ABSTRACT
Act-consequentialism is generally characterized as a certain sort of view about the relation between an act’s rightness and its consequences. Act-consequentialism itself, on the other hand, has been seen as a unitary moral conception by both defenders and critics. Now the idea of satisficing consequentialism deserves to be explored as a formal possibility quite apart from its intuitiveness or ultimate supportability; but in fact it can be made to appear of more than formal interest. Of course moderation has been exalted as a prime virtue in many religious and philosophical traditions. However, even if the enjoyment of a snack does count as a rejected personal good for the individual of our example, that fact may be obscured by the very smallness or triviality of the good in question. Now the form of satisficing consequentialism Bentham advocates has some peculiar features, features that must be avoided if we are to arrive at a fully satisfying version of such consequentialism.
