The View

Below, I'll present commonsense consequentialism with increasing detail and precision.

  • One ought to do what will best achieve the aims that one ought to have.
  • For any subject S and for any option φ, S ought to φ if and only if there is no alternative ψ such that S ought to prefer ψ's outcome to φ's outcome.
  • For any subject S and for any option φ, S's φ-ing is morally permissible if and only if there is no alternative ψ such that S has both more moral reason and more reason, all reasons (moral and non-moral) considered, to desire ψ's outcome than to desire φ's outcome.
  • (a) For any subject S and for any maximal option M1, S’s performing M1 is morally permissible if and only if there is no alternative maximal option M2 such that S has both more moral reason and more reason, all reasons (moral and non-moral) considered, to desire M2's prospect than to desire M1's prospect. (b) For any subject S and for any non-maximal option Nx, S’s performing Nx is morally permissible if and only if there is some permissible maximal option Mx such that S's performing Mx entails S's performing Nx. (c) And when the left-hand side of one of these bi-conditionals is true, it is so in virtue of the right-hand side's being true.

And here are the following relevant definitions:

  1. φ and ψ are alternatives if and only if, although φ-ing and ψ-ing are both options for S, S does not have the option of both φ-ing and ψ-ing.
  2. One option entails another if and only if the performance of the one logically necessitates the performance of the other. Thus, S's φ-ing entails S's ψ-ing if and only if the statement 'S φs' entails the statement 'S ψs'.
  3. An option φ is a maximal option if and only if there is no alternative ψ such that ψ-ing entails φ-ing but not vice versa.
  4. The fact that one outcome (or world) would be morally better than another is a moral reason to prefer it to the other.
  5. An option φ is a non-maximal option if and only if it is not a maximal option.
  6. The fact that one outcome (or world) would be better for you, but not any morally better, than another is a non-moral reason to prefer it to the other.
  7. The outcome of S’s φ-ing is the possible world that would be actual if S were to φ.
  8. The prospect of S's φ-ing is a probability distribution over the possible ways the world might be if S were to φ. That is, it is the set of mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive ways the world might be if S were to φ, with each possibility assigned a probability such that the sum of the probabilities equals 1.