#consequentalist

“...Of all utilitarian critics only Steele takes up the challenge that I had particularly posed for them: that the assignment of property rights cannot be dependent on any later outcome, because in this case no one could ever know before the outcome what he was or was not justified in doing; and that in advocating a consequentialist position, utilitarianism is strictly speaking no ethic at all when it fails to answer the all-decisive question “what am I justified in doing now?”

Steele solves this problem in the same way as he proceeds throughout his comment: by misunderstanding what it is. He misconceives my argument as subject to empirical testing; he misrepresents it as claiming to show that “I favor a libertarian ethic” follows from “I am saying something,” while in fact it claims that entirely independent of whatever people happen to favor or utter, “the libertarian ethic can be given an ultimate propositional justification” follows from “I claim such and such to be valid, i.e. capable of propositional justification.”

His response to the consequentialist problem is yet another stroke of genius: No, says Steele, consequentialism must not involve a praxeologically absurd “waiting for the outcome ethic.”

His example: Certain rules are advocated first, then implemented, and later adjusted depending on outcomes. While this is indeed an example of consequentialism, I fail to see how it could provide an answer to “what are we justified in doing now?” and so escape the absurdities of a waiting-for-the-outcome-ethic.

The starting point is unjustified [Which rules? Not only the outcome depends on this!]; and the consequentialist procedure is unjustified, too. [Why not adopt rules and stick to them regardless of outcome?] Steele’s answer to the question “What am I justified in doing?” is: that depends on whatever rules you start out with, then on the outcome of whatever this leads to, and then on whether or not you care about such an outcome. Whatever this is, it is no ethic...”