ABSTRACT
A different suggestion focuses on the fact that consequentialism is a strongly impartial moral theory. This chapter argues that what grounds the objection from friendship in the case of consequentialism is the fact that consequentialism is agent-neutral. Because the good that consequentialism demands the moral agent to maximize is agent-neutral, the agent’s personal reasons for acting—reasons which, by their very nature, must vary from agent to agent—do not play a significant role in the determination of the agent’s actions. The effect of the fact of differential ability may be to mitigate consequentialism’s problem with friendship, at least to an extent. Consequentialism, that is, is being understood as an essentially agent-neutral theory. The proponent of sophisticated consequentialism would like to have it both ways: the agent is to be both the sort of agent who is most likely to maximize the impersonal good, and the sort of agent who can participate fully in a flourishing personal relationship.
