ABSTRACT
You will recall from the last chapter that according to classical utilitarianism the right action is that whose consequences maximise the well-being or happiness of affected agents; in other words, the best action is that which produces the greatest improvement in well-being. As the dominant approach to environmental policy making, in particular through instruments such as CBA, we have in the last chapter discussed the welfarist component of utilitarianism. In this chapter we examine its second component, the commitment to consequentialism. In the next chapter we will turn to the maximising character of the approach.
