A Critical Evaluation of Consequentialism through the Lens of Electric Vehicle Adoption

Abstract

Consequentialism is a prominent normative ethical theory that evaluates the moral rightness of actions solely by their outcomes. While intuitively appealing in its focus on promoting good consequences, consequentialism faces several foundational challenges. This paper argues that the absence of a universally accepted standard for measuring and comparing outcomes undermines the plausibility of consequentialism as a reliable moral framework. Drawing on the real-world example of electric vehicle adoption, the paper illustrates how conflicting interests, temporal uncertainty, and subjective standards of pleasure complicate moral calculations. The analysis demonstrates that even revised forms of consequentialism, such as rule-consequentialism and agent-relative consequentialism, fail to resolve the core issue: without a clear metric for evaluating consequences, consequentialism can neither achieve the impartiality it prescribes nor provide consistent guidance for moral agents.