A surgeon has five patients who will die without organ transplants and one perfectly healthy patient whose organs would save all five. What would a strict act-consequentialist analysis conclude?
AForbid harvesting the organs — individual rights cannot be overridden regardless of outcome
BPermit or require harvesting the organs, since five lives saved outweighs one life lost
CAbstain from judgment — consequentialism applies only to voluntary actions, not medical decisions
DPermit it only if the healthy patient consents or is otherwise less socially valuable
This is the classic 'transplant problem.' If the right action is determined entirely by outcomes and five lives > one life, strict act-consequentialism follows the arithmetic: harvest the organs. Most people's strong intuition that this is wrong — that killing an innocent person for aggregate benefit violates something important — is precisely what Bernard Williams used to argue against bare act-consequentialism via the integrity objection. The question tests whether students understand that consequentialism genuinely follows its logic, not intuition.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A consequentialist argues that keeping promises is generally morally required. Which of the following best explains the consequentialist basis for this claim?
APromises are intrinsically binding — breaking them is wrong regardless of outcome
BKeeping promises tends to produce better outcomes overall by sustaining trust and social cooperation
CConsequentialism forbids promise-breaking because it violates a universal moral duty
DA strict act-consequentialist must evaluate each promise individually; no general claim about promises is possible
Option D is actually correct for act-consequentialism — each promise is evaluated case-by-case. But rule-consequentialists argue that adopting the rule 'keep promises' maximizes good outcomes because trust and cooperation are highly valuable. This shows how consequentialism can ground familiar moral rules — but justifies them by outcomes, not by intrinsic rightness. This also illustrates the common misconception that consequentialism cannot generate stable moral rules.
Question 3 True / False
According to consequentialism, lying can be morally required if it produces better consequences than telling the truth.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This directly tests the core consequentialist claim: moral evaluation belongs to outcomes, not to intrinsic features of acts. The explainer states: 'Lying is not intrinsically wrong; it is wrong when and because it produces bad consequences... When lying would save lives, that same act becomes permissible or even required.' No act is categorically forbidden — rightness or wrongness is always contingent on the actual consequences in the specific situation.
Question 4 True / False
'The ends justify the means' is an accurate and complete summary of consequentialist reasoning.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
The Common Misconceptions section explicitly addresses this. While naive act-consequentialism might seem to license any means for good ends, sophisticated versions — rule-consequentialism, indirect consequentialism — incorporate constraints and rules precisely because following them tends to produce better outcomes than case-by-case calculation. Additionally, 'the ends justify the means' ignores the rich disagreement about what counts as a good end (hedonism vs. preference satisfaction vs. objective list theories). The slogan oversimplifies a family of nuanced theories.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is Bernard Williams's 'integrity' objection to consequentialism, and why does it challenge the theory at its core?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Williams argued that consequentialism erases the morally significant distinction between what you do and what you merely allow — it treats your causal contribution to an outcome as equivalent to anyone else's. This requires agents to perform acts violating their deepest moral commitments whenever aggregate arithmetic demands it, destroying the agent's integrity. It challenges consequentialism at its core because it suggests the theory's defining feature — evaluating acts solely by outcomes — fails to capture something essential about moral agency: that there is a difference between being an agent and being an instrument.
Williams's critique is not just squeamishness. It's that consequentialism turns the moral agent into a mere calculator for outcome production, with no special relationship to their own actions. You have no more reason to refrain from killing one to save five than you have to prevent a stranger from doing so — which conflicts with deep intuitions about personal responsibility. This is why the trolley problem's two versions (divert vs. push) feel morally different even with identical arithmetic.