Question

Media Gender and Race

define consequential theory. Provide an example of an act or belief that could create either a good or bad outcome. Provide an illustration of a good outcome and a bad outcome from the same act or belief. For example, is dieting to lose weight a good idea? If it makes you healthy, then yes. If you are already too thin and you become sick, then no.

Answer should be at least 100 words.

Answer 1

(Answer) Consequentialism is a theory that judges whether or not an action is good based on the consequences or outcome of the action. This means that an action is good if it has a good result and bad if it has a bad result. This theory can be easily applied to the unequivocal actions and outcomes. However, there are some actions that are a little more ambiguous.

For instance, John is worried about whether or not he will pass his exam. This is because John is easily prone to anxiety and his therapist has told him to avoid too much stress or it might increase his blood pressure. John decides to take stress and study rigorously. This is bad for his anxiety and yet good for his exam score.

Here the action could have a good outcome and John could get a good grade or a bad outcome and give John very high blood pressure. Furthermore, It is the same act of excessive studying that is bringing about the likelihood of having both a good and a bad outcome for the same action.

In the case above, consequentialism seems to be a poor theory to apply when an action has several connotations and there are variables other than a simple cause and effect to consider. For instance, the extraneous variable in the example above is the anxiety problem. This makes the example go beyond a simple concept like consequentialism.