This seems like a comparatively reliable procedure: imagine a collection of possible worlds generated by possible actions; explain what future events distinguish between these worlds in a way that makes one of them preferable to the others; then choose the action that leads there.
Paying attention to events that distinguish these possible futures from each other guards against errors such as comparing to status quo or should-world (neither of which is among the possible futures), or worse comparing an arbitrarily picked-out event (in one of the possible futures) to an arbitrary anchor (i.e. a cost that feels excessive in some absolute way, and not by comparison to alternatives). Focusing on future events and not past events or actions themselves guards against deontological and identity-based arguments, such as “this is a proper action”, “he shouted first” or “because I’m a human being”.
Saying “positive consequence” sounds like a bad habit to me: positive compared to what? The comparison should be among the alternatives, without anchoring on some baseline of neutrality such that some consequences are more “positive” than that.
This seems like a comparatively reliable procedure: imagine a collection of possible worlds generated by possible actions; explain what future events distinguish between these worlds in a way that makes one of them preferable to the others; then choose the action that leads there.
Paying attention to events that distinguish these possible futures from each other guards against errors such as comparing to status quo or should-world (neither of which is among the possible futures), or worse comparing an arbitrarily picked-out event (in one of the possible futures) to an arbitrary anchor (i.e. a cost that feels excessive in some absolute way, and not by comparison to alternatives). Focusing on future events and not past events or actions themselves guards against deontological and identity-based arguments, such as “this is a proper action”, “he shouted first” or “because I’m a human being”.
Saying “positive consequence” sounds like a bad habit to me: positive compared to what? The comparison should be among the alternatives, without anchoring on some baseline of neutrality such that some consequences are more “positive” than that.