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cousin_it comments on Surface syllogisms and the sin-based model of causation - Less Wrong
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Thanks a lot for the post. Your analysis looks correct to me. It's fascinating how consequentialism mixes with deontologism in our minds: we seem to search the causal chain from any bad consequence backwards until we find some deontologically bad action and attach the blame to that. Without deontological morals we'd have no mechanism to decide who is "responsible" or determine which step in the causal chain should be modified in response to the bad consequences.
(This is a tricky point and I'm not sure this comment is correct. Hopefully someone will set me right.)
The way to maintain consequentialism is to focus on incentives. We try to minimize the chances of an environmental disaster by holding the company that causes one financially responsible for its consequences. That way they have the proper incentives to make their operations as safe as possible, and to avoid any operations are too inherently risky.
These kinds of disasters generally have lots of bad direct and indirect consequences, and it's often not possible to make the company pay for all of the costs, so if a few things that they shouldn't really be held responsible for get added to their bill that might not be such a bad thing.