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If one of the effects of war is a serious reduction in the supply of talented young persons, then that is a consequence of war; whether it was intended, recognized, sought after, or even taken into account by those who make such decisions, is irrelevant. Unless the object of inquiry is to criticize the actor, there is no need to inquire into awareness or motives. The focus of criticism is always the substance of choice, the selection of one outcome in preference to specified others. The identity of the actor need be known only to determine the extent of capacity.

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To avoid needless complications, criticism is limited strictly to actions and choices carried out by living humans. Dogs and cats may "choose" one food in preference to others, but they cannot generate the kinds of justification required for reasoned choices. True, dogs can be conditioned to select food that is more nutritious if less palatable than the alternatives, but in such cases the "choice" is actually made by the person who does the conditioning. For similar reasons, acts of nature such as floods or hurricanes, although they produce very significant changes in the human situation, are not amenable to criticism.

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… There is no element of human choice or direction in such events. Of course, the individual who knows that a hurricane is approaching but fails to warn the neighbors has made a choice that is open to criticism, but blaming a hurricane is only an abuse of the language. Finally, when the actor cannot be identified, the available options will be indeterminate, and criticism is impossible. That can lead to serious conceptual difficulties with collective bodies such as legislatures. The alternatives may be very difficult to determine because of the decision making procedure employed. If each member of a collective body can only choose whether to vote for a measure, vote against it, or abstain, no individual actually makes the collective choice.

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The options included in a choice must be real and attainable. It would be merely silly to speak of "choosing" to fly by flapping the arms, or "choosing" not to die when that is the ultimate fate of all living things. Neither the necessary nor the impossible is a part of choice. Ideals and utopias can therefore play only a very limited role in human actions; if they cannot be achieved, they are not part of choice. Worse, if they cannot be achieved, there is no way to determine whether or not a particular action moves actor or society closer to or further away from the ideal. If the route from city A to city B is unknown, there is no way to determine whether or not any particular step is a "step in the right direction." That requires knowledge of the complete route.

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Finally, the objective here is to develop an approach to choice that refers to a significant form of human behavior and can be improved out of human experience. If choice occurs at every exercise of human capacity, real or potential, the significance of the focus could hardly be greater. If the quality of choosing and acting is to improve, instruments are required that can be justified out of experience and tested against experience. They must lie within human capacity. If reasoned choice or action depended on attributes available only in deities, humans could not make reasoned choices. Furthermore, the approach to choice should allow commonplace materials to become competent critics.

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Choices or actions involve three primary elements: an actor, a choice or action, and a set of consequences flowing from the action. In principle, criticism could focus on any one of those elements or on combinations of all three. In practice, choice must be criticized by reference to consequences. Why that focus is necessary, and what it implies for systematic criticism, is explained in the remainder of the unit. Given a commitment to using human actions to improve the conditions of life of human populations, the strongest reason for insisting that choices be justified or criticized by reference to consequences is that the alternatives will not work.

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Efforts to justify choices by referring to either the characteristics of the actor or to the qualities of the action produce anomalies and inconsistencies that destroy their value. What is called ad hominem reasoning, argument addressed to the attributes of the person, is today rejected almost everywhere. Although it may appear that such reasoning is honored, as when a physician prescribes a particular course of treatment for a patient, and the patient justifies following the advice by attributing it to the doctor, that is misleading. The real justification for the treatment is the one offered by the physician to his or her peers, and that justification will invariably refer to the consequences of the treatment, and the effects anticipated from the available alternatives.

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Further, the intentions of the actor are equally irrelevant to systematic criticism of choice because of the absence of any necessary relationship between intention and outcome. Humans frequently intend one outcome and produce another, or produce what is intended but for the wrong reasons. Worse, humans often act without knowing why they act, knowing what effects their actions are likely to have, or even without knowing that they are producing an effect on themselves or others. The problem cannot be evaded by depending on the ethical characteristics of the individual actor. There is at present no agreed way to identify a "good" or "moral" person, but even if that could be done, it would not provide an adequate basis for action.

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If all the actions performed by a "good" person had to be accepted, that would be tantamount to considering every operation performed by a "good" doctor to be successful. Since the effects of action cannot be avoided, even if they are not used as the principal basis for justification and criticism of action, focus on the attributes of the person would lead unavoidably to anomalies and inconsistencies--approving or disapproving precisely the same action, with precisely the same effects, because of the individual involved. Any effort to judge the quality of actions independent of their consequences leads to precisely the same outcome.

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That leaves only one possible alternative, justifying and criticizing actions by reference to their consequences. Happily, an adequate critical procedure can be developed from that base. It depends on a systematic comparison of the content of the outcomes from which choices are made and requires no more than a comparative rule of preference: Prefer A to B, C, and D. In everyday affairs, judging actions by their consequences is common practice, although use of that basis for justification in ethics has in some degree been inhibited by the old homily that disparages use because it implies that "the end justifies the means."