Another thought in the gendre “consequentialism+”: capabilitariansim à la Senn and Nussbaumer (e.g. here (h/t TJ) for an intro or SEP) seems attractive to me (among other reasons) because I believe it makes a practically useful abstraction from “what we believe ultimately matters” to “what are the best levers to affect that which we believe ultimatly matters”. (In this case, the suggestion would be, while we might still think that some broad notion of utility is what we consider to ultimately matter morally, given the specific world we live in and its causal structure, focus on improving people’s centrals capabilities (as listed for example in the post linked earlier) is a effective and robust way of promoting that good.
And importantly, consequentialism-viewed-through-the-lens-of-capabilitairnism will equip you with some different intuitions in e.g. political philosophy than a more “straitghtforward” notion of consequentialism will (at least before you reach what I am suggesting here to be a new reflective equilibrium).
Another thought in the gendre “consequentialism+”: capabilitariansim à la Senn and Nussbaumer (e.g. here (h/t TJ) for an intro or SEP) seems attractive to me (among other reasons) because I believe it makes a practically useful abstraction from “what we believe ultimately matters” to “what are the best levers to affect that which we believe ultimatly matters”. (In this case, the suggestion would be, while we might still think that some broad notion of utility is what we consider to ultimately matter morally, given the specific world we live in and its causal structure, focus on improving people’s centrals capabilities (as listed for example in the post linked earlier) is a effective and robust way of promoting that good.
And importantly, consequentialism-viewed-through-the-lens-of-capabilitairnism will equip you with some different intuitions in e.g. political philosophy than a more “straitghtforward” notion of consequentialism will (at least before you reach what I am suggesting here to be a new reflective equilibrium).