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Consequences Of Act Consequentialism

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Consequences Of Act Consequentialism
Act consequentialism supports the idea that actions are made right or wrong based solely on their consequences. This means that a person would look to the consequences of a certain action to determine whether or not that action is right or wrong. A ‘right’ action would be one that leads to the best results where as a ‘wrong’ action would be one with less than ideal consequences. According to this basic theory, one would always choose the ‘right’ action because it leads to the most favorable consequences. Though this theory can sound appealing, I do not agree fully that actions are determined solely based on consequences. I think that everyone has their own set of moral ethics or values and these can affect whether or not a person sees a particular action as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. One definition of …show more content…
I think that it is difficult to determine what constitutes the ‘best’ results and that this may vary depending on the person making the decision. Another problem I have with act consequentialism is that particular actions may have ‘favorable’ consequences, but does that make them ethically (or morally) correct? I do not think that it does all of the time so I do not agree that actions are determined to be right or wrong solely because of their consequences. Utilitarianism claims that everyone shares a common intrinsic value of happiness and that because this is seen as the most important value in life, we should try to maximize

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