The Alienation Objection To Consequentialism

According to consequentialism,whether an action is moral or not,is only determined by whether the action maximizes the good consequence or not.There are two forms of consequentialism: if one determines the moral status of an action on the basis of what the action itself,that is,‘directly’,produces in terms of good effects,then it is direct consequentialism;If one holds that the right action is the action preformed in accordance with something that maximizes the good effects such as rules,motivation or virtue,then it is indirect consequentialism.Generally speaking,consequentialism holds that the moral quality of action is determined solely by effects of the action,which is the most important feature of consequentialism.Direct consequentialism confronted with the Alienation Objection.Bernard Williams argued that an agent would alienate from his or her own special feelings and commitment such as friendship,and therefore‘personal integrity’ would be damaged,if he or she followed the moral standard of direct consequentialism.Since then,many theorists have criticized consequentialism as lienating us from ourselves and from those who are special to us.Direct consequentialist theorists such as Railton responded to the Alienation Objection to direct consequentialism raised by Williams and others,through the indirect strategy of separating the standard of rightness from the decision-making procedure in consequentialism.However,Dean Cocking and Justin Oakley addressed a new alienation objection to Railton.They argued that the "counterfactual condition" in Railton’s theory still dominated the agent,then the agent cannot have real friendship,as friendship in consequentialist life only has instrumental value,which is not in line with the intrinsic value of friendship itself.So the alienation objection to direct consequentialism has operated in the theory of indirect consequentialism.Many consequentialist theorists responded.Reinterpreting the "counterfactual condition",Elinor Mason argued that the consequentialist terminating conditions applied to a disposition rather than to particular relationships,then the criticism addressed by Cocking and Oakley failed.However,Robert Card can’t accept Mason’s point of view.Card pointedly argued that not all friendships are good,and people should resolutely reject those friendships with problems in daily life.In order to solve the alienation objection to indirect consequentialism,Card put forward to‘holistic teleology’.Finally,reviewing the above theorists’ viewpoints,Matthew Tedesco sorted out three different levels of the alienation objection to consequentialism.And he responded to the challenge of problematic friendship addressed by Card,then concluded that sophiscated indirect consequentialism was able to incorporate genuine friendship better than Card’s holistic teleogy.Thus,as the last indirect consequentialist theorist in this paper,Tedesco not only recognized the contribution to consequentialism made by the above theorists,but also responded to the last challenge regarding to the alienation objection.Hereto,indirect consequentialists have defended their theory.Consequentialism views the greatest happiness(including personal friendship)of the vast majority of people as the standard of rightness,then it does not require an agent giving up personal friendship when it conflicts with the greatest happiness,but only temporarily lay pro-friendship disposition aside.Consequentialism requires that agent should give up problematic friendship and disposition,when the disposition is really inconsistent with the objectively ideal life.Therefore,indirect consequentialists can still live a consequentialist life,on the other hand,they still have genuine friendship.