Is this a valid consequentialist argument, or why not?
I was having a discussion with a friend, and he claimed that there are valid consequentialist arguments behind statements such as:
- Jim Crow laws were good because they led people to rebel against racist laws which led to civil rights laws
- The Zodiak killings were good because they inspired a whole generation of police, lawyers, and other civil servants to take serial killers seriously, leading to less serial killers
- If I stole 5 dollars from you, which led you to investigate further sources of income, eventually leading to you having 100 extra dollars, the theft would be a good thing
These aren’t the specific arguments he made, but similar arguments I made up to hopefully sketch out the class of argument. Essentially, X thing which would generally be considered bad is good from a consequentialist perspective if it leads to Y even better thing.
This doesn’t seem correct to me, and I argued against it saying that perhaps the broad system of events, including both bad and better thing together, could be considered good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that just the X thing on its own is good. Only things X + Y are good. This doesn’t feel like a particularly good retort though, and I feel if I were better read on actual philosophy there must be a dozen better retorts, but perhaps I’m biased and my friend has a point.
Which one of us is “more correct” in terms of mainstream consequentialist thought? Are there any mainline consequentialists that would make the argument my friend is making? And if my friend is indeed incorrect, what are better retorts to the argument?