By Michael De Dora I have never thought much of consequentialism, the moral theory which asserts that determining “the good” or “the moral” is a matter of measuring outcomes. Decisions about what is moral, consequentialists say, should depend on the potential or realized costs and benefits of a moral belief or action. There are myriad problems with this line of thought, and while I have already discussed several on this blog, I would like to use this post to examine in more depth what I think are the four strongest objections to consequentialism. First, consequentialism says nothing about the substance of one’s ethic. While most consequentialists are utilitarians — a position I also consider vague and tenuous — one obviously needs only value consequences…