Non-Consequentialist Utilitarianism

Abstract

Ethics 101 students read that utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism. It is not, for the following reason. Utilitarianism says that an act is morally right insofar as it maximizes total utility. Consequentialism says that an act is morally right insofar as it maximizes good consequences. Utilitarians may insist that you maximize total utility, you not thereby maximize good consequences.
Such utilitarians would be non-consequentialists. I address replies to this simple argument. The replies center on the definitions of utilitarianism and consequentialism, respectively. Then I provide indications that non-consequentialist utilitarianism is not only a coherent and intriguing notion, it is also an important one. In particular, building on Kenneth Arrow, John Harsanyi and others, we may re-describe John Rawls’s social theory as committed both to non-consequentialism and, provocatively but in my view inescapably, to utilitarianism. On this heretical reading, Rawls’s central theory may be non-consequentialist utilitarian.