The problem with moral obligation › The criticism of consequentialism

Anscombe uses the term consequentialism in the essay for the tendency she criticizes among the moral philosophers following Sidgwick. Her concern is with an approach that allows the balance of consequences to decide whether acts such as punishing the innocent may be justified.

She does not claim that consequences never matter. Her discussion distinguishes judging the circumstances of an act from allowing an anticipated outcome to erase every limit on what one may do. The problem concerns what role consequences have in justification.

Her account of casuistry helps clarify the contrast. A casuist considers whether a particular action in particular circumstances counts as murder, theft, or another prohibited kind. Borderline cases can require careful judgment. This does not mean that the central prohibition is suspended whenever a sufficiently attractive result is predicted.

There is a difficulty on the other side too: deciding what counts as the prohibited act. If an agent redescribes an action to avoid an inconvenient category, the analysis has failed. Anscombe's emphasis on action descriptions supplies a task for the prohibition-based view as well as a criticism of its rivals.

This is why presenting her argument as "character rather than rules" is misleading. The paper defends constraints on action while asking for an adequate account of virtue. She does not teach that a person with good intentions may bend any rule in pursuit of a preferred outcome.