Consequentialist justifications of the state are philosophical arguments which contend that the state is justified by the good results it produces.
The justification of the state is the source of legitimate authority for the state or government. Typically, a justification of the state explains why the state should exist, and what a legitimate state should or should not be able to do. Consequentialist justifications of the state focus on the results that are achieved when certain institutions are put in place. They are based on consequentialist theories such as utilitarianism. Consequentialism is sometimes confused with utilitarianism, but utilitarianism is only one member of a broad family of consequentialist theories.[1]
Consequentialist theories usually maintain that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on whether the results of the action are desirable. They are frequently contrasted to deontological theories of morality, which typically hold that certain actions are either forbidden or wrong per se.