I don’t know about criticism, but the problem disappears once you start taking into account counterfactuals and the expected impact/utility of actions. Assuming the killer is in any way competent, then in expectation the killers actions are a net negative, because when you integrate over all possible worlds, his actions tend to get people killed, even if that’s not how things turned out in this world. Likewise, the person who knowingly and voluntarily saves lives is going to generally succeed in expectation. Thus the person who willingly saves lives is acting more “moral” regardless of how things actually turn out.
This gets more murky when agents are anti-rational, and act in opposition to their preferences, even in expectation.
because when you integrate over all possible worlds, his actions tend to get people killed, v
I have never heard of a version of consequentialism that explictly says that consequences include non-actual possibilities. The idea seems to coincide with virtue theory in a way that is a bit suspicious. Virtue ethics make it very easy to make judgements about agents, since that is what it is all about. Consequentialism has difficulty , because of moral luck. But is judging an agent by their propensity-to-produce-desirable-consequences really different from judging them by their virtue … or is it just a misleading re-naming of virtue?
I think virtue ethics and the “policy consequentialism” I’m gesturing at are different moral frameworks that will under the right circumstances make the same prescriptions. As I understand it, one assigns moral worth to outcomes, and the actions it prescribes are determined updatelessly. Whereas the other assigns moral worth to specific policies/policy classes implemented by agents, without looking at the consequences of those policies.
I don’t know about criticism, but the problem disappears once you start taking into account counterfactuals and the expected impact/utility of actions. Assuming the killer is in any way competent, then in expectation the killers actions are a net negative, because when you integrate over all possible worlds, his actions tend to get people killed, even if that’s not how things turned out in this world. Likewise, the person who knowingly and voluntarily saves lives is going to generally succeed in expectation. Thus the person who willingly saves lives is acting more “moral” regardless of how things actually turn out.
This gets more murky when agents are anti-rational, and act in opposition to their preferences, even in expectation.
I have never heard of a version of consequentialism that explictly says that consequences include non-actual possibilities. The idea seems to coincide with virtue theory in a way that is a bit suspicious. Virtue ethics make it very easy to make judgements about agents, since that is what it is all about. Consequentialism has difficulty , because of moral luck. But is judging an agent by their propensity-to-produce-desirable-consequences really different from judging them by their virtue … or is it just a misleading re-naming of virtue?
I think virtue ethics and the “policy consequentialism” I’m gesturing at are different moral frameworks that will under the right circumstances make the same prescriptions. As I understand it, one assigns moral worth to outcomes, and the actions it prescribes are determined updatelessly. Whereas the other assigns moral worth to specific policies/policy classes implemented by agents, without looking at the consequences of those policies.