Everybody in society strives to some degree to be good people. However, being a good person does not always come easily. What is a good person anyway? When one begins to think about what needs to be done to be considered a good person, questions begin to arise. The realm of moral philosophy is concerned with these types of questions. One prominent moral theory that many different theorists have aligned themselves with is consequentialism. This theory stems from the notion that many people in society have, and it states that an action can be judged as right or wrong based on the consequence that it produces. For example, to kill another is wrong because it yields a negative consequence: death. As such, immoral actions are those that result in bad outcomes, and moral actions are those that result in good outcomes.
[...] We will use questions of welfare and social inequality as a basis for assessing these consequentialist ideas and the possible criticisms that they attract. From this it will be clear that consequentialist theory can be used in many ways, as different consequentialists have different ideas about how the utility calculation should be made, but it is clear that the classic notions of utilitarianism are not enough to justify a complete redistribution of wealth from the affluent to the non-affluent. A problem with the early utilitarian theory is that it is possible that it comes at odds with our prevalent notions of justice, particularly distributive justice. [...]
[...] According to him: act is wrong if and only if it is forbidden by the code of rules whose internalization by the overwhelming majority of everyone everywhere in each new generation has maximum expected value in terms of well-being The calculation of a code's expected value includes all costs of getting the code internalized.” (Hooker, 2000: 32). Hooker's rule-consequentialism provides a means for avoiding very bad situations that classic utilitarianism might allow. There is a lot to this theory. It is indirect because the actions are assessed on how well they follow ideal rules. [...]
[...] However, it has also been shown that this theory can be applied in many different ways to yield different moral recommendations. Utilitarianism is a classic consequentialist theory, but it is also one that has received a lot of criticism since its inception. We examined the question of social inequality and the redistribution of wealth from the affluent to the poor. Some utilitarians argue that we are morally obligated to do this, while other use consequentialism to argue the opposite. From this it [...]
[...] But can we really take utilitarianism and Singer seriously when seemingly nobody in our society abides by this moral theory? To this Singer has a response. He refers to conventional morality which he agrees has its problems, it has tensions and inconsistencies. He says that it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do (Singer, 1972: 230). Should not we have to forgo luxuries and abundance in order to ensure a more equal distribution of resources? [...]
[...] As such, for the utilitarian, inequality is just, and thus morally acceptable. (Driver, 2007: 62). To many though, the idea that some must work hard for the huge benefit of a small number of others seems inherently unfair (despite the fact that it could be argued that the upper-class provides for happiness for the middle class, and so on How is it just that some are left worse off for the benefit of others? Someone like John Rawls argues that this type of thinking fails to treat people as individuals, and is thus not morally acceptable. [...]
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