Deontological Ethics vs- Consequentialism- Assessing Moral Judgments Do you think actions should be judged according to whether they conform to duty, or do you think they should be judged according to what effects the action produced? Explain.

I think actions should be judged according to whether they conform to duty because judging them according to the effects they produce may create the wrong judgment because of outcome bias. According to Strohmaier et al. (2020), outcome bias is a phenomenon that includes considering information about an outcome when evaluating a decision. Strohmaier et al. (2020) argue that the outcome bias presents two challenges. The first challenge is the availability of different information that creates uncertainty about the quality of a decision. The second challenge is the possibility that a good outcome might result from a bad decision and a bad outcome might result from a good decision, leading to questionable decisions. Focusing on the outcome of a decision when judging an action could also result in ignoring important information that can influence the quality of a decision. Sezer et al. (2016) argue that people ignore information about an intention when they have information about an outcome. For example, people may ignore negative information to get credit for actions that derive a good action. A good example of such a situation may be when information about workers’ accidents and being overworked during the construction of a hospital is ignored because the hospital benefits a large population and improves people’s lives. Conforming to duty in such a situation would lead to the conclusion that the contractor acted unethically, but when the outcome is considered, ethics may be ignored when judging the situation. Focusing on the outcome also prevents people from considering the intentions of an actor to act ethically or unethically. For instance, in the hospital construction scenario, focusing on the outcome prevents those judging the action from considering the contractor’s intention to act ethically or unethically and may lead to the assumption that the contractor acted unethically unknowingly to create a good image since the project benefits a large population of people.

 References

Sezer, O., Zhang, T., Gino, F., & Bazerman, M. H. (2016). Overcoming the outcome bias: Making intentions matter. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.07.001