Consequences, opportunities, and generalized consequentialism and non-consequentialism

In a recent paper published in Journal of Economic Theory (101 (2001) 423-436), by Suzumura and Xu, an analytical framework was developed, which allowed us to characterize the concept of consequentialism and non-consequentialism. To simplify matters, however, the treatment in that paper was confined only to the cases where no trade-off exists between consequential considerations, which reflect the individual's preferences over alternatives, and non-consequential considerations, which reflect the individual's concern over richness of opportunities from which alternatives are chosen. The present paper represents a generalization of our previous framework, which can now accommodate the situations where consequential considerations and non-consequential considerations actively interact. The analysis covers both the cases of finite and infinite number of alternatives.