an ethical system according to which ethical behavior is determined by the end results of that behavior.

Any ethical view which establishes the rightness or wrongness of actions by the good or bad produced by its consequences.

Any position in ethics which claims that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on their consequences.

The view that moral decisions should be based on probable or predictable outcomes of an action. See also utilitarianism.

Consequentialism refers to those moral theories that hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action. Thus, on a consequentialist account, a morally right action is an action which produces good consequences. Consequentialism is usually understood as distinct from deontological ethics, which regards the rightness or wrongness of an act as not being contingent upon the consequences of performing it.