person who is loyal to their family above tawdry concerns of politics, or the kind of person who is willing to put their city above petty personal concerns. This even works if I’m just an egoist with no ethics; is the suffering of being imprisoned in a cave greater or less than the suffering I’ll experience knowing my brother’s corpse is being eaten by crows?
Ironically, the only person this doesn’t help is the utilitarian, because he has absolutely no way of comparing the costs and the benefits—“maximise utility” is a slogan, not a procedure.
What are you arguing here? First you argue that “just maximize utility” is not enough to make a decision. This is of course true, since utilitarianism is not a fully specified theory. There are many different utilitarian systems of ethics, just as there are many different deontological ethics and many different egoist ethics.
Second you are arguing that working out the costs and benefits is not an indicator of consequentialism. Perhaps this is not perfectly true, but if you follow these arguments to their conclusion then basically nothing is an indicator of any ethical system. Writing a list of costs and benefits, as these terms are usually understood, focuses one’s attention on the consequences of the action rather than the reasons for the action (as the virtue ethicists care about) or the rules mandating or forbidding an action (as the deontologists care about). Yes, the users of different ethical theories can use pretty much any tool to help them decide, but some tools are more useful for some theories because they push your thinking into the directions that theory considers relevant.
Are you arguing anything else?