Moral philosophers tend to treat consequentialism, even when not decision-theoretical in any way, as a synonym of teleology, but we shall reserve this latter term for the type of (consequentialistic or nonconsequentialistic) normative doctrine in which the value of the performatory level has become a goal, end or purpose (the meaning of telos). It is not until we take intentions into consideration that a value which is simply there 'being normatively superior' (as on the purely performatory interpretation) becomes an end towards which effort is, or should be, directed, or a thing towards which the agent attempts, or should attempt to advance. Teleology shall therefore not be used by us as a synonym of consequentialism (which is only future-regarding and need not take intentions or motives into account) but as a synonym of decision-theoretical value-based ethics (which may be present- and past-regarding as well). It is intentional when the goal aimed at may be a means to arrive at another goal which cannot be derived from the same ultimate goal; and motivational when the goal aimed at is not treated as a means, but as something perfective in itself. (We shall pay no attention here to the descriptive, pseudodescriptive or supernaturalist doctrines which are also called "teleologies" and which, we are made to believe, deal with 'purpose as an explanation of natural phenomena', 'final causes' or 'evidences of design in nature'.)

To understand the meaning of decision-theoretical consequentialist ethics as distinct from purely performatory consequentialist ethics, we will direct our attention for a moment at general utilitarianism which, like rule-utilitarianism, has been developed to meet the objections against act-utilitarianism. (General utilitarianism is general consequentialism with happiness or 'utility' purportedly as sole value.) Standard cases to which these objections apply are those of people crossing a lawn where the lawn would be destroyed, if everyone crossed it; or of people abstaining from voting where a democratic institution would collapse, if no-one voted. The basic general-consequentialist idea is clear and lucid: since the consequences of everyone's crossing the lawn or of everyone's not voting are bad, no-one ought to cross the lawn, and no-one ought to abstain from voting. An important characteristic of these examples is that they have thresholds (or for the sake of argument, some transition zone to be narrowed down to a threshold). A certain number of people can cross the lawn in a certain period without damaging it, and in certain kinds of electoral system additional votes do not have any effect on the election results anymore once the number required for passage has been reached. Antiutilitarians or -consequentialists have argued that one 'should not forget the importance of the pattern of other people's behavior which is the crucial factor in the production of threshold effects', and that one 'must not only distinguish between acts within and outside general practises, but relate them to the threshold in question as well'. In other words: acts which produce, or are causally related to the production of, the threshold effect have to be distinguished from acts which do not. The consequences of those acts are different. Thus, someone voting before the threshold has been reached (supposedly) produces a good effect, whereas someone voting after it has been reached produces at best nothing. It has been demonstrated that general utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism are 'extensionally equivalent', that is, that it does not matter at all whether the utility test is applied in these threshold-related cases to simple acts or whether an appeal is made to general practises, or for that matter, rules, grounded in utility.

This conclusion, however, is at once true and trivial. It is trivial because solely concerned with purely performatory (or if preferred, 'extensional') consequentialism. In that case it is obvious that performatory act-consequentialism and performatory general consequentialism must be 'extensionally', that is, from the performatory point of view, equivalent. Neither the performatory consequentialists nor the performatory anticonsequentialists are concerned with 'the practical problems of getting the required information and correctly inferring judgments from the principles on the basis of that information'. But the first ones to blame are definitely those consequentialists who themselves do not explicitly recognize the different layers of the ethical profile.

The consequentialist's general practise is always related to a function, utility or institution which is (believed to be) desirable. For example, if someone ought to vote, it is because the institution of democracy or the support of a particular good cause is desirable, and if someone ought to abstain from crossing the lawn, it is because a nice, green lawn is a good thing, and a path visibly trodden thru it a bad thing. The function, utility or institution which is a common good recognized by the members of a certain group or community must be desirable or morally acceptable on the grounds of the same value-theory which makes an individual act or omission into a right act or omission. In performatory consequentialism this is an uninspiring truth, but particularly when presuppositions come in (in decision-theoretical value-based ethics) it will turn out to be of no little import. No doubt, one of the most important incentives to develop general utilitarianism was the need felt to justify on utilitarian grounds the moral 'law' that one should never lie, should never steal. (What will happen if everyone lies or steals?) Yet, it is precisely this kind of acts which cannot be described in purely performatory (or 'extensional') terms at all.

A person only lies if 'e asserts something that 'e 'imself believes to be untrue with the intent to deceive. In the event that 'e asserts something that is untrue (while not intending to deceive), 'e is wrong in another sense, not connected to a moral judgment. The same holds for stealing: stealing is not just taking what is morally speaking someone else's property, but taking it with the intent to keep it, while appropriation has not been sanctioned. The general utilitarianism whose anatomy has been exposed as 'extensionally equivalent' to act-utilitarianism only employs brute facts to render moral judgments, while acts such as lying and stealing it was designed to bring into moral disrepute cannot even be described in that way. Before saying that someone lies when 'e says something untrue, or that 'e steals when 'e takes something away that belongs to someone else, we need to know the person's intentions against the background of 'er information and presuppositions. In short: the general utilitarianism which includes acts such as lying and stealing in its generalization tests simply could never be performatory, that is, entirely independent of intentions, to start with.

Ideally, there should be a complete correspondence between the agent's information and presuppositions on the one hand and the brute facts or modal conditions on the other, but this is only contingently so. Nonetheless, the correspondence seems to be covertly assumed in performatory consequentialism. One principle of consequences, for instance, is if the consequences of A's doing x would be undesirable, then A does not have the right to do x. On the supposition that it only uses would be because the antecedent is counterfactual this formulation is ethically inadequate, as it does not give a cue to the moral agent in a strict sense. Only indirectly, after assuming that the agent's information and presuppositions wholly correspond with (past, present and future) reality, does it provide a suitable cue for 'im. To make such an assumption beforehand is irrational from a decision-theoretical standpoint.

Given that the value-theory determines the moral agent's intention or goal(s) and thereby what consequences are desirable or undesirable (if future-regarding), A ought not to do x, if according to 'er own information and reasonable presuppositions, 'er doing x would have undesirable consequences. Or, it ought not to be A's intention to do something that would have undesirable consequences according to 'er theory of value(s) and 'er (own) information and presuppositions. (This might logically be formalized as " ( E_f ) O_ty " in which E is an epistemic operator and O_t a temporally relative operator used in dyadic systems of deontic logic. A definition of f  Oy  is under circumstance f  it is obligatory that y  in terms of f -ideal worlds, that is, worlds which are at least as ideal as any world in which f  is the case may be.)

Granted that there is an objective reality, facts and modal conditions themselves cannot contradict each other, only interpretations of the factual and modal conditions can. Therefore in performatory consequentialism the (true) conditions with regard to a function, utility or institution and the (true) conditions with regard to an act or abstention will always match. In the moral decision-theory of intentional (and motivational) consequentialism, however, there is the additional requirement that the agent's presuppositions (and information) with respect to the institution, for instance, themselves cohere with 'er presuppositions (and information) with respect to the particular act to be performed or abstained from. It can then be proved that voting consequentialist with good intentions does make a difference with voting on the purely performatory schema (assuming that the value-theory adhered to does not have self-interest as its sole value, and that it does not have participation in democracy by means of voting or otherwise as a separate, perfective value). Essential to the proof is that the agent has accepted the institution itself as being in agreement with 'er value-theory, or at least that its (universal) advantages are greater than the disadvantages of supporting it. The trouble of having to vote is then, presumably, the only disadvantage. Furthermore, the desirability of the institution implies that its advantages would outweigh its disadvantages even if everyone voted, altho only a certain minimum number of favorable votes is required. (If this is not the case, the institution is not worth it, or the voting system itself has to be reformed.)

We should not forget either that the person we are focusing on is not someone acting out of plain self-interest, but is a moral agent who rationally bases 'er decisions upon a certain nonegoistic value-theory. In particular 'e does not yield to statistically or otherwise unwarranted assumptions which would merely be to 'er own benefit.

A fundamental question which remains in decision-theoretical consequentialism (and in all nonperformatory ethical doctrines) is whether the agent is allowed to assume that other people will act from the same value-theory (or theory of rights, or theory of duties). This is an issue no calculus can solve, for it precedes every value- and decision-theoretical exercise. In our discussion of relevancy an affirmative answer to this question corresponded to the universal version of the principle of discriminational relevance, and a negative answer to the personal version of that principle. (See 5.4.4.)

Consequentialist ethics cannot bypass the realm of the intensional, of propositional attitudes. It must take account of the difference in kind of normative judgments on the level of the purely performatory (nonintensional, nonpropositional or lower-level propositional), the level of the intentional, and the level of motives and traits of character. If it does not make a difference --as has been demonstrated-- whether acts are judged from the point of view of simple or general utility, then the normative system in which this equivalence holds is inadequate or incomplete in the first place, even from the standpoint of monistic consequentialism, because it sticks to judgments on the first, performatory level only.

Every adequate normative system needs at least implicitly a moral decision-theory. By definition such a theory does not bluntly calculate on actual performances or the actual effects of actions. As in intentional consequentialism it elevates both the agent and the observer watching 'im to a higher level -- 'higher' in that it encompasses more of what is required. But even after having recognized two or three levels of normative judgment, a monistic consequentialist will still have to add one or more values, or change 'er value, if generalization or rules cannot accomodate under the heading of utility (or whatever else it might be) everything that is believed to be moral. Little imagination is, then, needed to introduce more criterions of evaluation at the performatory level. But after the adoption of a pluralistic value-theory the difficult task remains to develop a moral decision-theory which gives directions to the agent what to do or not to do, also when two or more values conflict which cannot in any way be reduced to one another or to one fundamental value. The duty to solve this problem seems to be the main result of ruling out utilitarianism and performatory consequentialism.