Consequentialists

In my opinion, I believe that most humans, at least most Americans, in this day in age are consequentialists. This means that most people judge whether or not an action is moral based on what the consequences of the action end up being. I believe this is true because ever since we were little, our parents and other role models have always taught us to “think of the consequences” before acting in a certain circumstance. We are always asked, even if the reason behind the act appears to be good, “do you realize what your action could do if it goes wrong?” In addition, I believe that children are punished by parents and teachers based solely on the results of the action, no matter what the child was attempting to do. If, for example, a child is trying to help one of his or her classmates carry some paint, but then trips and spills the paint all over the floor and another child. The teacher might not see everything that had happened and the classmate that had the paint spilled on them might say that the kid did it on purpose and, therefore, the child would be punished. Even though, the child’s intention of helping his friend carry something was morally good, the result of the action is what the teacher based the punishment on. This may especially ring true with a wide variety of school suspensions are being handed out to young children for seemingly miniscule reasons. This may not be the best example of this, but it is all I can think of at the moment. I also believe this is true because throughout main stream media, we tend to focus on the consequences of actions, which, in turn, tends to sway the public opinion in a certain way. Because of this, we often only see the bad consequences, thus causing a tendency to think of the consequences of every action. All in all, I think that we, for the most part, focus on the consequences of an action and decide whether it is moral or not based on the results, no matter the intention.