Act-consequentialism is one of today’s leading moral theories.Broadly construed, it holds that the ultimate right-making feature ofan act is that its outcome is not evaluatively outranked by that ofany available alternative. To evaluatively rank (hereafter, simply“rank”) a set of outcomes is to rank them along someevaluative dimension, such as their overall goodness, their goodnessfor the agent, their goodness for others besides the agent, or somecombination of such things. And when we combine act-consequentialismwith different ways of ranking outcomes, we get different versions ofact-consequentialism. For instance, Benthamite utilitarianism (Bentham1789) combines act-consequentialism with the view that outcomes are tobe ranked in terms of their overall goodness and that the overallgoodness of an outcome is simply a function of the intensities anddurations of the pleasures and pains that it contains. On this theory,agents must always maximizehedonic utility—the netbalance of pleasure over pain for all concerned. By contrast, ethicalegoism (Shaver 2002 [2021]) is an act-consequentialist theory thatranks outcomes in terms of how good they arefor the agent.It holds that one outcome outranks another if and only if it is betterfor the agent. And, so, ethical egoism implies that an agent ought toproduce the outcome that’s best for themself even if it’sworse overall. In contrast to these two, self/other utilitarianism(Sider 1993: 128) holds that one outcome outranks another if and onlyif it outranks the other both in terms of how good it is and in termsof how good it is for others besides the agent. On this view, an agentmay perform an act whose outcome is worse than that of some availablealternative so long as that outcome is worse only for themself. Andthese three are but a few of the possibilities.

Although there are many ways to rank outcomes and, consequently, manyversions of act-consequentialism, Benthamite utilitarianism(hereafter, simply “utilitarianism”) is its archetypal andprototypical form. The problem is that few are willing to accept itgiven its counterintuitive implications, including the following:

1. we ought to lobotomize people if this would maximize hedonicutility by enabling them to enjoy simple bodily pleasures free ofintellectual discontent,
2. we are required to sacrifice our own lives to save the lives ofothers even if this would produce only slightly more hedonic utilityoverall, and
3. we are permitted to maim, torture, and even kill innocent peopleso long as doing so would produce more (perhaps, only slightly more)hedonic utility.

Yet, despite such counterintuitive implications, utilitarianism tendsto haunt even those of us who refuse to accept it, for there seems tobe something quite compelling about its act-consequentialism (Berker2013: 364; Foot 1985: 196; Korsgaard 1993 [1996: 225]). Of course,what exactly, if anything, is so compelling about it is controversialand, thus, something that we’ll need to consider below.

Given this putative tension between the attractiveness ofact-consequentialism and the unattractiveness of its archetype’simplications, a potentially promising research project is to come upwith a version of act-consequentialism that avoidsutilitarianism’s counterintuitive implications. Given that manystandard versions of non-consequentialism (including standard versionsof Kantianism, virtue ethics, and theological voluntarism) avoid many,if not all, of utilitarianism’s counterintuitive implications,we could do this by constructing a ranking of outcomes that, whencombined with act-consequentialism, yields the same (or nearly thesame) deontic verdicts that one of these non-consequentialist theoriesdelivers. This is toconsequentialize thatnon-consequentialist theory. (Note that deontic verdicts are verdictssuch as “right”, “obligatory”,“permissible”, “supererogatory”, “oughtto be performed”, etc. Unlike evaluative verdicts such as“good” and “better”, which are directlynormative only for what we should desire/prefer, deontic verdicts arealso directly normative prospectively for what we should do/intend andretrospectively for whom we should blame/praise.)

To illustrate, consider theological voluntarism—the view thatthe ultimate right-making feature of an action is that it accords withGod’s will. And let’s consider the version that holds thatGod wills that we abide by the Ten Commandments. To consequentializethis non-consequentialist theory, we need to replace its account ofthe ultimate right-maker with one that holds instead that the ultimateright-making feature of an act is that its outcome is not outranked bythat of any available alternative and that one outcome outranksanother if and only if the agent refrains from violating the TenCommandments in the one but not the other. This act-consequentialistcounterpart theory yields the same set of deontic verdicts that thisversion of theological voluntarism delivers—e.g., thatit’s obligatory to honor your parents and wrong to both lie andcommit murder. But this counterpart theory is a version ofact-consequentialism as opposed to theological voluntarism because itholds that the feature of lying that ultimately makes it wrong is, notthat God wills us to refrain from lying, but that the outcome in whichthe agent lies is outranked by the outcome in which they neither lienor violate any other commandment.

Thus, to consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, we combineact-consequentialism with a ranking of outcomes such that theresulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory yields, in everypossible world, the same (or nearly the same) deontic verdicts thatthe target non-consequentialist theory yields. Historically, this hasmost often been done in the hopes of coming up with a version ofact-consequentialism that avoids most, if not all, ofutilitarianism’s counterintuitive implications. And this projectis often called “the consequentializing project”(Portmore 2007; S. A. Schroeder 2017; Suikkanen 2020). But, aswe’ll see below, some contemporary philosophers consequentializefor other reasons. Indeed, there are three different types ofconsequentializing and, consequently, three distinctconsequentializing projects. And, so, when we consider variousobjections to consequentializing below, we’ll need to be carefulnot to conflate them, as many of these objections apply only tocertain types of consequentializing.

• 1. How Consequentializing Differs from Other Attempts to Reconcile Utilitarianism with Common Moral Opinion
• 2. Consequentializing Commonsense Deontic Verdicts
• 3. Three Motives for, and Types of, Consequentializing
  • 3.1 Earnest Consequentializing
  • 3.2 Notational Consequentializing
  • 3.3 Pragmatic Consequentializing
• 4. Objections to Consequentializing
  • 4.1 There Is Nothing Uniquely Compelling about Act-Consequentialism
  • 4.2 Some Key Features of Commonsense Morality Cannot Be Consequentialized
  • 4.3 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Gimmicky
  • 4.4 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Explanatorily Inadequate
  • 4.5 “Has an Outcome that Outranks Every Available Alternative” Isn’t Equivalent to “Ought to Be Performed”
• 5. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. How Consequentializing Differs from Other Attempts to Reconcile Utilitarianism with Common Moral Opinion

There are at least two ways of trying to modify utilitarianism in thehopes of reconciling some portion of it with common moral opinion. Oneway is to keep its act-consequentialism but trade in its simplisticranking of outcomes for a more sophisticated one. Consider, then, thatutilitarianism (which, recall, is short for “Benthamiteutilitarianism”) ranks outcomes according toquantitativehedonism: the view that the only things that ultimately matter inranking outcomes are the intensities and durations of the pleasuresand pains that they contain. Yet, it seems that many more thingsmatter, including whether those outcomes are ones in which we violatepeople’s rights or affect the quality—and not just thequantity—of their pleasures and pains. And this has led totheories such asrights consequentialism (Sen 1982) andqualitative utilitarianism (Mill 1861), respectively. Theother is to keep utilitarianism’s quantitative hedonism buttrade in its act-consequentialism. For instance, whereas Bentham heldthat we should evaluate acts in terms of their own utilities, we couldinstead evaluate actions in terms of whether they accord with the codeof rules that, if accepted by the vast majority of everyoneeverywhere, would produce more hedonic utility than the vast majorityof everyone everywhere accepting some alternative code. And this hasled to theories such as rule-utilitarianism. (Perhaps, there’seven a third way: holding that the outcomes that are to be ranked areto be individuated not only metaphysically but also presentationally,such that they themselves can be agent-relative—see N. R. Howard2022.)

Of course, these different ways of trying to reconcile some portion ofutilitarianism with common moral opinion are not mutually exclusive.Brad Hooker’s (2000) rule-consequentialism not only trades inutilitarianism’s act-consequentialism for rule-consequentialismbut also trades in its simplistic ranking of outcomes for one thatadmits that other things besides pleasures and pains matter in theranking of outcomes. The result is a moral theory that is very closeto commonsense morality in its deontic verdicts.

But although there may be more than one way of reconciling someportion of utilitarianism with common moral opinion,consequentializing involves doing so by revising its method of rankingoutcomes while keeping its act-consequentialism intact. This isbecause many (including non-consequentialists) believe that when wemove away from utilitarianism’s act-consequentialism, we give upthe very thing that we found most compelling about it in the firstplace. For, as Philippa Foot has argued, utilitarianism’s

[act-]consequentialist element is one of the main reasons whyutilitarianism seems so compelling

as well as the main reason why

the move to rule utilitarianism seems to be an unsatisfactory answerto the problem of reconciling utilitarianism with common moralopinion. (1985: 196 & 198)

2. Consequentializing Commonsense Deontic Verdicts

As we’ve seen, one of the main motivations forconsequentializing certain commonsense deontic verdicts is toreconcile utilitarianism’s putatively compellingact-consequentialism with common moral opinion. This section considersthe various kinds of deontic verdicts that consequentializers havesought to accommodate and the sorts of moves they have historicallymade to do so.

Interestingly, consequentializing seems to go nearly as far back asact-consequentialism itself (see Hurley 2020: 27). Indeed, it goes atleast as far back as John Stuart Mill’s development ofqualitative hedonism in response to the objection that (Benthamite)utilitarianism is, given its commitment to quantitative hedonism,“a doctrine worthy only of swine”. Mill argued that thereare certain kinds of pleasures (e.g., intellectual pleasures) thathuman beings, but not swine, are capable of and that these“higher” pleasures are qualitatively different than the“lower”, bodily pleasures of which both swine and humanbeings are capable—so much so that no quantity of these lowerpleasures could ever be as good as a sufficient quantity of higherpleasures (1861 [1991: 14–17]).

G. E. Moore (1903) went even further, arguing

1. that pleasure isn’t the only intrinsic good,
2. that not all goods are goodfor someone, and
3. that the goodness of a whole needn’t equal the sum of thegoodness of its parts taken individually.

And this wholesale rejection of hedonism was, as W. D. Ross pointedout, a significant development, allowing the act-consequentialist toaccount for the fact

that pleasure is not the only thing in life that we think good initself, that for instance we think the possession of a good character,or an intelligent understanding of the world, as good or better. (1930[2002: 17])

This move to reject hedonism can take the consequentializer evenfurther when it’s combined with the rejection ofutilitarians’ narrow conception of an act’s outcome.Utilitarians tend to think of an act’s outcome as consistingsolely in what’s causally downstream from the act. For they holdthat hedonic utility is all that matters and that things that are notcausally downstream from the act—things such as whether the actis an instance of keeping a promise, whether the agent’s motivein performing it was virtuous, and whether there’s a victim ofsome past injustice who would be compensated by it—don’tthemselves affect how much hedonic utility it produces. Butthere’s no reason why the act-consequentialist can’t beconcerned with more than just the causal consequences of an act. And,so, it’s now standard to construe the outcome of an act broadlyto include everything that would be the case if it were performed. (Ofcourse, if it’s indeterminate what would be the case if it wereperformed, we would need to switch from talking about the act’soutcome to talking about itsprospect, which is aprobability distribution consisting of all its possible outcomes andtheir associated probabilities. But I’ll ignore thiscomplication in what remains.)

Once the act-consequentialist both rejects hedonism and construes anact’s outcome broadly, they can hold that certain types ofactions are intrinsically bad—that, for instance,“breaking a promise is intrinsically bad” (Ewing 1948:187). The consequentializer can, then, insist that whatever featuresof actions that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to beintrinsically wrong-making are instead features of outcomes that makethem rank poorly—the idea being that what’s most salientis not whether an act has the property of being a promise-breaking butwhether its outcome has the property of being one in which thispromise-breaking occurs. The consequentializer can thereby accommodateour intuition that breaking a promise is wrong even if breaking itwould produce just as much hedonic utility as keeping it. It’swrong because outcomes in which promises are broken are, other thingsbeing equal, worse than those in which they are kept.

But although these moves are significant, they are insufficient toallow the consequentializer to accommodate other commonsenseintuitions. For commonsense holds that breaking a promise is wrongeven if breaking it would produce just as much good as keeping it(Ross 1930 [2002: 18]), and the overall goodness of breaking a promisemust take into account whatever intrinsic badness there is in the actitself. For instance, commonsense holds that it would be wrong, otherthings being equal, for Abe to break his promise even to prevent Bertand Carl from breaking their promises. Yet, clearly, it must, otherthings being equal, be better for Abe to break his promise than forBert and Carl to break theirs. For even if promise-breakings areintrinsically bad, two promise-breakings would have to be worse thanjust one, other things being equal.

To accommodate such commonsense intuitions, consequentializers havetypically appealed to an evaluator-relative ranking of outcomes, onewhere the agent’s ranking differs from that of, say, somebystander (see, e.g., Sen 1983—but see Dougherty 2013 and Setiya2018 for an approach that doesn’t appeal to evaluatorrelativism). Whereas the bystander has no good reason to preferAbe’s breaking his promise to two others’ breaking theirs,Abe has a good reason to prefer two others’ breaking theirpromises to his breaking his promise in that Abe has a specialresponsibility for his own promises, a responsibility that hedoesn’t have for ensuring that the others keep theirs. Thus,given an agent’s special responsibility for their own agency,Abe should rank the outcome in which he keeps his promise and twoothers break theirs above the outcome in which he breaks his promiseand two others keep theirs. And, so, the act-consequentialist canaccommodate the intuition that breaking a promise is wrong even ifbreaking it would produce just as much good as (or even more goodthan) keeping it.

Now, commonsense morality differs from utilitarianism not only intaking there to be restrictions on performing certain types ofaction—such as promise-breakings—even for the sake ofbringing about the overall best outcome (i.e.,agent-centeredrestrictions), but also in taking there to be options either tobring about the overall best outcome or to refrain from doing so(i.e.,agent-centered options). To accommodate the latter,consequentializers have typically appealed to a dual ranking ofoutcomes (see Sider 1993 and Portmore 2011). To illustrate, recallself/other utilitarianism and imagine that you must choose between (a)giving your last aspirin to some stranger, alleviating theirmild headache, or (b) taking it yourself, alleviating yoursevere headache. Assuming that everything else is equal,utilitarianism requires you to take the aspirin yourself, as this willbring about the overall best outcome: the one with less overall pain.But, intuitively, you are also permitted to give it to the stranger.Self/other utilitarianism accommodates this intuition by holding thatthe permissibility of actions depends on two different rankings oftheir outcomes: one that ranks them in terms of how good they areoverall and another that ranks them in terms of how good they are foreveryone but the agent. More specifically, self/other utilitarianismholds that an act is permissible if and only if there is no availablealternative whose outcome outranks its outcome on both of these tworankings. And since taking the aspirin yourself outranks giving it tothe stranger in terms of what’s best overall but giving it tothe stranger outranks taking it yourself in terms of what’s bestfor others, both are permissible.

Unfortunately, however, self/other utilitarianism accommodates onlyone of two types of agent-centered options: namely,agent-sacrificing options. Agent-sacrificing options areoptions to either maximize the overall good or sacrifice your owngreater interests (and the overall good) for the sake of doing more topromote the lesser interests of others. But just as important areagent-favoring options. Agent-favoring options are options toeither maximize the overall good or favor promoting your own interestsover promoting the overall good. To illustrate, suppose that youlegally and justifiably possess two tablets of an opioid drug. Now,given your built-up tolerance to this drug, you would need to takeboth tablets to alleviate your moderate pain. But there are twostrangers who are also in moderate pain, and they would each need onlyone tablet to alleviate their pain, for they have no built-uptolerance to this drug. Thus, you can either take both tabletsyourself or give the two strangers one tablet each. And the latterwould be better overall, as it would alleviate twice as much pain.Nevertheless, it seems that you are permitted to do either, which isan intuitive verdict that self/other utilitarianism cannotaccommodate.

But, as consequentializers have shown, other act-consequentialisttheories can. One isSchefflerian utilitarianism (seePortmore 2011: 93–7). It holds that an act is permissible if andonly if there is no available alternative whose outcome outranks itsoutcome both in terms of utility for others (other than the agent,that is) and in terms ofegoistically-adjusted utility, whereegoistically-adjusted utility includes everyone’s utility butadjusts the overall total by giving the agent’s utility tentimes the weight of each other’s. Schefflerian utilitarianismimplies that you are permitted to either take the two tablets yourself(as this would produce the most egoistically-adjusted utility) or givethe two strangers one tablet each (as this would produce the mostutility for others). What’s more, Schefflerian utilitarianismallows that in the previous case you can either take the aspirin toalleviate your own severe headache (as this would produce the mostegoistically-adjusted utility) or give it to the stranger to alleviatetheir mild headache (as this would produce the most utility forothers). Thus, Schefflerian utilitarianism is an act-consequentialisttheory that accommodates both agent-favoring options andagent-sacrificing options. Still, it is a rather simplistic theory,and one that seems both arbitrary in setting the egoistic multiplierat ten andad hoc in its appeal to a dual ranking of outcomessolely as a means to avoiding counterintuitive implications. Butconsequentializers have tried to come up with ever more sophisticatedconsequentialist theories that seek to address these issues—see,e.g., Portmore 2011: chaps. 5–6.

There are, of course, other commonsense deontic verdicts thatconsequentializers may wish to accommodate as well as other moves theymay need to take to do so. But the above should serve as a briefhistory of some of the significant moves that consequentializers havemade.

3. Three Motives for, and Types of, Consequentializing

We can consequentialize, but why should we? As we’ll see, thereare three different answers, resulting in three distinct types ofconsequentializing.

3.1 Earnest Consequentializing

We’ve already seen what is perhaps the original, and mostcommon, motivation for consequentializing: to avoidutilitarianism’s counterintuitive deontic verdicts whileretaining what’s most intuitively compelling about it—itsact-consequentialism (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1477). Following SergioTenenbaum (2014), I’ll call those with this motive forconsequentializingearnest consequentializers. Earnestconsequentializers (e.g., Sen 1983 and Portmore 2011) givewhat’s known asthe intuitive argument forconsequentializing (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1477):

1. On the one hand, there is something intuitively compelling aboututilitarianism: its act-consequentialism.
2. On the other hand, standard versions of non-consequentialism avoidmost, if not all, of the counterintuitive deontic verdicts associatedwith utilitarianism. Still, they do so at the cost of abandoningact-consequentialism.
3. Thus, by consequentializing standard versions ofnon-consequentialism, we can produce an act-consequentialistcounterpart theory that retains what’s most compelling aboututilitarianism while avoiding most, if not all, of thecounterintuitive deontic verdicts associated with it.
4. And, in doing so, nothing nearly as compelling is lost.
5. Therefore, by consequentializing standard versions ofnon-consequentialism, we can produce a theory that’s moreintuitively attractive than both utilitarianism and standard versionsof non-consequentialism.

Earnest consequentializing is made possible because theory selectionis underdetermined by the data that our theories seek to explain (seeDuhem 1914 [1954]; Quine 1951 [1953]; and Baumann 2019). Toillustrate, consider two moral theories:utilitarian theologicalvoluntarism andutilitarian act-consequentialism. Thesetwo explain the same data set: that all and only acts that maximizehedonic utility are permissible. However, their explanations are quitedifferent. Utilitarian theological voluntarism holds that theexplanation lies with the fact that the ultimate right-making featureof an act is that it accords with God’s will along with the fact(as they see it) that God is perfectly good and, so, wills each of usto maximize hedonic utility (see Paley 1802). Utilitarianact-consequentialism, by contrast, holds that the explanation lieswith the fact that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is thatits outcome is not outranked by that of any available alternativealong with the fact (as they see it) that an act’s outcome isnot outranked by that of any available alternative if and only if itmaximizes hedonic utility. Thus, the moral data (i.e., the given setof deontic verdicts) can be explained either in non-consequentialistterms or in act-consequentialist terms. And, to consequentialize, wejust need to opt for the latter.

The fact that data underdetermines theory selection also makesKantianizing possible. And, so, just as we canconsequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, we can Kantianize anon-Kantian theory (Hurley 2013; Sachs 2010). For instance, if wewanted to Kantianize utilitarianism, we need only combine Kantianism(which, on at least one interpretation, is the view that the ultimateright-making feature of an act is that it shows the proper respect forhumanity) with the assumption that an act shows the proper respect forhumanity if and only if it maximizes hedonic utility. Indeed, thepoint generalizes: for any moral theoryX that holds that theultimate right-making feature of an act is that it isF, wecanX-ize a non-X theory that holds instead that itisG simply by combiningX’s account of theultimate right-maker with the assumption that an act isF ifand only if it isG. (This will be possible so long asF andG are such that it’s possible that anact isF if and only if it isG.)

We can eventheologically voluntarize anon-theological-voluntarist theory such as Kantianism. To do so, weneed only combine theological voluntarism’s view that theultimate right-making feature of an act is that it accords withGod’s will with the assumption that an act accords withGod’s will if and only if it shows the proper respect forhumanity. The result is a version of theological voluntarism (viz.,Kantian theological voluntarism) that yields the same set ofdeontic verdicts that Kantianism delivers.

But if we can account for the moral data on various types of theories,why opt to do so in terms of act-consequentialism rather thannon-consequentialism? In other words, why consequentialize ratherthan, say, Kantianize? The earnest consequentializer answers that itis because there is something uniquely compelling aboutact-consequentialism (what’s often called “the CompellingIdea”) and nothing nearly so compelling about Kantianism or anyother non-consequentialist theory. This claim is, of course,controversial, but we’ll address this controversy both in thenext section and insection 4.1 below.

3.2 Notational Consequentializing

Some are motivated to consequentialize out of a desire to establishboth that the consequentialist/non-consequentialist distinction isunimportant and that there is nothing uniquely compelling aboutact-consequentialism (see Dreier 2011 and Louise 2004). Because thesephilosophers hold that the act-consequentialist counterpart of atarget non-consequentialist theory is a mere notational variant onthat theory, I’ll call themnotationalconsequentializers. They give what’s known as theassimilation argument for consequentializing (S. A. Schroeder2017: 1480):

1. Every plausible non-consequentialist theory has anact-consequentialist counterpart theory such that the two arenecessarily co-extensive in their deontic verdicts (Dreier 2011:104–111).
2. If an act-consequentialist theory and a non-consequentialisttheory are necessarily co-extensive in their deontic verdicts, thenthey are equivalent in the strong sense of being mere notationalvariants of each other, just as the view that the average kineticenergy of the molecules in a pot of boiling water at one atmosphere ofpressure is 100 degrees Celsius is a mere notational variant of theview that the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a pot ofboiling water at one atmosphere of pressure is 212 degrees Fahrenheit(Dreier 2011: 111–115).
3. If every plausible non-consequentialist theory is a merenotational variant of some extensionally equivalentact-consequentialist counterpart theory, then theconsequentialism/non-consequentialism distinction is unimportant (and,indeed, empty), for every plausible moral theory has, then, both anact-consequentialist notational variant and a non-consequentialistnotational variant (Dreier 2011: 114–115).
4. Thus, the consequentialism/non-consequentialism distinction isunimportant (and, indeed, empty).

The first two premises are the most controversial. And, so,we’ll examine objections to each of them insection 4.2 andsection 4.5, respectively.

But, for now, let us examine why the notational consequentializerthinks that the first premise is true. It’s because they havehigh hopes for what’s known asthe Footian Procedure(Portmore 2011: 112), a procedure for generating anact-consequentialist counterpart theory for any plausible targetnon-consequentialist theory. To follow this procedure, we simplycombine act-consequentialism’s view that an act is permissibleif and only if its outcome is not outranked by that of any availablealternative with the assumption that an act’s outcome is notoutranked by that of any available alternative if and only if it isF, where “F” stands for whatever featureof actions that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to be theultimate right-maker (e.g., “showing the proper respect forhumanity” in the case of Kantianism). In other words, wegenerate a ranking of outcomes as follows: we rank the outcome ofevery act that the target non-consequentialist theory takes to bepermissible above the outcome of every available alternative that thetarget non-consequentialist theory takes to be impermissible.What’s more, if the target non-consequentialist theory allowsthat some acts are morally better than others in that we have moremoral reason to perform them than to perform those others, then werank their outcomes above those of the others, and we do so bywhatever degree the target non-consequentialist theory takes them tobe morally better. Because, on this procedure, whether one outcomeoutranks another on the resulting act-consequentialist counterparttheory just depends on whether the act that would produce the one is,on the target non-consequentialist theory, morally better than the actthat would produce the other, it guarantees that the resultingact-consequentialist counterpart theory delivers, in every possibleworld, the same deontic verdicts that the target non-consequentialisttheory yields.

But this procedure doesn’t guarantee that the first premise inthe assimilation argument is true. For it may not always be possibleto employ the Footian Procedure. It won’t be possible if thestructural features of the target non-consequentialist theory’smorally-better relation are incompatible with those ofact-consequentialism’s ranking of outcomes (see Brown 2011). Toillustrate, suppose that act-consequentialism’s ranking ofoutcomes must be transitive, whereas the target non-consequentialisttheory’s morally-better relation is intransitive. For supposethat the target non-consequentialist theory holds:

1. that actA is morally better than actB,
2. that actB is morally better than actC,but
3. that actC is morally better than actA.

In that case, there will be no way to employ the Footian Procedure toconsequentialize this non-consequentialist theory ifact-consequentialism’s ranking of outcomes must betransitive.

In any case, notational consequentializing aims to use the FootianProcedure, if possible, to demonstrate that every plausiblenon-consequentialist theory has an extensionally equivalentact-consequentialist counterpart theory with the goal of establishingthat, in every instance, the target non-consequentialist theory andthe resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory are merenotational variants of each other. In doing this, the notationalconsequentializer hopes to establish that theconsequentialist/non-consequentialist distinction is unimportant (and,indeed, empty). And this would mean that there is nothing uniquelycompelling about act-consequentialism and, so, no reason (or, atleast, no non-pragmatic reason) for us to consequentialize ratherthan, say, Kantianize (cf. Dreier 2011: 115).

3.3 Pragmatic Consequentializing

Most recently, some have consequentialized for purely pragmaticreasons (see Colyvan, Cox, & Steele 2010 and Lazar 2017). Forinstance, Seth Lazar tells us:

My interest in consequentializing is purely instrumental. It allows meto represent my moral theory in a way that makes it amenable todecision theory. …Consequentializing [my] deontological moraltheory allows [me] to apply it to situations with imperfectinformation. It makes deontological decision theory possible. (2017:586–87)

I’ll call those with this or some other pragmatic motive forconsequentializingpragmatic consequentializers. They givewhat’s known asthe pragmatic argument forconsequentializing (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1488). And if we takethe relevant pragmatic motive to be the one that Lazar cites, thecorresponding version of this argument would be as follows:

1. Whereas consequentialist theories are amenable to decision theory,non-consequentialist theories are not, which gives consequentialisttheories a distinct advantage over non-consequentialist theories whendealing with imperfect information.
2. But, by consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory, we canfaithfully represent its extension even if we do thereby misrepresent(or, at least, make opaque) its explanation for that extension(Colyvan et al. 2010: 523).
3. Thus, if we consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, we canthen apply decision theory to the resultant act-consequentialistcounterpart theory and thereby determine the targetnon-consequentialist theory’s deontic verdicts in situationsinvolving imperfect information.

Thus, pragmatic consequentializing aims to consequentialize someplausible non-consequentialist theory using the Footian Procedure tocome up with an act-consequentialist counterpart that can then beemployed for some practical purpose. For instance, Lazar (2017)consequentializes the deontic verdicts that his non-consequentialisttheory yields in situations involving perfect information so that hecan then use the tools of decision theory on the resultingact-consequentialist counterpart to determine what deontic verdictshis non-consequentialist theory yields in situations involvingimperfect information.

So, for the pragmatic consequentializer, the reason forconsequentializing rather than, say, Kantianizing is thatthere’s supposedly something unique about act-consequentialismthat makes it amenable to decision theory, which is pragmaticallyuseful.

4. Objections to Consequentializing

Consequentializing has its fair share of detractors. Some deny thatit’s possible to consequentialize every plausiblenon-consequentialist theory. Others see it as possible but consider ita mere gimmick. Others, still, take it to be possible and more than amere gimmick but find the resulting act-consequentialist counterparttheories to be explanatorily inadequate. Unfortunately, though, thoseleveling such objections haven’t always been careful to notethat there are different types of consequentializing and that many ofthese objections apply only to certain types. Below, I’llconsider these and other objections to consequentializing as well aswhich types of consequentializing are subject to them.

4.1 There Is Nothing Uniquely Compelling about Act-Consequentialism

As we’ve seen, even those who refuse to accept utilitarianismfind that there is, nonetheless, something quite compelling about it:its act-consequentialism. But what’s so compelling aboutact-consequentialism? Let’s call whatever it is “theCompelling Idea”. For earnest consequentializing to succeed,this so-called Compelling Idea must be both genuinely compelling andsomething that all and only act-consequentialist theories share. Bothclaims have been denied. So, let’s look at various proposals forthe Compelling Idea and see if any of them are both genuinelycompelling and unique to act-consequentialism.

One proposal is as follows.

Best Option: It is always morally permissible for you toperform your morally best option—that is, the best option interms of whatever morally matters (Hurley 2017).

Although this seems to be a genuinely compelling idea (but seePortmore 2019 for some doubts), it is not at all unique toact-consequentialism. For, arguably, most, if not all, moral theoriesendorse it (Hurley 2017: 40). So, the earnest consequentializer mustlook elsewhere. Perhaps, then, the Compelling Idea concerns the bestoutcome as opposed to the bestoption.

Best Outcome: It is always morally permissible for you toperform the option that would bring about the best outcome (Scheffler1982 [1994]; Ewing 1948: 188).

UnlikeBest Option, this idea is undoubtedly unique to act-consequentialism, but someargue that it isn’t compelling—or, at least, notuncontroversially so (see Hurley 2017). After all, many find itintuitive to think that certain types of acts (e.g., breaking apromise) are wrong even if they bring about the best outcome. Forinstance, deontologists believe that there are agent-centeredrestrictions that prohibit you from performing certain act-types evenin some situations in which your performing an instance of one ofthese act-types would prevent two or more others from each performinga morally comparable instance of this act-type (see Scheffler 1985:409). So, as we saw above, even if there’s somethingintrinsically bad about acts of this type, the outcome in which youperform an instance of this act-type would, other things being equal,have to be better than the outcome in which two or more others eachperform a morally comparable instance of this act-type. So, if theCompelling Idea is to be genuinely compelling even to those whoendorse agent-centered restrictions, it better not appeal tothe best outcome. Forthe best outcome is theoutcome with the most good, the good being what’s desirable froma universal point of view rather than what’s desirable from theagent’s point of view. And this has led some earnestconsequentializers to appeal instead to the following.

Best-Relative-to: It is always morally permissible for you toperform the option that would bring about the outcome that’sbest-relative-to you (Sen 1983; Smith 2003).

The problem with this proposal is that the better-relative-to relationseems to be a purely theoretical notion. In which case, it would beimpossible for us to have any pre-theoretical grasp on claimsinvolving it, such asBest-Relative-to (M. Schroeder 2007). And if that’s right, thenBest-Relative-to cannot be something that we findcompelling—at least, not pre-theoretically. Of course, somebelieve that we can avoid this worry by defending, via a certainconception of the good, the idea that what’s best-relative-tosomeone is just what that someone has most reason to desire (see,e.g., Smith 2003). Others, though, have sought to avoid thecontroversy by instead appealing to the following.

Most Reason to Desire: It is always morally permissible foryou to perform the option that would bring about the outcome that youhave most reason to desire—or, in other words, the outcome thatyou ought, or that it is fitting for you, to prefer to every availablealternative (Portmore 2007).

One advantage of this proposal is that it explains why utilitarianismand ethical egoism

have something deep in common that is the source of their commonappeal, as demonstrated by Sidgwick [1907]. (M. Schroeder 2007:290)

For the two theories share a commitment toMost Reason to Desire in that they are both act-consequentialist theories, broadlyconstrued. That is, they both hold that whether an agent ought toperform an act is determined solely by whether that agent ought toprefer its outcome to those of the available alternatives. It’sjust that whereas the ethical egoist holds that agents ought always toprefer that they themselves have more hedonic utility, the utilitarianholds that agents ought always to prefer that there is more hedonicutility overall.

Most Reason to Desire also seems to be what Philippa Foot (1985) had in mind. Footsaid,

What is it…that is so compelling about [act-]consequentialism?It is, I think, the rather simple thought that it can never be rightto prefer a worse state of affairs to a better. It is this thoughtthat haunts us. (1985: 198)

But, of course, act-consequentialism is not a theory about what it isright toprefer, but rather a theory about what it is righttodo. Nevertheless, we can charitably interpret Foot asassuming that the Compelling Idea isMost Reason to Desire. This idea in conjunction with her claim that it can never be right toprefer a worse state of affairs to a better one entails the thoughtthat it is always morally permissible to bring about the best outcome,and this is the thought that she sought to debunk by arguing that wehave no grasp of the notion of the best outcome except as the outcomemost favored by benevolence from among those actions permitted byjustice. The problem, though, is that Foot is wrong about its neverbeing right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better one. For,as Jamie Dreier has pointed out,

it is perfectly intelligible and pretty plausible that it is fittingfor me to prefer, say, the safety of my children to the safety ofyours, and for you conversely to prefer your children’s safetyto mine. (2011: 101)

So, even if we should accept Foot’s assumption thatMost Reason to Desire is the Compelling Idea, we should reject her assumption that it cannever be right to prefer a worse outcome to a better outcome. Afterall, the outcome in which my less gifted child is saved is, otherthings being equal, worse than the one in which your more gifted childis saved (that is, it should, other things being equal, bedispreferred from a universal point of view), but I should,nevertheless, prefer it from my own point of view.

AlthoughMost Reason to Desire is quite compelling, it is not unique to act-consequentialism. For itturns out that consequentializing is a double-edged sword in that itcan just as easily be employed to render non-consequentialismcompatible withMost Reason to Desire as it can be used torender act-consequentialism compatible with commonsense deonticverdicts (Sachs 2010). For in showing that there is a ranking ofoutcomes that renders act-consequentialism compatible with somenon-consequentialist theory’s deontic verdicts, theconsequentializer also shows that there is a ranking of outcomes (thevery same one) that renders this non-consequentialist theorycompatible withMost Reason to Desire. As Benjamin Sachspoints out,

all the non-consequentialist has to do in order to make her theorycompatible with the Compelling Idea is accept the fruits of theconsequentialist’s labor. (2010: 261)

But although this works so long as we hold that the Compelling Idea issomething likeMost Reason to Desire, it doesn’t work if we think that the Compelling Idea includes aclaim about what, on act-consequentialism,grounds thedeontic statuses of actions. Consider that Sachs’s objectionrests on the assumption that the best version of non-consequentialismis compatible with the Compelling Idea if the best version ofact-consequentialism is compatible with the Compelling Idea. And, aseven he admits, this assumption holds only if the Compelling Ideadoesn’t include a claim about what, on act-consequentialism,grounds the deontic statuses of actions (Sachs 2010: 266–9). So,if the earnest consequentializer wants to avoid Sachs’sobjection, they need only to adopt something like the followingproposal.

Reasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses: Anact’s deontic status is grounded in the agent’s reasonsfor preferring its outcome to those of the available alternatives.Consequently, it is always morally permissible for an agent to performthe option that would bring about the outcome that they ought (or thatit is fitting for them) to prefer to every available alternative(Portmore 2011: 5).

LikeMost Reason to Desire, this proposal has the advantage of accounting for the thought thatthe Compelling Idea is something that both utilitarianism and ethicalegoism hold in common. What’s more, it seems quite attractive tomany—or, at least, to those who accept a teleological conceptionof action. On this conception, actions are attempts to affect how theworld goes. And, thus, whenever one acts intentionally, one acts withthe aim of making the world go a certain way. The aim needn’t beanything having to do with the causal consequences of the act. The aimcould be nothing more than to perform the act in question. One could,for instance, run merely with the aim of running. But the fact remainsthat, for every intentional action, there is some end at which theagent aims. Thus, it’s natural to suppose that the reasons forperforming an action derive from the reasons for desiring the endsthat it would achieve. And, so, one has most reason to act in whateverway will make the world go as one ought to prefer that it goes (seeMill 1861 [1991]: Ch. 1; Portmore 2019: 262–3; Thomson 2003: 8;Wood 2017: 266). After all, wouldn’t it be odd to think that oneisn’t permitted to do what would best achieve the aims that oneought to want to achieve? In any case, givenMost Reason to Desire’s inclusion of the claim that an act’s deontic status is groundedin the agent’s reasons for preferring its outcome to those ofthe available alternatives (which earnest consequentializers take tobe definitive of act-consequentialism), it is at least unique toact-consequentialism.

So, ifReasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses is indeed compelling, then there is something uniquely compellingabout act-consequentialism. And, in that case, the earnestconsequentializer is off and running. But, some—such as PaulHurley (2018)—deny that it is compelling. But even if he iscorrect, this poses no problem for either notationalconsequentializers or pragmatic consequentializers, for neitherinsists on there being something uniquely compelling aboutact-consequentialism. So, this would be a worry for only earnestconsequentializers.

4.2 Some Key Features of Commonsense Morality Cannot Be Consequentialized

Some argue that it’s not possible to consequentialize everyplausible non-consequentialist theory (see, e.g., Brown 2011). Aswe’ll see below, their being correct would be a problem for bothnotional consequentializers and pragmatic consequentializers, but notnecessarily for earnest consequentializers.

Both the notational consequentializer and the pragmaticconsequentializer are committed to what’s known astheExtensional Equivalence Thesis: for every plausiblenon-consequentialist theory, there is an act-consequentialistcounterpart theory that yields, in every possible world, the same setof deontic verdicts that it yields (Dreier 2011: 98). The notationalconsequentializer is committed to this, for it is just the firstpremise in their assimilation argument for consequentializing. And thepragmatic consequentializer is committed to this, for the secondpremise in their pragmatic argument for consequentializing assumesthat, in consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory, we canfaithfully represent its extension.

Nevertheless, the Extensional Equivalence Thesis is controversial. Forinstance, Campbell Brown (2011) has argued that the consequentializercannot accommodate prohibition dilemmas: situations in which everyavailable act is impermissible. Now, whenever there are certaindeontic verdicts that the act-consequentialist supposedly cannotaccommodate, there are two options for proponents of the ExtensionalEquivalence Thesis. One option is to concede that theact-consequentialist cannot accommodate such verdicts but argue thatany non-consequentialist theory that includes such verdicts isimplausible. This is what Dreier does concerning prohibition dilemmas(see Dreier 2011: 105–6). The other option is to argue that,despite appearances, there’s a way for the act-consequentialistto accommodate these deontic verdicts. Some argue, for instance, thatthe consequentialist can accommodate prohibition dilemmas by adoptinga cyclic ranking of outcomes (Peterson 2010: 158). Thus, if the targetnon-consequentialist theory holds that all three of an agent’soptions—say,A,B, andC—areimpermissible, then the consequentialist can just adopt a rankingwhereA’s outcome outranksB’s outcome,B’s outcome outranksC’s outcome, andC’s outcome outranksA’s outcome. Sinceeach outcome is outranked by that of some available alternative, eachavailable act is impermissible. But, of course, this assumes, as notedabove, that the act-consequentialist can adopt an intransitive rankingof outcomes, which Brown contests.

Whereas pragmatic consequentializing and notational consequentializingwill succeed only if the resulting act-consequentialist counterparttheory yields the same set of deontic verdicts that the targetnon-consequentialist theory yields, earnest consequentializing cansucceed even without such perfect coextension (cf. Tenenbaum 2014:233). After all, the success of earnest consequentializing requiresonly that the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory isbetter overall than both utilitarianism and standard versions ofnon-consequentialism; it doesn’t require that it can yield allthe same deontic verdicts that any plausible non-consequentialisttheory can. Given the earnest consequentializer’s goal of comingup with an act-consequentialist theory that is more intuitivelycompelling than both utilitarianism and standard versions ofnon-consequentialism, they eschew the Footian Procedure. For althoughemploying the Footian Procedure ensures that the resultingact-consequentialist counterpart theory will be perfectly co-extensivewith the target non-consequentialist theory, it doesn’tguarantee that it will be more intuitively compelling than thatnon-consequentialist theory. For it could be that theact-consequentialist would have to accept some very implausiblerankings of outcomes to ensure its perfect co-extension with thetarget non-consequentialist theory. And, as we’ll see below,this is indeed what some philosophers have argued (e.g., Emet 2010 andC. Howard 2021).

In any case, the earnest consequentializer adopts a differentprocedure for consequentializing: what’s known astheCoherentist Procedure (Portmore 2011: 113). On this procedure, wedon’t just adopt whatever ranking of outcomes is necessary toensure that the resulting act-consequentialist counterpart theory willbe perfectly co-extensive with the target non-consequentialist theory.Instead, we hold constant the idea that one act is morally better thananother if and only if its outcome outranks that of the other whilerevising, in light of each other and in light of our variousbackground beliefs, both our pre-theoretical judgments about whetherone outcome outranks another and our pre-theoretical judgments aboutwhether the act that produces the one is morally better than the actthat produces the other. And we do this until we reach wide reflectiveequilibrium—a state in which we have arrived at an acceptablecoherence among our entire set of beliefs (see Daniels 2003 [2020]).And it may be that, to reach wide reflective equilibrium, we mustreject some of the target non-consequentialist theory’s deonticverdicts rather than adopt the ranking of outcomes needed toconsequentialize them.

Admittedly, no one has pre-theoretical judgments about the ranking ofoutcomes in the abstract. But these areevaluative rankings,and arguably such evaluative rankings concern what the agent ought (orwhat it is fitting for the agent) to desire/prefer (see Portmore 2011:59–62 and 112–114). Hence, the earnest consequentializerholds that the judgment that one outcome outranks another is just thejudgment that the agent ought (or that it is fitting for the agent) toprefer the one to the other. And we clearly have judgments both aboutwhich outcomes an agent ought to prefer and about which outcome itwould be fitting for them to prefer—but I’ll talk only ofwhat they ought to prefer in the remainder. Many would, for instance,judge both that, if my child has fallen into the sea, I ought toprefer that she does not drown and that, if Sergio can rescue only oneof two groups of people drowning, I ought to prefer that Sergiorescues the group that includes my child even if the other group issomewhat larger. And these judgments seem to be independent of ourjudgment about what Sergio ought to do, for we may judge that,although Sergio ought to save the larger group, I ought, nevertheless,to prefer that Sergio saves the smaller group—that being thegroup that includes my child. And, in some instances, the CoherentistProcedure may call for revising such pre-theoretical judgments. Forsuppose that the target non-consequentialist theory holds that myturning in my daughter to police is morally better than my refrainingfrom doing so but our pre-theoretical judgment is that I ought toprefer the outcome in which I refrain from turning her in to theoutcome in which I turn her in. In that case, the act-consequentialistcounterpart theory must either deny that my turning her in is morallybetter than my not doing so (and, thus, give up being perfectlyco-extensive with the target non-consequentialist theory) or rejectthe intuitive judgment that I ought to prefer the outcome in which Irefrain from turning her in to the outcome in which I turn her in.But, even so, it could be that the resulting act-consequentialistcounterpart theory is more intuitively plausible than bothutilitarianism and standard versions of non-consequentialism.

But even if the earnest consequentializer doesn’t need toaccommodate every deontic verdict that every plausiblenon-consequentialist theory can accommodate, they do need toconsequentialize a good number of them. Moreover, they need to do sowithout sacrificing whatever the Compelling Idea is. And whether theycan do that depends on what the Compelling Idea is. To illustrate,suppose that we take the Compelling Idea to beBest Outcome. Since the best outcome is the outcome that’s best from whatSidgwick (1907) described as “the point of view of theuniverse”, it seems that we must abandon this idea if we want toconsequentialize certain deontic verdicts, such as those stemming fromagent-centered restrictions (but see Dougherty 2013; N. R. Howard2022; and Setiya 2018 for a contrary position). And this is why manyearnest consequentializers rejectBest Outcome in favor ofBest-Relative-to,Most Reason to Desire, orReasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses.

4.3 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Gimmicky

Some philosophers claim that consequentializing a targetnon-consequentialist theory results in a gimmicky act-consequentialistcounterpart theory—and, thus, one that’s implausible (see,e.g., Nozick 1974: 29). And, admittedly, the resultingact-consequentialist counterpart theory can seem gimmicky when wearrive at it via the Footian Procedure. In that case, theconsequentializer just takes whatever features of actions that thetarget non-consequentialist theory holds to be intrinsicallywrong-making and insists that they are instead features of outcomesthat make them rank poorly. So, if the non-consequentialist theoryholds that an act’s being a promise-breaking is, other thingsbeing equal, what makes it wrong, the consequentializer will holdinstead that an outcome’s including a promise-breaking is, otherthings being equal, what makes it rank lower than one thatdoesn’t. And this move can seemad hoc.

But the fact that the resulting act-consequentialist counterparttheories are gimmicky (and, thus,ad hoc) is no objection toeither notational consequentializing or pragmatic consequentializing.Such consequentializers will readily concede that these resultingtheories are gimmicky. The notational consequentializer will arguethat all extensionally equivalent theories are gimmickyrepresentations of each other in that they are all just arbitrarilydifferent notational variants on the same moral view. So, the factthat consequentializing produces gimmicky act-consequentialistcounterpart theories is no objection to notational consequentializing.And it’s no objection to pragmatic consequentializing either.The pragmatic consequentializer is happy to admit not only that theresulting act-consequentialist counterpart theories are gimmicky butalso that they are, consequently, implausible. For pragmaticconsequentializers reject the resulting act-consequentialistcounterpart theories that they construct merely for certain pragmaticpurposes.

Of course, things are different for the earnest consequentializer. Itwould be a problem if they produced an act-consequentialistcounterpart theory that was gimmicky. But, arguably, the result ofearnest consequentializing isn’t gimmicky given that it employsthe Coherentist Procedure rather than the Footian Procedure. Ofcourse, when the earnest consequentializer accommodates, say, ourintuition that it’s wrong for Abe to break his promise even toprevent both Bert and Carl from breaking theirs, they do so byinsisting that Abe ought to prefer the outcome in which he keeps hispromise and Bert and Carl break theirs to the outcome in which hebreaks his promise and Bert and Carl keep theirs. But the motivationfor this move isn’t thead hoc one that making itallows them to accommodate this intuition. Instead, the earnestconsequentializer motivates this move on independent grounds: agentsbear a special responsibility for their own agency and, thus, fortheir own promises. Thus, an agent should, other things being equal,blame themselves more harshly for breaking one of their own promisesthan for letting two others each break one of theirs. And thismotivation should appeal even to non-consequentialists. Fornon-consequentialists, such as Bernard Williams, have powerfullyargued that agents have a special responsibility for their ownactions, a responsibility that they don’t bear for what theyallow others to do. In any case, this thought that agent’s beara special responsibility for their own agency can motivate the earnestconsequentializer’s claim that agents should prefer, otherthings being equal, the outcome in which two others violate anagent-centered restriction to the outcome in which they themselvesviolate that restriction—see Otsuka 2011: 42; Portmore 2011:100–103; and Williams 1973: 93–100. And, so, thereneedn’t be anything gimmicky about the way in which the earnestconsequentializer motivates these sorts of moves in accommodating ourcommonsense moral intuitions.

So, on the one hand, it’s clear that both notationalconsequentializing and pragmatic consequentializing produce gimmickyact-consequentialist counterpart theories by employing the FootianProcedure but unclear why this should be objectionable. On the otherhand, it’s clear that it would be objectionable for the earnestconsequentializer to produce a gimmicky act-consequentialistcounterpart theory but unclear why we should think that they wouldgiven that they employ the Coherentist Procedure rather than theFootian Procedure.

4.4 Act-Consequentialist Counterpart Theories Are Explanatorily Inadequate

Even if the act-consequentialist counterpart theories that earnestconsequentializers produce aren’t gimmicky, they could beobjectionable for other reasons. Indeed, some argue that they areexplanatorily inadequate. For whereas many earnest consequentializersadoptReasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses and, so, hold that the deontic statuses of actions are grounded inthe reasons that agents have for preferring (or dispreferring) theoutcomes in which they are performed, others believe that it’sthe other way around. As they see it, these act-consequentialistcounterpart theories invert the true explanatory direction. Forwhereas the earnest consequentializer holds that the impermissibilityof Abe’s breaking his promise is grounded in the fact that heought to prefer the outcome in which he keeps it, they believe insteadthat Abe’s reason for preferring the outcome in which he keepsit is grounded in the fact that it’s impermissible for him tobreak it. And precursors of this objection go as far back as E. F.Carritt (1928: 72–3) and W. D. Ross (1939: 289), both of whomargued that even if we think that promise-breakings are bad, we shouldthink this only because it’s wrong to break a promise. And, so,the wrongness of promise-breakings explains their badness, not theother way around, as the act-consequentialist might suppose.

Earnest consequentializers retort that it’s actuallynon-consequentialists who invert the true order of explanation. Theyargue that the deontic statuses of actions are grounded in reasons forperforming them and that it’s more plausible to think thatreasons for actions are grounded in reasons for preferring theiroutcomes than vice versa (see, e.g., Portmore 2011: chap. 3,especially 78–82).

More recently, however, Stephen Emet (2010) and Christopher Howard(2021) have argued that act-consequentialist counterpart theories areexplanatorily inadequate for a different reason. They argue that, intaking the Compelling Idea to be something such asReasons for Preferring Ground Deontic Statuses, the earnest consequentializer is forced to give up a plausiblerationale for certain deontic verdicts. Take, for instance, thedeontic verdict that it would be wrong for you to kill even in asituation in which the mafia has credibly threatened to kill fiveinnocent strangers unless you kill a sixth (C. Howard 2021: 728).Howard claims that, in providing a rationale for this verdict, theearnest consequentializer must eschew the plausible view that it lieswith the fact that your potential victim has the kind of value thatcalls for your not treating them as a mere means and must insteadembrace the implausible view that it lies with the fact that you, theagent, ought to have a self-centered, and self-indulgent, preferencefor keeping your own hands clean. He argues that since your reasonsfor refraining from treating your potential victim as a mere means

have their source in the value of [your potential victim],…they’re reasons…[that] don’t derivefrom…[your] reasons for preferring some outcomes to others.(2021: 749)

But this reasoning is fallacious. From the fact thatAultimately derives from (and, thus, has its source in)C, itdoesn’t follow thatA doesn’t derive fromB. For it could be thatA derives fromB,which in turn derives fromC.

Act-consequentialists are committed to the evaluative rankings ofoutcomes being explanatorily prior to the deontic statuses of theactions that produce them, but they’re not committed to theevaluative rankings of outcomes being explanatory prior to the deonticstatuses of attitudes, such as the attitude of respect towardsends-in-themselves. Given this, earnest consequentializers can arguethat there’s nothing that precludes them from holding eitherthat persons are ends-in-themselves who are owed respect or that thisfact is explanatorily prior to the evaluative rankings of outcomes.That is, earnest consequentializers can argue that you have a duty torespect persons and that this duty gives rise to a duty to prefer thatyou not treat them as a mere means—even as a mere means to thatof preventing the mafia from killing five others. What’s more,given this duty to prefer the outcome in which you refrain fromkilling the one to the outcome in which you kill the one as a meremeans to preventing the mafia from killing the five, the formeroutranks the latter from your evaluative position. And this, givenact-consequentialism, explains the impermissibility of your killingthe one to prevent the five from being killed by the mafia. Thus, theearnest consequentializer hopes to consequentialize the deonticverdict that it’s wrong for you to kill the one even to preventthe mafia from killing the five without giving up the plausiblethought that the rationale for thisultimately lies with yourwould-be victim and their value as an end-in-themself (see Portmoreforthcoming and Portmore 2019: 235–7).

Now, one may object that if someone concedes that the rationale forthe impermissibility of your killing the one to prevent the five frombeing killed by the mafia ultimately lies with your would-be victimand their value as an end-in-themself, then they thereby committhemself to Kantianism as opposed to act-consequentialism. But earnestconsequentializers argue that this is a mistake. They believe that thedifference between Kantianism and act-consequentialism is that whereasthe former holds that the ultimate right-making feature of an act isthat it shows the proper respect for humanity, the latter holds thatthe ultimate right-making feature of an act is instead that itsoutcome is not outranked by that of any available alternative. Thus,the act-consequentialist can hold that what determines whether oneoutcome is outranked by another is anything other than the deonticstatuses of the acts that produce them. So, they can even hold thatwhat determines whether the one outranks the other is whether theagent treats someone who is an end-in-themself as a mere means in theone but not the other.

As the earnest consequentializer sees things, moral theories are to bedifferentiated by what they take the ultimate right- and wrong-makingfeatures of actions to be, not by what they take the ultimaterationale for an act’s being right or wrong to be. Toillustrate, consider utilitarian theological voluntarism again. Itholds both that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is that itaccords with God’s will and that God is perfectly good and, so,wills each of us to maximize the good, which they take to be hedonicutility. In their view, the ultimate rationale for an act’sbeing obligatory is that it produces the best outcome. For they holdthat an act’s outcome being best is what explains why God (beingperfectly good) wills the agent to perform it. And God’s willingthe agent to perform it, in turn, explains why it’s obligatory.But, as earnest consequentializers see things, this doesn’t makethe view act-consequentialist. Indeed, they see it as a rival toact-consequentialism given that it holds that the ultimateright-making feature of an act is that it accords with God’swill, not that its outcome is not outranked by that of any availablealternative. And this does seem to be a significant difference. For ifthe theological voluntarist were to be convinced that, in fact, Godisn’t perfectly good and even wills us to torture children forfun, they would be forced to concede that it would be right to do so.By contrast, the act-consequentialist’s view of what’sright is independent of their view on what God wills. Given this,earnest consequentializers think that we should conclude that a theorythat holds that the ultimate right-making feature of an act is thatits outcome is not outranked by that of any available alternative isact-consequentialist even if it holds that the rationale for thewrongness of your killing the one to prevent the mafia from killingthe five ultimately lies with your would-be victim and their value asan end-in-themself.

There is, of course, more to be said on this topic of explanatoryadequacy, including whether the earnest consequentializer can give aplausible explanation for the idea that it’s sometimes wrong toviolate an agent-centered constraint even to minimize one’s ownviolations of that constraint—see, e.g., Brook 1991; Kamm 1996;Lopez et al. 2009; Otsuka 2011; and Portmore forthcoming. Still, theabove should give the reader a sense of why non-consequentialistsmight find act-consequentialist counterpart theories to beexplanatorily inadequate and how the earnest consequentializer mightreply to such worries.

4.5 “Has an Outcome that Outranks Every Available Alternative” Isn’t Equivalent to “Ought to Be Performed”

This last objection applies only to notational consequentializers. Aswe saw above, notational consequentializers accept two controversialassumptions: the first two premises of their assimilation argument. Wealready considered their defense of the first premise insection 4.2. And now it’s time to see how they defend the second premise:the assumption that if an act-consequentialist theory and anon-consequentialist theory are necessarily co-extensive in theirdeontic verdicts, then they are equivalent in the strong sense ofbeing mere notational variants of each other.

Before we get to this defense, though, it’s important to getclear on what the assumption is. It’s that just as we can referto the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a pot of boilingwater at one atmosphere of pressure using either the metric expression“100 degrees Celsius” or some equivalent non-metricexpression such as “212 degrees Fahrenheit”, we can referto what makes an act one that ought to be performed using either theconsequentialist expression “has an outcome that outranks everyavailable alternative” or some putatively equivalentnon-consequentialist expression such as “is necessary to showthe proper respect for humanity”. The thought, then, is thatwhat matters is only what Dreier calls the “activeingredients”, not the expressions that we use to label them.And, in the case of what makes a pot of water boiling, the activeingredient is the average kinetic energy of the water’smolecules, whereas, in the case of what makes an act one that ought tobe performed, it is, according to Dreier, the features of its outcome(which includes the act itself) that contribute to its deonticstatus—see Dreier 2011: 114.

Now, one way of defending this underlying thought is to claim, as A.C. Ewing did, that “the good” just means “what oughtto be brought into existence, other things being equal” (1939:8). But, on this view, a non-consequentialist who claims that it canbe wrong to bring into existence what’s best is just misusingthe word “best”. And this may seem too quick.

Dreier is less quick. He claims only that insofar as we have somepre-theoretical notion of a good outcome,

its specific content is too weak and thin for it to come apart fromthe notion of what we are to choose. (Dreier 2011: 115)

Thus,

Dreier’s idea (following Foot) is that we don’t have aconcept of goodness (applied to outcomes) that is independent ofthoughts about what we ought to do. (S. A. Schroeder 2017: 1482)

For, as Dreier sees it, the notion of an act whose outcome outranksevery available alternative cannot come apart from the notion of anact that ought to be performed.

One reason to doubt this, however, is that whereas some theories holdthat whether an agent ought to perform an act just depends on whetherits outcome outranks every available alternative, othertheories hold that it depends instead on whetherthe outcome ofthe best option in which the agent performs it outranks everyavailable alternative. Thus, an act whose outcome outranks everyavailable alternative needn’t be one that ought to be performed,contrary to Dreier’s assertions. To illustrate, consider thefollowing example from Frank Jackson:

Wonderful things will happen if I raise both my arms at some giventimet. OK things will happen if I raise neither arm att, and also if I raise my right arm but not my left arm att. Dreadful things will happen if I raise my left arm but notmy right arm att. If I raise my left arm att, Iwill not raise my right arm att. I am completely free toraise or not to raise either of my arms att. Let’ssuppose that all the foregoing is known for certain by me at the timein question. (2014: 645)

According to some theorists, I ought not to raise my left arm att, because the outcome of my raising my left arm att is outranked by that of an available alternative: that ofmy raising neither arm att. These theorists include bothomnists andactualists—see Portmore 2019 andTimmerman & Cohen 2019 [2020], respectively. Given that I will notraise my right arm att if I raise my left arm att,dreadful things will happen if I raise my left arm att. ButOK things will happen if I instead either raise neither arm att or raise only my right arm att. So, thesetheorists hold that I should not raise my left arm att.

But other theorists hold that I ought to raise my left arm att, because although its outcome is outranked by that ofrefraining from raising my left arm att, the outcome of thebest option in which I raise my left arm att—that is,the option in which I raise both my arms att—outranksevery available alternative. These theorists include bothmaximalists andpossibilists—see Portmore 2019and Timmerman & Cohen 2019 [2020], respectively. After all,wonderful things will happen if I raise both my arms att.And I have no option where something better than wonderful thingswould happen. So, I ought to raise both my arms att. Andsince this entails raising my left arm att, I ought to raisemy left arm att.

This suggests, contrary to Dreier’s assertions, that the notionof an act whose outcome outranks every available alternative can comeapart from the notion of an act that ought to be performed. For thesetwo types of theorists agree that the outcome of my raising my leftarm att (the outcome in which dreadful things happen) isoutranked by that of my raising neither arm att (the outcomein which OK things happen). And they agree that the outcome of myraising both my arms att (the outcome in which wonderfulthings happen) outranks those of every available alternative. Butdespite their agreeing on how all the outcomes rank, they disagree onwhether I ought to perform the option of raising my left arm att. In other words, the two theories agree on how to rank allthe available outcomes but disagree on whether the act whose outcomeoutranks every available alternative must always be the one that oughtto be performed—see Nair 2020. Thus, the two theories disagreeon what the active ingredients are and not just on how to label them.For whereas omnists (and actualists) hold that the active ingredientin making an act one that ought to be performed is thatitsoutcome outranks every available alternative (as Dreierassertions entail), maximalists (and possibilists) hold that it isinstead thatthe outcome of the best option in which the agentperforms it outranks every available alternative. Of course,Dreier could try to argue that these two types of theories are somehowequivalent, but, as Shyam Nair points out, doing so would involveuncharitably insisting that one of them accepts a very implausibleclaim about how to rank outcomes—see his 2020. Unfortunately,Nair’s argument is too long and complex to summarize here. Butthe reader should at least have a sense of this objection and how itmight be rebutted.

5. Conclusion

As Campbell Brown (2011) has noted, arguing with anact-consequentialist can be frustrating. You describe someaction—say, your killing one innocent person to prevent themafia from killing five other innocent people. And then you claim thatalthough your doing this would clearly be wrong, the outcome in whichyou do this is one that you should prefer to (and, thus, one thatoutranks) the outcome in which you don’t do this. You conclude,therefore, that act-consequentialism is false: an act can be wrongeven though its outcome is not outranked by that of any availablealternative. But the act-consequentialist retorts that, to reach thisconclusion, you had to presuppose a particular account of how outcomesrank, one that the act-consequentialist needn’t accept. So, youwere wrong to conclude that act-consequentialism is false. All thatyou’ve shown is that a certain version of act-consequentialismis false. But we already knew that act-consequentialism yieldscounterintuitive deontic verdicts when combined with certainassumptions about how outcomes rank. We learned that long ago bystudying the implications of utilitarianism.

Note, then, that arguing against act-consequentialism is a complextask. You can’t test it in isolation from various backgroundassumptions. Instead, you must evaluate it along with variousbackground assumptions, including assumptions not only about how torank outcomes but also about the nature of actions and the reasons forperforming them.

This entry suggests that evaluating the merits of consequentializingis similarly complex. First, there’s no consequentializingtout court, but only three different types ofconsequentializing. Objections that apply to one don’tnecessarily apply to the others. Second, each type ofconsequentializing has a different motivation. So, there’s noway to assess whether consequentializing is, in general, unmotivated.We can assess only whether a particular type of consequentializing isunmotivated. And, in the case of earnest consequentializing, this isfurther complicated by the fact that earnest consequentializers offerdifferent motivations for different moves—e.g., the idea that wehave a special responsibility for our own agency as a motivation forwhy agents should prefer that others rather than themselves violateagent-centered restrictions. Third, there are two different proceduresfor consequentializing a non-consequentialist theory. And this meansthat we can’t just assess whether, in general,consequentializing produces a gimmicky theory. We must instead look atwhether either of these two procedures produces a gimmicky theory.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Chris Howard, Shyam Nair, Drew Schroeder, and especially ananonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of thisentry.