Act And Rule Utilitarianism

Front 1

Act Consequentialism

Back 1

Acts are right just in case they maximize good consequences,

It assesses the moral status of the evaluand in terms of its direct consequences.

Front 2

Rule consequentialism

Back 2

Acts are right if they conform to a rule which, if regularly followed, maximizes good consequences, it assesses the moral status of the evaluand in terms of its effects on some other evaluand (e.g. rules), whose status is itself assessed in terms of its consequences.

Front 3

Strengths of ActUtilitarianism (3)

Back 3

Total utility is arguably at its highest possible level as every action results in the maximum possible amount of utility

Flexible theory of ethics as it is a mistake to treat whole classes of actions as right or wrong as the effects of these actions will be different when they are undertaken in different contexts Accepts that it is useful to have a general rule of thumb based on experience and accumulated wisdom to use in split-second decisions but these ‘rules’ should be violated if to do so would generate more utility than abiding by the rule

Front 4

Problems of Act Utilitarianism (4)

Back 4

Integrity Objection: If you have the option tokill one person and harvest and transplant their organs, thereby saving fiveother lives, should you do so?

Overlooks morally relevant features of the situation as Act utilitarianism argues it is obvious to kill the one person, but surely it is not obvious,

Also asks both too little and too much of a person, should you always donate to charity over a holiday or paying your employees? Would lead to breakdown in society

Too extreme to expect people to be able to follow it in every situation

Front 5

Strengths of Rule Utilitarianism (3)

Back 5

The best rules for everyone to internalise and follow are those on which you wouldn’t kill one person for the greater good, nor would you prioritise mild benefits to the better off than the worse off, nor would you have, in every case, to violate your own integrity to promote the greater good.

The principle of utility is used to evaluate rules rather than being applied to individual actions

A rigid rule based system is better as people are poor judges of what the best thing is to do and it’s hard to predict all consequences of an action on you and how other people around you would react

But it allows the creation of rules where in certain circumstances they can be overridden

Front 6

Problems of Rule Utilitarianism (4)

Back 6

Does rule consequentialism collapse into actconsequentialism? One moral rule could be always abide by Act Utilitarianism

It appears paradoxical as it suggests that utility is not maximised when always choosing the action in every circumstance which maximises utility but rather is maximised when following rules which do not always lead to maximum utility

Irrational confidence in rules, if people do not always choose the best action and therefore general rules on morality are better how do we know that people may not choose the best rules

Rule utilitarianism seems to go against utilitarianism if it argues not to violate rules even though greater good would result from breaking them -Response: We ought to follow the rules that would if everyone accepted and internalised them, even if that doesn’t lead to the best consequences.

Front 7

Mill's View (Not clear)

Back 7

The morality of an individual action is not a question of direct perception, but of the application of a law to an individual case

Mill relies on various rules and secondary principles for moral reasoning.

If Mill defines right action in terms of conformity with principles which have optimal acceptance value, then Mill is a ruleutilitarian. However, it is possible to argue that if the right action is the action which brings about the best consequence and the secondary principles are simply a reliable though imperfect way of identifying what is best then Mill is an act utilitarian, Mill also argues that they should be ignored when to follow them would be clearly sub-optimal

Front 8

Multi-level Utilitarian

Back 8

Only in cases of conflict between secondary principles is it necessary to appeal to first principles,

Mill doesn’t think that we should be thinking about what maximizes happiness at all times. In fact, he thinks we should only do that in special circumstances.

On this view, it is right to, for example, kill the patient to harvest their organs; but a good moral agent (following the best decision procedure) wouldn’t do it.