 Of course, the consequentialist has more than one possible reply to these sorts of worries about her view. First, the consequentialist can argue that, in fact, each person acting so as to benefit her friends, loved ones, promisees, etc., will have the best overall consequences. Promising, for example, is an instrumentally valuable institution, and each of us should do her part to support that institution: one thing that each of us can do is to keep her own promises. Promises also create expectations in their recipients, and the harm of unrealized expectations or hopes needs to be taken into account when we consider whether the breaking of a promise has better consequences than the keeping of a promise. Similarly, each of us ought to take special care of her loved ones, because friendship is a valuable institution. Also, we are well positioned to take care of our loved ones: our efforts are more likely to be efficacious than if we were to attempt to benefit persons distant from us whom we do not know and people often experience greater emotional harm when they are slighted by their intimates than when they are slighted by strangers. As John Stuart Mill remarked in Utilitarianism, “[f]ew hurts which human beings can sustain are greater, and none wound more, than when that on which they habitually and with full assurance relied fails them in the hour of need” (59).