Abstract

A consequentialist approach to ethics--which consists of an appeal to a single ultimate moral consideration--is often regarded as having an advantage over an approach which relies on an ultimate plurality of basic moral principles. Such a pluralistic or "common-sense" approach to ethics is subject to indeterminacies, internal conflicts, and confusions that the consequentialist view is not subject to, and is in fact often claimed to alleviate. For this reason, Consequentialism claims to be independent of and superior to the non-consequentialist "common-sense" conception of ethics. ;The present inquiry argues that the criterion of rightness central to the most direct and distinctive form of Consequentialism requires that moral agents generally inculcate and maintain a moral conception that is fundamentally non-consequentialist which has a pluralistic structure identical to that of Common-Sense Morality. Accordingly, it is argued, the act-consequentialist criterion of rightness is "self-effacing" in that it requires agents generally to be taught to believe that the ultimate sources of moral obligation are essentially non-consequentialist. The realization of the ultimate aim of the act-consequentialist approach to ethics , therefore, actually presupposes the inculcation and maintenance of a common-sense conception of the grounds of moral obligation. Further, since it requires the exclusive inculcation and maintenance of the common-sense structured conception within the consciences of agents generally, severe limitations on the ability of such agents to utilize consequentialist considerations to supplement, systematize, and reform common-sense ethical determinations are incurred. The limitations of the common-sense approach therefore become the inherent limitations of the act-consequentialist approach to ethics itself. Contrary to much recent thinking on this subject , Act-Consequentialism cannot be a theoretical basis upon which to transcend the inherent limitations of Common-Sense Morality. Rather than transcending them, it fundamentally incorporates them