Cost – Benefit Analysis

The application of consequentialist modes of thinking as Cost – Benefit Analysis: The Cost – Benefit Analysis is an accepted technique for decision – making in the business. The business cannot function effectively without such a decision procedure expressed is monetary terms is at the heart of utilitarian thought:

Cost – Benefit Analysis is Utilitarian in 3 ways:

• It is consequentialist in its orientation, directed towards a desired outcome.
• It is concerned with producing maximum benefits.

A decision analyst using costs and benefits may not use the language of utilitarianism (greatest good for the greatest number), but clearly the company is interested in maximizing sales to the greatest number of people possible and providing them the best product at the price that bring them into the market place.

• Like the practice of some utilitarians the costs and benefits are expressed in quantitative terms usually Rupees and Dollars.

The Cost – Benefit Analysis will not factor into the equation many qualitative considerations at all, so the cost – benefit analysis is more like the Bentham’s utilitarianism.

However, the limitations to consequentialist ways of thinking as applied in the context of business.