PHILOS 3YY3: Introduction to Ethics

Rule- 02/08/2018

Utilitarianism
 4 Examples, 2 Difficulties
A. The undeserving student
B. The petty thief
C. The district attorney and the innocent scoundrel
D. The indolent democrat
❖ Problems for Utilitarianism:
1. There appear to be some acts that we ought not perform even
though their consequences would seem to increase utility
2. There appear to be some acts that we ought to perform even
though doing them will seemingly not increase utility
 Acts, Practices, Rules
❖ Repetitions of certain acts create general patterns that we may
recognize as general, utility-increasing practices:
❖ The more a practice tends to promote utility, the more inclined
we are to treat it as a rule of action; e.g. practice: truthfulness -
utility: trust | practice: deception - disutility: mistrust
❖ Rule-Utilitarianism: each act, in the moral life, falls under a
RULE; and we are to judge the rightness or wrongness of
the act, not be ITS consequences, but by the consequences
of its universalization - that is, by the consequences of the
adoption of the RULE under which the act falls (167)
 Act vs Rule Utilitarianism
❖ Act Utilitarianism: morally right/good actions are those that
promote the greatest net utility in a given situation; such actions
should be judged on a case-by-case basis
❖ AU question: will the actual or foreseeable consequences of
this particular act promote the greatest net utility?
❖ Rule Utilitarianism: morally right/good actions are those practices
that increase utility as defined by justified rules of conduct; rules
are justified insofar as their universal application tends to increase
net utility
❖ RU question: will the consequence of acting according to the
rule or set of rules of practice tend to promote the greatest net
utility?
 Private Acts & Rule Utility
❖ If an act would have bad consequences only if a certain number of people
knew about, would it still be bad if those certain people remained ignorant of
the act?
❖ According to Act Utilitarianism, it is seems that one would be in the moral
clear to, e.g., falsely inflate one student’s grades, sit on liberating evidence
and falsely imprison, etc., but this seems morally problematic
❖ Rule Utilitarianism identifies the problematic nature in the disutility of the
practice itself -> whether done in secret or in public, the act is judged on the
basis of the consequence of the rule being universally enforced or
trespassed
❖ Hospers: the result of the practice of changing grades in secret is just as bad
as the results of the practice done in full knowledge of everyone; it would be
equally deleterious to the grading system, equally a bad index of a student’s
actual achievement (168)
 A Distinction without a
Difference?
❖ Mill: hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either
always obligatory or always condemnable. -> i.e. there are
always exceptions to rules
❖ If exceptions to the rule were judged on the basis of the
Greatest Happiness Principle then RU reduces to AU …
❖ I.e. follow those rules that promote the greatest net utility,
unless a particular act of breaking them will promote an even
greater net utility … so, the circumstances in which rules
must be applied still need to be evaluated according to AU
standards (173)
 Relevant Criteria
❖ Since the use of particular rules would be redundant, and irrelevantly specific
rules trivial, we must arrive at criteria for rule making
❖ Classes and subclasses of rules -> consider classes of actions and determine
whether or not classes of rules can correspond with those classes, or if they need
to correspond with subclasses
❖ E.g. Class of Action (COA): Killing people. Rule for COA: Do not kill ever. Good
rule as such? No, needs to be qualified … Subclass of Action (SOA): Killing
people in self-defence. Rule of SOA: permissible to kill in self-defence. Good
rule? Yes. Why? It offers a class of exceptions to a complex general rule
of practice whose universal application has the consequence of increasing
net utility (171-2)
❖ Hospers: arrive at the rule which, if adopted, would have the very best possible
consequences (which includes, of course, the absolute minimum of bad
consequences) 171