## 1. Utilitarianism



A moral theory is a form of consequentialism if and only if it
assesses acts and/or character traits, practices, and institutions
solely in terms of the goodness of the consequences. Historically,
utilitarianism has been the best-known form of consequentialism.
Utilitarianism assesses acts and/or character traits, practices, and
institutions solely in terms of overall net benefit. Overall net
benefit is often referred to as aggregate well-being or welfare.
Aggregate welfare is calculated by counting a benefit or harm to any
one individual the same as the same size benefit or harm to any other
individual, and then adding all the benefits and harms together to
reach an aggregate sum. There is considerable dispute among
consequentialists about what the best account of welfare is.


## 2. Welfare



Classical utitilitarians (i.e., Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill, and Henry
Sidgwick) took benefit and harm to be purely a matter of pleasure and
pain. The view that welfare is a matter of pleasure minus pain has
generally been called hedonism. It has grown in sophistication (Parfit
1984: Appendix I; Sumner 1996; Crisp 2006; de Lazari-Radek and Singer
2014: ch. 9) but remains committed to the thesis that how well
someone's life goes depends *entirely* on his or her
pleasure minus pain, albeit with pleasure and pain being construed
very broadly.



Even if pleasures and pains are construed very broadly, hedonism
encounters difficulties. The main one is that many (if not all) people
care very strongly about things other than their own pleasures and
pains. Of course these other things can be important as means to
pleasures and to the avoidance of pain. But many people care very
strongly about things over and beyond their hedonistic instrumental
value. For example, many people want to know the truth about various
matters even if this won't increase their (or anyone
else's) pleasure. Another example is that many people care about
achieving things over and beyond the pleasure such achievements might
produce. Again, many people care about the welfare of their family and
friends in a non-instrumental way. A rival account of these points,
especially the last, is that people care about many things other than
their own welfare.



On any plausible view of welfare, the satisfaction people can feel
when their desires are fulfilled constitutes an addition to their
welfare. Likewise, on any plausible view, frustration felt as a result
of unfulfilled desires constitutes a reduction in welfare. What is
controversial is whether the fulfilment of someone's desire
constitutes a benefit to that person apart from any effect that the
fulfilment of the desire has on that person's felt satisfaction
or frustration. Hedonism answers No, claiming that only effects on
felt satisfaction or felt frustration matter.



A different theory of welfare answers Yes. This theory holds that the
fulfilment of any desire of the agent's constitutes a benefit to
the agent, even if the agent never knows that desire has been
fulfilled and even if the agent derives no pleasure from its
fulfilment. This theory of human welfare is often referred to as the
*desire-fulfillment theory of welfare*.



Clearly, the desire-fulfillment theory of welfare is broader than
hedonism, in that the desire-fulfillment theory accepts that what can
constitute a benefit is wider than merely pleasure. But there are
reasons for thinking that this broader theory is too broad. For one
thing, people can have sensible desires that are simply too
disconnected from their own lives to be relevant to their own welfare
(Williams 1973a: 262; Overvold 1980, 1982; Parfit 1984: 494). I desire
that the starving in far-away countries get food. But the fulfilment
of this desire of mine does not benefit *me*.



For another thing, people can have desires for absurd things for
themselves. Suppose I desire to count all the blades of grass in the
lawns on this road. If I get satisfaction out of doing this, the felt
satisfaction constitutes a benefit to me. But the bare fulfilment of
my desire to count all the blades of grass in the lawns on this road
does not (Rawls 1971: 432; Parfit 1984: 500; Crisp 1997: 56).



On careful reflection, we might think that the fulfilment of
someone's desire constitutes an addition to that person's
welfare if and *only* if that desire has one of a certain set
of contents. We might think, for example, that the fulfilment of
someone's desire for pleasure, friendship, knowledge,
achievement, or autonomy for herself *does* constitute an
addition to her welfare, and that the fulfilment of any desires she
might have for things that do not fall into these categories do not
directly benefit her (though, again, the pleasure she derives from
their satisfaction does). If we think this, it seems we think there is
a list of things that constitute anyone's welfare (Parfit 1984:
Appendix I; Brink 1989: 221-36; Griffin 1996: ch. 2; Crisp 1997:
ch. 3; Gert 1998: 92-4; Arneson 1999a).



Insofar as the goods to be promoted are parts of welfare, the theory
remains utilitarian. There is a lot to be said for utilitarianism.
Obviously, how lives go is important. And there is something deeply
attractive (if not downright irresistible) in the idea that morality
is fundamentally impartial, i.e., the idea that, at the most
fundamental level of morality, everyone is equally important --
women and men, strong and weak, rich and poor, Blacks, Whites,
Hispanics, Asians, etc. And utilitarianism plausibly interprets this
equal importance as dictating that in the calculation of overall
welfare a benefit or harm to any one individual counts neither more
nor less that the same size benefit or harm to any other
individual.


## 3. Other Goods To Be Promoted



The nonutilitarian members of the consequentialist family are theories
that assess acts and/or character traits, practices, and institutions
solely in terms of resulting good, *where good is not restricted to
welfare*. "Nonutilitarian" here means "not
purely utilitarian", rather than "completely
unutilitarian". When writers describe themselves as
consequentialists rather than as utilitarians, they are normally
signalling that their fundamental evaluations will be in terms of not
only welfare but also some other goods.



What are these other goods? The most common answers have been justice,
fairness, and equality.



Justice, according to Plato, is "rendering to each his
due" (*Republic*, Bk. 1). We might suppose that what
people are due is a matter of what people are owed, either because
they deserve it or because they have a moral right to it. Suppose we
plug these ideas into consequentialism. Then we get the theory that
things should be assessed in terms of not only how much welfare
results but also the extent to which people get what they deserve and
the extent to which moral rights are respected.



For consequentialism to take this line, however, is for it to restrict
its explanatory ambitions. What a theory simply presupposes, it does
not explain. A consequentialist theory that presupposes both that
justice is constituted by such-and-such and that justice is one of the
things to be promoted does not explain why the components of justice
are important. It does not explain what desert is. It does not explain
the importance of moral rights, much less try to determine what the
contents of these moral rights are. These are matters too important
and contentious for a consequentialist theory to leave unexplained or
open. If consequentialism is going to refer to justice, desert, and
moral rights, it needs to analyze these concepts and justify the role
it gives them.



Similar things can be said about fairness. If a consequentialist
theory presupposes an account of fairness, and simply stipulates that
fairness is to be promoted, then this consequentialist theory is not
explaining fairness. But fairness (like justice, desert, and moral
rights) is a concept too important for consequentialism not to try to
explain.



One way for consequentialists to deal with justice and fairness is to
contend that justice and fairness are constituted by conformity with a
certain set of justified social practices, and that what justifies
these practices is that they generally promote overall welfare and
equality. Indeed, the contention might be that what people are due,
what people have a moral right to, what justice and fairness require,
is conformity to whatever practices promote overall welfare and
equality.



Whether equality needs to be included in the formula, however, is very
controversial. Many think that a purely utilitarian formula has
sufficiently egalitarian implications. They think that, even if the
goal is promotion of welfare, not the promotion of
welfare-plus-equality, there are some contingent but pervasive facts
about human beings that push in the direction of equal distribution of
material resources. According to the "law of diminishing
marginal utility of material resources", the amount of benefit a
person gets out of a certain unit of material resources is less the
more units of that material good the person already has. Suppose I go
from having no way of getting around except by foot to having a
bicycle, or, though I live in a place where one can get very cold, I
go from having no warm coat to having one. I will benefit more from
getting that first bicycle or coat than I would if I go from having
nine bicycles or coats to having ten.



There are exceptions to the law of diminishing marginal utility. In
most of these exceptions, an additional unit of material resource
pushes someone over some important threshold. For example, consider
the meal or pill or gulp of air that saves someone's life, or
the car whose acquisition pushes the competitive collector into first
place. In such cases, the unit that puts the person over the threshold
might well be as beneficial to that person as any prior unit was.
Still, as a general rule, material resources do have diminishing
marginal utility.



To the assumption that material resources have diminishing marginal
utility, let us add the assumption that different people generally get
*roughly* the same benefits from the same material resources.
Again, there are exceptions. If you live in a freezing climate and I
live in a hot climate, then you would benefit much more from a warm
coat than I would.



But suppose we live in the same place, which has freezing winters,
good paths for riding bicycles, and no public transportation. And
suppose you have ten bicycles and ten coats (though you are not vying
for some bicycle- or coat-collector prize). Meanwhile, I am so poor
that I have none. Then, redistributing one of your bicycles and one of
your coats to me will probably harm you less than it will benefit me.
This sort of phenomenon pervades societies where resources are
unequally distributed. Wherever the phenomenon occurs, a fundamentally
impartial morality is under pressure to redistribute resources from
the richer to the poorer.



However, there are also contingent but pervasive facts about human
beings that pull in favor of practices that have the foreseen
consequence of material inequality. First of all, higher levels of
overall welfare can require higher levels of productivity (think of
the welfare gains resulting from improvements in agricultural
productivity). In many areas of the economy, the provision of material
rewards for greater productivity seems the most efficient acceptable
way of eliciting higher productivity. Some individuals and groups will
be more productive than others (especially if there are incentive
schemes). So the practice of providing material rewards for greater
productivity will result in material inequality.



Thus, on the one hand, the diminishing marginal utility of material
resources exerts pressure in favor of more equal distributions of
resources. On the other hand, the need to promote productivity exerts
pressure in favor of incentive schemes that have the foreseen
consequence of material inequality. Utilitarians and most other
consequentialists find themselves balancing these opposed
pressures.



Note that those pressures concern the distribution of resources. There
is a further question about how equally welfare itself should be
distributed. Many recent writers have taken utilitarianism to be
indifferent about the distribution of welfare. Imagine a choice
between an outcome where overall welfare is large but distributed
unequally and an outcome where overall welfare is smaller but
distributed equally. Utilitarians are taken to favor outcomes with
greater overall welfare even if it is also less equally
distributed.



To illustrate this, let us take an artificially simple population,
divided into just two groups.




> 
> 
> 
> |  |  |  |
> | --- | --- | --- |
> |  | Units of welfare | Total welfare for both groups |
> | **Alternative 1** | Per person | Per group |  |
> | 10,000 people in group A | 1 | 10,000 |  |
> | 100,000 people in group B | 10 | 1,000,000 |  |
> |  |  |  | *Impartially* calculated: 1,010,000 |
> 
> 
> 



> 
> 
> 
> |  |  |  |
> | --- | --- | --- |
> |  | Units of welfare | Total welfare for both groups |
> | **Alternative 2** | Per person | Per group |  |
> | 10,000 people in group A | 8 | 80,000 |  |
> | 100,000 people in group B | 9 | 900,000 |  |
> |  |  |  | *Impartially* calculated: 980,000 |
> 
> 
> 



Many people would think Alternative 2 above better than Alternative 1,
and might think that the comparison between these alternatives shows
that there is always pressure in favor of greater equality of
welfare.



As Derek Parfit (1997) in particular has argued, however, we must not
be too hasty. Consider the following choice:




> 
> 
> 
> |  |  |  |
> | --- | --- | --- |
> |  | Units of welfare | Total welfare for both groups |
> | **Alternative 1** | Per person | Per group |  |
> | 10,000 people in group A | 1 | 10,000 |  |
> | 100,000 people in group B | 10 | 1,000,000 |  |
> |  |  |  | *Impartially* calculated: 1,010,000 |
> 
> 
> 



> 
> 
> 
> |  |  |  |
> | --- | --- | --- |
> |  | Units of welfare | Total welfare for both groups |
> | **Alternative 3** | Per person | Per group |  |
> | 10,000 people in group A | 1 | 10,000 |  |
> | 100,000 people in group B | 1 | 100,000 |  |
> |  |  |  | *Impartially* calculated: 110,000 |
> 
> 
> 



Is equality of welfare so important that Alternative 3 is superior to
Alternative 1? To take an example of Parfit's, suppose the only
way to make everyone equal with respect to sight is to make everyone
totally blind. Is such "levelling down" required by
morality? Indeed, is it in any way at all morally desirable?



If we think the answer is No, then we might think that equality of
welfare as such is not really an ideal (cf. Temkin 1993). Losses to
the better off are justified only where this benefits the worse off.
What we had thought of as pressure in favor of equality of welfare was
instead pressure in favor of levelling up. We might say that additions
to welfare matter more the worse off the person is whose welfare is
affected. This view has come to be called *prioritarianism*
(Parfit 1997; Arneson 1999b). It has tremendous intuitive appeal.



For a simplistic example of how prioritarianism might work, suppose
the welfare of the worst off counts five times as much as the welfare
of the better off. Then Alternative 1 from the tables above comes out
at:



> 
>  \((1 \times 5 \times 10,000) + (10 \times 100,000)\),
> 



which comes to 1,050,000 total units of welfare. Again with the
welfare of the worst off counting five times as much, Alternative 2
comes out at:



>  
> \((8 \times 5 \times 10,000) + (9 \times 100,000)\),
> 



which comes to 1,300,000 total units of welfare. This accords with the
common reaction that Alternative 2 is morally superior to Alternative
1.



Of course in real examples there is never only one division in
society. Rather there is a scale from the worst off, to the not quite
so badly off, and so on up to the best off. Prioritarianism is
committed to variable levels of importance of benefitting people at
different places on this scale: the worse off a person is, the greater
the importance attached to that person's gain.



This raises two serious worries about prioritarianism. The first
concerns prioritarianism's difficulty in *nonarbitrarily*
determining how much more importance to give to the welfare of the
worse off. For example, should a unit of benefit to the worst off
count 10 times more than the same size benefit to the best off and 5
times more than the same size benefit to the averagely well off? Or
should the multipliers be 20 and 10, or 4 and 2, or other amounts? The
second worry about prioritarianism is whether attaching greater
importance to increases in welfare for some than to the same size
increases in welfare for others contradicts fundamental impartiality
(Hooker 2000: 60-2).



This is not the place to go further into debates between
prioritarianism and its critics. So the rest of this article sets
aside those debates.


## 4. Full Rule-consequentialism



Consequentialists have distinguished three components of their theory:
(1) their thesis about what makes acts morally wrong, (2) their thesis
about the procedure agents should use to make their moral decisions,
and (3) their thesis about the conditions under which moral sanctions
such as blame, guilt, and praise are appropriate.



What we might call *full* rule-consequentialism consists of
rule-consequentialist criteria for all three. Thus, full
rule-consequentialism claims that an act is morally wrong if and only
if it is forbidden by rules justified by their consequences. It also
claims that agents should do their moral decision-making in terms of
rules justified by their consequences. And it claims that the
conditions under which moral sanctions should be applied are
determined by rules justified by their consequences.



Full rule-consequentialists may think that there is really only one
set of rules about these three different subject matters. Or they may
think that there are different sets that in some sense correspond to
or complement one another.



Much more important than the distinction between different kinds of
full rule-consequentialism is the distinction between full
rule-consequentialism and *partial* rule-consequentialism.
Partial rule-consequentialism might take many forms. Let us focus on
the most common form. The most common form of partial
rule-consequentialism claims that agents should make their moral
decisions about what to do by reference to rules justified by their
consequences, but does not claim that moral wrongness is determined by
rules justified by their consequences. Partial rule-consequentialists
typically subscribe to the theory that moral wrongness is determined
directly in terms of the consequences of the act compared to the
consequences of alternative possible acts. This theory of wrongness is
called act-consequentialism.



Distinguishing between full and partial rule-consequentialism
clarifies the contrast between act-consequentialism and
rule-consequentialism. Act-consequentialism is best conceived of as
maintaining merely the following:



> 
> Act-consequentialist criterion of wrongness: An act is wrong if and
> only if it results in less good than would have resulted from some
> available alternative act.
> 



When confronted with that criterion of moral wrongness, many people
naturally assume that the way to decide what to do is to apply the
criterion, i.e.,



> 
> Act-consequentialist moral decision procedure: On each occasion, an
> agent should decide what to do by calculating which act would produce
> the most good.
> 



However, consequentialists nearly never defend this
act-consequentialist decision procedure as a general and typical way
of making moral decisions (Mill 1861: ch 2; Sidgwick 1907:
405-6, 413, 489-90; Moore 1903: 162-4; Smart 1956:
346; 1973: 43, 71; Bales 1971: 257-65; Hare 1981; Parfit 1984:
24-9, 31-43; Railton 1984: 140-6, 152-3; Brink
1989: 216-7, 256-62, 274-6; Pettit and Brennan 1986;
Pettit 1991, 1994, 1997: 156-61, 2017; de Lazari-Radek and
Singer 2014: ch. 10). There are a number of compelling
consequentialist reasons why the act-consequentialist decision
procedure would be counter-productive.



First, very often the agent does not have detailed information about
what the consequences would be of various acts.



Second, obtaining such information would often involve greater costs
than are at stake in the decision to be made.



Third, even if the agent had the information needed to make
calculations, the agent might make mistakes in the calculations. (This
is especially likely when the agent's natural biases intrude, or
when the calculations are complex, or when they have to be made in a
hurry.)



Fourth, there are what we might call expectation effects. Imagine a
society in which people know that others are naturally biased towards
themselves and towards their loved ones but are trying to make their
every moral decision by calculating overall good. In such a society,
each person might well fear that others will go around breaking
promises, stealing, lying, and even assaulting whenever they convinced
themselves that such acts would produce the greatest overall good
(Woodard 2019: 149). In such a society, people would not feel they
could trust one another.



This fourth consideration is more controversial than the first three.
For example, Hodgson 1967, Hospers 1972, and Harsanyi 1982 argue that
trust would break down. Singer 1972 and Lewis 1972 argue that it would
not.



Nevertheless, most philosophers accept that, for all four of the
reasons above, using an act-consequentialist decision procedure would
not maximize the good. Hence even philosophers who espouse the
act-consequentialist criterion of moral wrongness reject the
act-consequentialist moral decision procedure. In its place, they
typically advocate the following:



> 
> Rule-consequentialist decision procedure: At least normally, agents
> should decide what to do by applying rules whose acceptance will
> produce the best consequences, rules such as "Don't harm
> innocent others", "Don't steal or vandalize
> others' property", "Don't break your
> promises", "Don't lie", "Pay special
> attention to the needs of your family and friends", "Do
> good for others generally".
> 



Since act-consequentialists about the criterion of wrongness typically
accept this decision procedure, act-consequentialists are in fact
partial rule-consequentialists. Often, what writers refer to as
indirect consequentialism is this combination of act-consequentialism
about wrongness and rule-consequentialism about the appropriate
decision procedure.



Standardly, the decision procedure that full rule-consequentialism
endorses is the one that it would be best for *society* to
accept. The qualification "standardly" is needed because
there are versions of rule-consequentialism that let the rules be
relativised to small groups or even individuals (D. Miller 2010; Kahn
2012). And act-consequentialism insists upon the decision procedure it
would be best for the *individual* to accept. So, according to
act-consequentialism, since Jack's and Jill's capacities
and situations may be very different, the best decision procedure for
Jack to accept may be different from the best decision procedure for
Jill to accept. However, in practice act-consequentialists typically
ignore for the most part such differences and endorse the above
rule-consequentialist decision procedure (Hare 1981, chs. 2, 3, 8, 9,
11; Levy 2000).



When act-consequentialists endorse the above rule-consequentialist
decision procedure, they acknowledge that following this decision
procedure does not guarantee that we will do the act with the best
consequences. Sometimes, for example, our following a decision
procedure that rules out harming an innocent person will prevent us
from doing that act that would produce the best consequences.
Similarly, there will be some circumstances in which stealing,
breaking our promises, etc., would produce the best consequences.
Still, our following a decision procedure that generally rules out
such acts will in the long run and on the whole probably produce far
better consequences than our trying to run consequentialist
calculations on an act-by-act basis.



Because act-consequentialists typically agree with a
rule-consequentialist decision procedure, whether to classify some
philosopher as an act-consequentialist or as a rule-consequentialist
can be problematic. For example, G.E. Moore (1903, 1912) is sometimes
classified as an act-consequentialist and sometimes as a
rule-consequentialist. Like so many others, including his teacher
Henry Sidgwick, Moore combined an act-consequentialist criterion of
moral wrongness with a rule-consequentialist procedure for deciding
what to do. Moore simply went further than most in stressing the
danger of departing from the rule-consequentialist decision procedure
(see Shaw 2000). Hare (1981) and Pettit (1991, 1994, 1997) have also
been especially influential act-consequentialists about what makes
acts right or wrong while holding that everyday decision-making should
be conducted in terms of familiar rules focused on things other than
consequences.


## 5. Global Consequentialism



Some writers propose that the purest and most consistent form of
consequentialism is the view that absolutely everything should be
assessed by its consequences, including not only acts but also rules,
motives, the imposition of sanctions, etc. Let us follow Pettit and
Smith (2000) in referring to this view as *global*
consequentialism. Kagan (2000) pictures it as multi-dimensional direct
consequentialism, in that each thing is assessed directly in terms of
whether its own consequences are as good as the consequences of
alternatives.



How does this global consequentialism differ from what we have been
calling partial rule-consequentialism? What we have been calling
partial rule-consequentialism is nothing but the combination of the
act-consequentialist criterion of moral wrongness with the
rule-consequentialist decision procedure. So defined, partial
rule-consequentialism leaves open the question of when moral sanctions
are appropriate.



Some partial rule-consequentialists say that agents should be blamed
and feel guilty whenever they fail to choose an act that would result
in the best consequences. A much more reasonable position for a
partial rule-consequentialist to take is that agents should be blamed
and feel guilty whenever they choose an act that is forbidden by the
rule-consequentialist decision procedure, whether or not that
individual act fails to result in the best consequences. Finally,
partial rule-consequentialism, as we have defined it, is compatible
with the claim that whether agents should be blamed or feel guilty
depends not on the wrongness of what they did, nor on whether the
recommended procedure for making moral decisions would have led them
to choose the act they choose, but instead solely on whether this
blame or guilt will do any good. This is precisely the view of
sanctions that global consequentialism takes.



One objection to global consequentialism is that simultaneously
applying a consequentialist criterion to acts, decision procedures,
and the imposition of sanctions leads to apparent paradoxes (Crisp
1992; Streumer 2003; Lang 2004).



Suppose, on the whole and in the long run, the best decision procedure
for you to accept is one that leads you to do act *x* now. But
suppose also that in fact the act with the best consequences in this
situation is not *x* but *y*. So global consequentialism
tells you (a) to use the best possible decision procedure but also (b)
not to do the act picked out by this decision procedure. That seems
paradoxical.



Things get worse when we consider blame and guilt. Suppose you follow
the best possible decision procedure but fail to do the act with the
best consequences. Are you to be blamed? Should you feel guilty?
Global consequentialism claims that you should be blamed if and only
if blaming you will produce the best consequences, and that you should
feel guilty if and only if this will produce the best consequences.
Suppose that for some reason the best consequences would result from
blaming you for following the prescribed decision procedure (and thus
doing *x*). But surely it is paradoxical for a moral theory to
call for you to be blamed although you followed the moral decision
procedure mandated by the theory. Or suppose that for some reason the
best consequences would result from blaming you for intentionally
choosing the act with the best consequences (*y*). Again,
surely it is paradoxical for a moral theory to call for you to be
blamed although you intentionally chose the very act required by the
theory.



So one problem with global consequentialism is that it creates
potential gaps between what acts it claims to be required and what
decision procedures it tells agents to use, and between each of these
and blamelessness. (For explicit replies to this line of attack, see
Driver 2014: 175 and de Lazari-Radek and Singer 2014:
315-16.)



That is not the most familiar problem with global consequentialism.
The most familiar problem with it is instead its maximising
act-consequentialist criterion of wrongness. According to this
maximising criterion, an act is wrong if and only if it fails to
result in the greatest good. This criterion judges some acts to be not
wrong which certainly seem to be wrong. It also judges some acts that
seem not wrong to be wrong.



For example, consider an act of murder that results in slightly more
good than any other act would have produced. According to the most
familiar, maximising act-consequentialist criterion of wrongness, this
act of murder is not wrong. Many other kinds of act such as
assaulting, stealing, promise breaking, and lying can be wrong even
when doing them would produce slightly more good than not doing them
would. Again, the familiar, maximising form of act-consequentialism
denies this.



Or consider someone who gives to her child, or keeps for herself, some
resource of her own instead of contributing it to help some stranger
who would have gained slightly more from that resource. Such an action
hardly seems wrong. Yet the maximising act-consequentialist criterion
judges it to be wrong. Indeed, imagine how much self-sacrifice an
averagely well-off person would have to make before her further
actions satisfied the maximising act-consequentialist criterion of
wrongness. She would have to give to the point where further
sacrifices from her in order to benefit others would harm her more
than they would benefit the others. Thus, the maximising
act-consequentialist criterion of wrongness is often accused of being
unreasonably demanding.



The objections just directed at maximising act-consequentialism could
be side-stepped by a version of act-consequentialism that did not
require maximising the good. This sort of act-consequentialism is now
called satisficing consequentialism. See the entry on
 consequentialism/
 for more on such a theory.


## 6. Formulating Full Rule-consequentialism



There are a number of different ways of formulating
rule-consequentialism. For example, it can be formulated in terms of
the good that actually results from rules or in terms of the
rationally expected good of the consequences of rules. It can be
formulated in terms of the consequences of compliance with rules or in
terms of the wider consequences of acceptance of rules. It can be
formulated in terms of the consequences of absolutely everyone's
accepting the rules or in terms of the rules' acceptance by
something less than everyone. Rule-consequentialism can also be
formulated in terms of the teaching of a code to everyone in the next
generation, in the full realization that the degrees of resulting
acceptance will vary (Mulgan 2006, 2017, 2020; D. Miller 2014, 2021;
T. Miller 2016, 2021). Rule-consequentialism is more plausible if
formulated in some ways than it is if formulated in other ways. This
is explained in the following three subsections. Questions of
formulation are also relevant in later sections on objections to
rule-consequentialism.


### 6.1 Actual versus Expected Good



As indicated, full rule-consequentialism consists in
rule-consequentialist answers to three questions. The first is, what
makes acts morally wrong? The second is, what procedure should agents
use to make their moral decisions? The third is, what are the
conditions under which moral sanctions such as blame, guilt, and
praise are appropriate?



As we have seen, the answer that full rule-consequentialists give to
the question about decision procedure is much like the answer that
other kinds of consequentialist give to that question. So let us focus
on the points of contrast, i.e., the other two questions. These two
questions -- about what makes acts wrong and about when sanctions
are appropriate -- are more tightly connected than sometimes
realized.



Indeed, J.S. Mill, one of the fathers of consequentialism, affirmed
their tight connection:



> 
> We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person
> ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law,
> by the opinion of his fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the
> reproaches of his own conscience. (1861: ch. 5, para. 14)
> 



Let us assume that Mill took "ought to be punished, at least by
one's own conscience if not by others" to be roughly the
same as "blameworthy". With this assumption in hand, we
can interpret Mill as tying wrongness tightly to blameworthiness. In a
moment, we can consider what follows if Mill is mistaken that
wrongness is tied tightly to blameworthiness. First, let us consider
what follows if Mill is correct that wrongness is tied tightly to
blameworthiness.



Consider the following argument, whose first premise comes from
Mill:



> 
> If an act is wrong, it is blameworthy.
> 



Surely, an agent cannot rightly be blamed for accepting and following
rules that the agent could not foresee would have sub-optimal
consequences. From this, we get our second premise:



> 
> If an act is blameworthy, the sub-optimal consequences of rules
> allowing that act must have been foreseeable.
> 



From these two premises we get the conclusion:



> 
> So if an act is wrong, the sub-optimal consequences of rules allowing
> that act must have been foreseeable.
> 



Of course, the actual consequences of accepting a set of rules may not
be the same as the foreseeable consequences of accepting that set.
Hence, if full rule-consequentialism claims that an act is wrong if
and only if the *foreseeable* consequences of rules allowing
that act are sub-optimal, rule-consequentialism cannot also hold that
an act is wrong if and only if the *actual* consequences of
rules allowing that act will be sub-optimal.



Now suppose instead the relation between wrongness and blameworthiness
is far looser than Mill suggested (cf. Sorensen 1996). That is,
suppose that our criterion of wrongness can be quite different from
our criterion of blameworthiness. In that case, we could hold:



> 
> *Actualist* rule-consequentialist criterion of
> *wrongness*: An act is wrong if and only if it is forbidden by
> rules that would *actually* result in the greatest good.
> 



and



> 
> *Expectablist* rule-consequentialist criterion of
> *blameworthiness*: An act is blameworthy if and only if it is
> forbidden by the rules that would *foreseeably* result in the
> greatest good.
> 



Let us replace "foreseeably result in the greatest good"
with "result in the greatest expected good". Here is how
expected good of a set of rules is calculated. Suppose we can identify
the value or disvalue of each possible outcome a set of rules might
have. Multiply the value of each possible outcome by the probability
of that outcome's occurring. Take all the products of these
multiplications and add them together. The resulting number quantifies
the expected good of that set of rules.



Expected good is not to be calculated by employing whatever crazy
estimates of probabilities people might assign to possible outcomes.
Rather, expected good is calculated by multiplying the value or
disvalue of possible outcomes by *rational* or
*justified* probability estimates.



Different agents have different evidence and thus have different
rational and justified probability estimates. Such differences are
sometimes exactly what explains disagreements about what changes to an
extant moral code would be improvements. In some cases of
disagreements, the cause of such disagreement is that at least one of
the parties is not aware of, or has not fully assimilated, evidence
that is available. Expectablist rule-consequentialist would likely
want to tie rational or justified probability estimates to the
evidence that is available at the time, even if some people are not
aware of it or have not fully appreciated its implications.



There might be considerable scepticism about how calculations of
expected good are even possible (Lenman 2000). Even where such
calculations are possible, they will often be quite impressionistic
and imprecise. Nevertheless, we can reasonably hope to make at least
*some* informed judgements about the *likely*
consequences of alternative possible rules (Burch-Brown 2014). And we
could be guided by such judgements, as legislators often say they are.
In contrast, which rules would *actually* have the *very
best* consequences will normally be inaccessible. Hence, the
expectablist rule-consequentialist criterion of blameworthiness is
appealing.



Now return to the proposal that, while the criterion of
blameworthiness is the expectablist rule-consequentialist one, the
correct criterion of moral wrongness is the actualist
rule-consequentialist one. This proposal rejects Mill's move of
tying moral wrongness to blameworthiness. There is, however, a very
strong objection to this proposal. What is the role and importance of
moral wrongness if it is disassociated from blameworthiness?



In order to retain an obvious role and importance for moral wrongness,
those committed to the expectablist rule-consequentialist criterion
*of blameworthiness* are likely to endorse:



> 
> *Simple expectablist* rule-consequentialist criterion of moral
> wrongness: An act is morally wrong if and only if it is forbidden by
> the rules that would result in the greatest *expected* good.
> 



Indeed, once we have before us the distinction between (a) the amount
of value that *actually* results and (b) the rationally
*expected* good, the full rule-consequentialist is likely to go
for expectablist criteria of moral wrongness, blameworthiness, and
decision procedures.



What if, as far as we can tell, no one code has greater expected value
than its rivals? We will need to amend our expectablist criteria in
order to accommodate this possibility:



> 
> *Sophisticated expectablist* rule-consequentialist criterion of
> moral wrongness: An act is morally wrong if and only if it is
> forbidden either by the rules that would result in the greatest
> *expected* good, or, if two or more alternative codes of rules
> are equally best in terms of expected good, by the one of these codes
> closest to conventional morality.
> 



The argument for using closeness to conventional morality to break
ties between otherwise equally promising codes begins with the
observation that social change regularly has unexpected consequences.
And these unexpected consequences usually seem to be negative.
Furthermore, the greater the difference between a new code and the one
already conventionally accepted, the greater the scope for unexpected
consequences. So, as between two codes we judge to have equally high
expected value, we should choose the one closest to the one we already
know. (For discussion of the situation where two codes have equally
high expected value and seem equally close to conventional morality,
see Hooker 2008: 83-4.)



An implication is that people should make changes to the status quo
where but only where these changes have greater expected value than
sticking with the status quo. Rule-consequentialism manifestly has the
capacity to recommend change. But it does not favor change for the
sake of change.



Rule-consequentialism most definitely does need to be formulated so as
to deal with ties in expected value. However, for most of the rest of
this article, I will ignore this complication.


### 6.2 Compliance and Acceptance



There are other important issues of formulation that
rule-consequentialists face. One is the issue of whether
rule-consequentialism should be formulated in terms of compliance with
rules, in terms of acceptance of rules, or in terms of the teaching of
rules. Admittedly, the most important consequence of teaching and
accepting rules is compliance with them. And early formulations of
rule-consequentialism did indeed explicitly mention compliance. For
example, they said an act is morally wrong if and only if it is
forbidden by rules *the compliance with which* will maximize
the good (or the expected good). (See Austin 1832; Brandt 1959; M.
Singer 1955, 1961.)



However, acceptance of a rule can have consequences other than
compliance with the rule. As Kagan (2000: 139) writes, "once
embedded, rules can have an impact on results that is independent of
their impact on acts: it might be, say, that merely thinking about a
set of rules reassures people, and so contributes to happiness."
(For more on what we might call these 'beyond-compliance
consequences' of rules, see Sidgwick 1907: 405-6, 413;
Lyons 1965: 140; Williams 1973: 119-20, 122, 129-30; Adams
1976: 470; Scanlon 1998: 203-4; Kagan 1998: 227-34.)



These consequences of acceptance of rules should most definitely be
part of a cost-benefit analysis of rules. Formulating
rule-consequentialism in terms of the consequences of acceptance
allows them to be part of this analysis. Important consequences of
communal acceptance of a set of rules include assurance, incentive,
and deterrent effects. And consideration of assurance and incentive
effects has played a large role in the development of
rule-consequentialism (Harsanyi 1977, 1982: 56-61; 1993:
116-18; Brandt 1979: 271-77; 1988: 346ff [1992: 142ff.];
1996: 126, 144; Johnson 1991, especially chs. 3, 4, 9). Hence, we
should not be surprised that rule-consequentialism has gone from being
formulated in terms of compliance with rules to being formulated in
terms of acceptance of rules.



However, just as we need to move from thinking about the consequences
of compliance to thinking about the wider consequences of acceptance,
we need to go further. Focusing purely on the consequences of
acceptance of rules ignores the "transition" costs for the
teachers of teaching those rules, and the costs to the
teaching's recipients of internalizing these rules. And yet
these costs can certainly be significant (Brandt 1963: section 4; 1967
[1992: 126]; 1983: 98; 1988: 346-47, 349-50 [1992:
140-143, 144-47]; 1996: 126-28, 145, 148, 152,
223).



Suppose, for example, that, once a fairly simple and relatively
undemanding code of rules Code *A* has been accepted, the
expected value of Code *A* would be *n*. Suppose a more
complicated and demanding alternative Code *B* would have an
expected value of \(n + 5\) once Code *B* has been accepted. So
if we just consider the expected values of acceptance of the two
alternative codes, Code *B* wins.



But now let us factor into our cost/benefit analysis of rival codes
the relative costs of teaching the two codes and of getting them
internalized by new generations. Since Code *A* is fairly
simple and relatively undemanding, the cost of getting it internalized
is [?]1. Since Code *B* is more complicated and demanding,
the cost of getting it internalized is [?]7. So if our comparison
of the two codes considers the respective costs of getting them
internalized, Code *A*'s expected value is \(n-1\), and
Code *B*'s is \(n+5-7\). Once we include the respective
costs of getting the codes internalized, Code *A* wins.



As indicated, the costs of teaching a code successfully, so that the
code is very widely internalized, are "transition costs".
But of course such transitions are always to one arrangement from
another. The arrangement we are imagining the transition being
*to* is the acceptance of a certain proposed code. The
arrangement we are imagining the transition being *from* is
... well, what?



One answer is that the arrangement from which the transition is
supposed to be starting is whatever moral code the society happens to
accept already. That might seem like the natural answer. However,
there is a strong objection to this answer, namely that
rule-consequentialism should not let the cost/benefit analysis of a
proposed code be influenced by the costs of getting people to give up
whatever rules they may have already internalised. This is for two
reasons.



Most importantly, rule-consequentialist assessment of codes needs to
avoid giving weight directly or indirectly to moral ideas that have
their source in other moral theories but not in rule-consequentialism
itself. Suppose people in a given society were brought up to believe
that women should be subservient to men. Should rule-consequentialist
evaluation of a proposed non-sexist code have to count the costs of
getting people to give up the sexist rules they have already
internalised so as to accept the new, non-sexist ones? Since the
sexist rules are unjustifiable, that they were accepted should not be
allowed to infect rule-consequentialist assessment.



Another reason for rejecting the answer we are considering is that it
threatens to underwrite an unattractive relativism. Different
societies may differ considerably in their extant moral beliefs. Thus,
a way of assessing proposed codes that considers the costs of getting
people already committed to some other code will end up having to
countenance different transition costs to get to the same code. For
example, the transition costs to a non-racist code are much higher
from an already accepted racist code than from an already accepted
non-racist one. Formulating rule-consequentialism so that it endorses
the same code for 1960s Michigan as for 1960s Mississippi is
desirable. (For opposing arguments that rule-consequentialism should
be formulated so as to coutenance social relativism, see Kahn 2012; D.
Miller 2014, 2021; T. Miller 2021.)



A way to avoid ending up with the social relativism just identified is
to formulate rule-consequentialism in terms of acceptance by *new
generations* of humans. The proposal might be that we compare the
respective "teaching costs" of alternative codes, on the
assumption that these codes will be taught to new generations of
children, i.e., children who have not already been educated to accept
a moral code. We are to imagine the children start off with natural
(non-moral) inclinations to be very partial towards themselves and a
few others. We should also assume that there is a cognitive cost
associated with the learning of each rule.



These are realistic assumptions, with big implications. One is that a
cost/benefit analysis of alternative codes of rules would have reason
to favor simpler codes over more complex ones. Of course there can
also be benefits from having more, or more complicated, rules. Yet
there is probably a limit on how complicated or complex a code can be
and still have greater expected value than simpler codes, once
teaching costs are included.



Another implication concerns prospective rules about making sacrifices
to help others. Since children start off focused on their own
gratifications, getting them to internalize a kind of impartiality
that requires them to make large sacrifices repeatedly for the sake of
others would have extremely high costs. There would also, of course,
be enormous benefits from the internalization of such a rule --
predominately, benefits to others. Would the benefits be greater than
the costs? At least since Sidgwick (1907: 434), many utilitarians have
taken for granted that human nature is such that the real
possibilities are (1) that human beings care passionately about some
and less about each of the rest of humanity or (2) that human beings
care weakly but impartially about everyone. In other words, what is
not a realistic possibility, according to this view of human nature,
is human beings' caring strongly and impartially about everyone
in the world. If this view of human nature is correct, then one
enormous cost of successfully making people completely impartial is
that doing so would leave them with only weak concerns.



Even if that picture of human nature is not correct, that is, even if
making people completely impartial could be achieved without draining
them of enthusiasm and passion, the cost of successfully making people
care as much about every other individual as they do about themselves
would be prohibitive. At some point on the spectrum running from
complete partiality to complete impartiality, the costs of pushing and
inducing everyone further along the spectrum outweigh the
benefits.



A complication worth mentioning comes from the obvious point that
moral education is developmental. How many rules are to be taught to
children, how complicated these rules are, how demanding the rules
are, and how to resolve conflicts among the rules depend on the
developmental stage of the children. Hence, there can be conflict
between the simpler and less demanding rules taught to the very young
and the more elaborate, nuanced, and demanding rules taught at higher
developmental stages. Of course, rule-consequentialism is best
formulated in terms of the rules featured in the end of the
development rather than the ones figuring in earlier stages.


### 6.3 Complete Acceptance versus Incomplete Acceptance



While rule-consequentialist cost/benefit analyses of codes should
count the cost of getting those codes internalised by new generations,
such analyses should acknowledge that the internalisation will not be
achieved in every last person (D. Miller 2021: 130). No matter how
good the teaching is, the results will be imperfect. Some people will
learn rules that differ to some degree from the ones that were taught,
and some of these people will end up with very mistaken views about
what is morally required, morally optional, or morally wrong. Other
people will end up with insufficient moral motivation. Other people
will end up with no moral motivation at all (psychopaths).
Rule-consequentialism needs to have rules for coping with the
inevitably imperfect results of moral teaching.



Such rules will crucially include rules about punishment. From a
rule-consequentialist point of view, one point of punishment is to
deter certain kinds of act. Another point of punishment is to get
undeterred, dangerous people off the streets. Perhaps
rule-consequentialism can admit that another point of punishment is to
appease the primitive lust for revenge on the part of victims of such
acts and their family and friends. Finally, there is the expressive
and reinforcing power of rules about punishment.



Some ways of formulating rule-consequentialism make having rules about
punishment difficult to explain. One such way of formulating
rule-consequentialism is:



> 
> An act is morally wrong if and only if it is prohibited by the code of
> rules the full acceptance of which by absolutely everyone would
> produce the greatest expected good.
> 



Imagine a world in which absolutely every adult human fully accepts
rules forbidding (for example) physical attacks on the innocent,
stealing, promise breaking, and lying. Suppose these rules have been
internalized so deeply by everyone in this world that in this world
there is complete compliance with these rules. Also assume that, if
everyone in this world always complies with these rules, this perfect
compliance becomes common knowledge. In this world, there would be
little or no need for rules about punishment and thus little or no
benefit from having such rules. But there are teaching and
internalization costs associated with each rule taught and
internalized. So there are teaching and internalization costs
associated with the inclusion of any rule about punishment. The
combination of costs without benefits is repellant. Therefore, for a
world of complete compliance, the version of rule-consequentialism
immediately above would not endorse rules about punishment.



We need a form of rule-consequentialism that includes rules for
dealing with people who are not committed to the right rules, indeed
even for people who are irredeemable. In other words,
rule-consequentialism needs to be formulated so as to conceptualize
society as containing some people insufficiently committed to the
right rules, and even some people not committed to any moral rules.
Here is a way of doing so:



> 
> An act is wrong if and only if it is prohibited by a code of rules the
> acceptance of which by the overwhelming majority of people in each new
> generation would have the greatest expected value.
> 



Note that rule-consequentialism neither endorses nor condones the
non-acceptance of the code by those outside the overwhelming majority.
On the contrary, rule-consequentialism claims those people are morally
mistaken. Indeed, the whole point of formulating rule-consequentialism
this way is to make room for rules about how to respond negatively to
such people.



Of course, the term "overwhelming majority" is very
imprecise. Suppose we remove the imprecision by picking a precise
percentage of society, say 90%. Picking any precise percentage as an
obvious element of arbitrariness to it. For example, if we pick 90%,
why not 89% or 91%?



Perhaps, we can argue for a number in the range of 90% as a reasonable
compromise between two pressures. On the one hand, the percentage we
pick should be close enough to 100% to retain the idea that, ideally,
moral rules would be accepted by everyone. On the other hand, the
percentage needs to be far enough short of 100% to leave considerable
scope for rules about punishment. It seems that 90% is in a defensible
range, given the need to balance those considerations. (For dissent
from this, see Ridge 2006; for a reply to Ridge, see Hooker and
Fletcher 2008. The matter receives further discussion in H. Smith
2010; Tobia 2013, 2018; T. Miller 2014, 2021; Toppinen 2016; Portmore
2017; Yeo 2017; Podgorski 2018; Perl 2021.)



Holly Smith (2010) pointed out that a cost/benefit analysis of the
acceptance of any particular code by a positive percentage of the
population less than 100% depends on what the rest of the population
accepts and is disposed to do. Consider the following contrast. One
imagined scenario is that 90% of the population accept one code, and
the other 10% accept a very similar code, such that the two codes
rarely diverge in practice. A second imagined scenario is that 90% of
the population accept one code, and the other 10% accept various codes
that frequently and dramatically conflict in practice with code
accepted by 90%. Conflict resolution and enforcement are less
important in the first imagined scenario than in the second. Hence, if
rule-consequentialism is formulated in terms of the acceptance of a
code by less than 100% of people, it matters what assumptions are made
about whatever percentage of the population do not accept this
code.



Some theorists propose that formulating rule-consequentialism in terms
of the code the teaching of which has the greatest expected value is
superior to formulating the theory in terms of either a fixed or
variable acceptance rate for codes (Mulgan 2006, 141, 147; 2017, 291;
2020, 12-21; T. Miller 2016; 2021; D. Miller 2021). A
"teaching formulation" of rule-consequentialism holds:



An act is morally prohibited, obligatory, or optional if and only if
and because it is prohibited, obligatory, or permitted by the code of
rules the teaching of which to everyone has at least as much expected
value as the teaching of any other code.



Two clarifications are needed immediately. First,
"everyone" here needs to be qualified so as not to include
people "with significant, cognitive, or conative deficits"
(D. Miller 2021: 10). Second, teaching a code to everyone is not
assumed to lead to everyone's internalization of this code.
Hence, even if everyone is taught a certain code, foreseeably there
will be some who internalize rules that are more or less different
from the rules that were taught. There will also be some whose moral
motivation is unreliable or even indiscernible. And there will be some
who take themselves to be sceptics about moral rules and even about
the rest of morality.



There are some definite advantages of teaching formulations of
rule-consequentialism. To be sure, we have to build into our
cost/benefit analysis that enough costs are incurred to make the
teaching at least partly successful. In other words, we must insist
that the teaching be successful enough to get enough people to
internalize rules such that a good degree of cooperation and security
results. But we do not need to be precise about what percentage of
people taught this code remain amoralists, what percentage of people
taught this code end up internalizing codes somewhat different from
the one being taught, or what percentage end up insufficiently
motivated to comply with the moral code they have internalized unless
effective enforcement is in place (D. Miller 2021; T. Miller
2021).



Another advantage of teaching formulations is that the idea of
teaching a code to everyone connects tightly to the idea that this
code should be public knowledge. The idea that a moral code must be
suitable for being public knowledge is very appealing (Baier 1958:
195-196; Rawls 1971: 133; Gert 1998: 10-13, 225,
239-240; Hill 2005; Cureton 2015; Pettit 2017: 39, 65, 102). And
rule-consequentialists have championed the idea that moral rules are
subject to this "publicity condition" (Brandt 1992: 136,
144; Hooker 2010; 2016, forthcoming; Parfit 2011, 2017a; D. Miller
2021: 131-32).


## 7. Three Ways of Arguing for Rule-consequentialism



What rules will rule-consequentialism endorse? It will endorse rules
prohibiting physically attacking innocent people, taking or harming
the property of others, breaking one's promises, and lying. It
will also endorse rules requiring one to pay special attention to the
needs of one's family and friends, but more generally to be
willing to help others with their (morally permissible) projects. A
society where such rules are prominent in a public code would be
likely to have more good in it than one lacking such rules.



The fact that these rules are endorsed by rule-consequentialism makes
rule-consequentialism attractive. For, intuitively, these rules seem
right. However, other moral theories endorse these rules as well. Most
obviously, a familiar kind of moral pluralism contends that these
intuitively attractive rules constitute the most basic level of
morality, i.e., that there is no deeper moral principle underlying and
unifying these rules. Call this view Rossian pluralism (in honor of
its champion W.D. Ross (1930, 1939)).



Rule-consequentialism may agree with Rossian pluralism in endorsing
rules against physically attacking the innocent, stealing, promise
breaking, and rules requiring various kinds of loyalty and more
generally doing good for others. But rule-consequentialism goes beyond
Rossian pluralism by specifying an underlying unifying principle that
provides impartial justification for such rules. Other moral theories
try to do this too. Such theories include some forms of Kantianism
(Audi 2001, 2004) and some forms of contractualism (Scanlon 1998;
Parfit 2011; Levy 2013). In any case, the first way of arguing for
rule-consequentialism is to argue that it specifies an underlying
principle that provides impartial justification for intuitively
plausible moral rules, and that no rival theory does this as well
(Urmson 1953; Brandt 1967; Hospers 1972; Hooker 2000). (Attacks on
this line of argument for rule-consequentialism include Stratton-Lake
1997; Thomas 2000; D. Miller 2000; Montague 2000; Arneson 2005; Moore
2007; Hills 2010; Levy 2014.)



This first way of arguing for rule-consequentialism might be seen as
drawing on the idea that a theory is better justified to us to the
extent that it increases coherence within our beliefs (Rawls 1951,
1971: 19-21, 46-51; DePaul 1987; Ebertz 1993; Sayre-McCord
1986, 1996). [See the entry on
 coherentist theories of epistemic justification.]
 But the approach might also be seen as moderately foundationalist in
that it begins with a set of beliefs (in various moral rules) to which
it assigns independent credibility though not infallibility (Audi
1996, 2004; Crisp 2000). [See the entry on
 foundationalist theories of epistemic justification.]
 Admittedly, coherence with our moral beliefs does not make a moral
theory *true*, since our moral beliefs might be mistaken.
Nevertheless, if a moral theory fails significantly to cohere with our
moral beliefs, this undermines the theory's ability to be
justified to us.



Wolf (2016) and Copp (2020) argue that the meta-ethical view that
morality is a social practice with a particular function might lead us
to rule-consequentialism. However, Hooker (forthcoming) contends that
the meta-ethical view that morality is a social practice with a
particular function stands in need of justification in terms of
whether it coheres with our considered moral principles and more
specific considered moral judgements. In other words, that
meta-ethical view about the function of morality needs to be judged in
terms of whether it helps us achieve a reflective equilibrium among
our beliefs or not.



The second way of arguing for rule-consequentialism is very different.
It begins with a commitment to consequentialist assessment. With that
commitment as a first premise, the point is then made that assessing
acts *indirectly*, e.g., by focusing on the consequences of
communal acceptance of rules, will in fact produce better consequences
than assessing acts directly in terms of their own consequences
(Austin 1832; Brandt 1963, 1979; Harsanyi 1982: 58-60; 1993;
Riley 2000). After all, making decisions about what to do is the main
point of moral assessment of acts. So if a way of morally assessing
acts is likely to lead to bad decisions, or more generally lead to bad
consequences, then, according to a consequentialist point of view, so
much the worse for that way of assessing acts.



Earlier we saw that all consequentialists now accept that assessing
each act individually by its expected value is in general a terrible
procedure for making moral decisions. Agents should decide how to act
by instead appealing to certain rules such as "don't
physically attack others", "don't steal",
"don't break your promises", "pay special
attention to the needs of your family and friends", and
"be generally helpful to others". And these are the rules
that rule-consequentialism endorses. Many consequentialists, however,
think this hardly shows that full rule-consequentialism is the best
form of consequentialism. Once a distinction is made between, on the
one hand, the best procedure for making moral decisions about what to
do and, on the other hand, the criteria of moral rightness and
wrongness, all consequentialists can admit that we need
rule-consequentialism's rules for our decision procedure. But
consequentialists who are not rule-consequentialists contend that such
rules play no role in the criterion of moral rightness. Hence these
consequentialists reject what this article has called full
rule-consequentialism.



However, whether the objection we have just been considering to the
second way of arguing for rule-consequentialism is a good objection
depends on whether it is legitimate to distinguish between procedures
appropriate for making moral decisions and the criteria of moral
rightness or wrongness. That matter remains contentious (Hooker 2010;
de Lazari-Radek and Singer 2014: ch. 10).



Yet the second way of arguing for rule-consequentialism runs into
another and quite different objection. This objection is that the
first step in this argument for rule-consequentialism is a commitment
to consequentialist assessment. This first step itself needs
justification. Why assume that assessing things in a consequentialist
way is uniquely justified?



It might be said that consequentialist assessment is justified because
promoting the impartial good has an obvious intuitive appeal. But that
won't do, since there are alternatives to consequentialist
assessment that also have obvious intuitive appeal, for example,
"act on the code that no one could reasonably reject".
What we need is a way of arguing for a moral theory that does not
start by begging the question which kind of theory is most
plausible.



A third way of arguing for rule-consequentialism is contractualist
(Harsanyi 1953, 1955, 1982, 1993; Brandt 1979, 1988, 1996; Scanlon
1982, 1998; Parfit 2011; Levy 2013). Suppose we can specify reasonable
conditions under which everyone would choose, or at least would have
sufficient reason to choose, the same code of rules. Intuitively, such
an idealized agreement would legitimate that code of rules. Now if
those rules are the ones whose internalisation would maximise the
expected good, contractualism is leading us to
rule-consequentialism's rules.



There are different views about what would be reasonable conditions
for choosing among alternative possible moral rules. One view is that
everyone's impartiality would have to be insured by the
imposition of a hypothetical "veil of ignorance" behind
which no one knew any specific facts about himself or herself
(Harsanyi 1953, 1955). Another view is that we should imagine that
people would be choosing a moral code on the basis of (a) full
empirical information about the different effects on everyone, (b)
normal concerns (self-interested as well as altruistic), and (c)
roughly equal bargaining power (Brandt 1979; cf. Gert 1998). Parfit
(2011) proposes seeking rules that everyone has (personal or
impartial) reason to choose or will that everyone accept. If impartial
reasons are always sufficient even when opposed by personal ones, then
everyone has sufficient reason to will that everyone accept the rules
whose universal acceptance will have the best consequences impartially
considered. Similarly, Levy (2013) supposes that no one could
reasonably reject a code of rules that would impose on her burdens
that add up to less than the aggregate of burdens that every other
code would impose on others. Such arguments suggest the extensional
equivalence of contractualism and rule-consequentialism. (For
assessment of whether Parfit's contractualist arguments for
rule-consequentialism succeed, see J. Ross 2009; Nebel 2012; Hooker
2014. For similarities between rule-consequentialism and
Scanlon's contractualism, and the difficulty of deciding between
these two theories, see Suikkanen 2022.)


## 8. Must Rule-consequentialism Be Guilty of Collapse, Incoherence, or Rule-worship?



An oft-repeated line of objection to rule-consequentialism from the
mid 1960s to the mid 1990s was that this theory is fatally impaled on
one or the other horn of the following dilemma: Either
rule-consequentialism collapses into practical equivalence with the
simpler act-consequentialism, or rule-consequentialism is
incoherent.



Here is why some have thought rule-consequentialism collapses into
practical equivalence with act-consequentialism. Consider a rule that
rule-consequentialism purports to favor -- e.g.,
"don't steal". Now suppose an agent is in some
situation where stealing would produce more good than not stealing. If
rule-consequentialism selects rules on the basis of their expected
good, rule-consequentialism seems driven to admit that compliance with
the rule "don't steal except when ... or ... or
..." is better than compliance with the simpler rule
"don't steal". This point generalizes. In other
words, for every situation where compliance with some rule would not
produce the greatest expected good, rule-consequentialism seems driven
to favor instead compliance with some amended rule that does not miss
out on producing the greatest expected good in the case at hand. But
if rule-consequentialism operates this way, then in practice it will
end up requiring the very same acts that act-consequentialism
requires.



If rule-consequentialism ends up requiring the very same acts that
act-consequentialism requires, then rule-consequentialism is indeed in
terrible trouble. Rule-consequentialism is the more complicated of the
two theories. This leads to the following objection. What is the point
of rule-consequentialism with its infinitely amended rules if we can
get the same practical result much more efficiently with the simpler
act-consequentialism?



Rule-consequentialists in fact have an excellent reply to the
objection that their theory collapses into practical equivalence with
act-consequentialism. This reply relies on the point that the best
kind of rule-consequentialism ranks systems of rules *not* in
terms of the expected good of *complying* with them, but in
terms of the expected good of their *teaching* and
*acceptance*. Now if a rule forbidding stealing, for example,
has exception clause after exception clause after exception clause
tacked on to it, the rule with all these exception clauses will
provide too much opportunity for temptation to convince agents that
one of the exception clauses applies, when in fact stealing would be
advantageous to the agent. And this point about temptation will also
undermine other people's confidence that their property
won't be stolen. The same is true of most other moral rules:
incorporating too many exception clauses could undermine
people's assurance that others will behave in certain ways (such
as keeping promises and avoiding stealing).



Furthermore, when comparing alternative rules, we must also consider
the relative costs of getting them internalised by new generations.
Clearly, the costs of getting new generations to learn either an
enormous number of rules or hugely complicated rules would be
prohibitive. So rule-consequentialism will favor a code of rules
without too many rules, and without too much complication within the
rules.



There are also costs associated with getting new generations to
internalise rules that require one to make enormous sacrifices for
others with whom one has no particular connection. Of course,
following such demanding rules will produce many benefits, mainly to
others. But the costs associated with internalising such rules should
be weighed against the benefits of following them. At some level of
demandingness, the costs of getting such demanding rules internalised
will outweigh the benefits that following them will produce. Hence,
doing a careful cost/benefit analysis of internalising demanding rules
will come out opposing rules' being too demanding.



The code of rules that rule-consequentialism favours a code comprised
of rules that are not too numerous, too complicated, or too demanding
can sometimes lead people to do acts that do not have the greatest
expected value. For example, following the simpler rule
"Don't steal" will sometimes produce less good
consequences than following a more complicated rule "Don't
steal except when ... or ... or ... or ... or
...". Another example might be following a rule that allows
people to give some degree of priority to their own projects, even
when they could produce more good by sacrificing their own projects in
order to help others. Still, rule-consequentialism's contention
is that bringing about widespread acceptance of a simpler and less
demanding code, even if acceptance of that code does sometimes lead
people to do acts with sub-optimal consequences, has higher expected
value in the long run than bringing about widespread acceptance of a
maximally complicated and demanding code. Since rule-consequentialism
can tell people to follow this simpler and less demanding code, even
when following it will not to maximise expected good,
rule-consequentialism escapes collapse into practical equivalence to
act-consequentialism.



To the extent that rule-consequentialism circumvents collapse, this
theory is accused of incoherence. Rule-consequentialism is accused of
incoherence for maintaining that an act can be morally permissible or
even required though the act fails to maximise expected good. Behind
this accusation must be the assumption that rule-consequentialism
contains an overriding commitment to maximise the good. It is
incoherent to have this overriding commitment and then to oppose an
act required by the commitment. (For developments of this line of
thought, see Arneson 2005; Card 2007; Wall 2009.)



In order to evaluate the incoherence objection to
rule-consequentialism, we need to be clearer about the supposed
location of an overriding commitment to maximize the good. Is this
commitment supposed to be part of the rule-consequentialist
agent's moral psychology? Or is it supposed to be part of the
theory rule-consequentialism?



Well, rule-consequentialists need not have maximizing the good as
their ultimate and overriding moral goal. Instead, they could have a
moral psychology as follows:



> 
> 
> Their fundamental moral motivation is to do what is impartially
> defensible.
> 
> 
> 
> They believe acting on impartially justified rules is impartially
> defensible.
> 
> 
> 
> They also believe that rule-consequentialism is on balance the best
> account of impartially justified rules.
> 
> 
> 



Agents with this moral psychology -- i.e., this combination of
moral motivation and beliefs -- would be morally motivated to do
as rule-consequentialism prescribes. This moral psychology is
certainly possible. And, for agents who have it, there is nothing
incoherent about following rules when doing so will not maximize the
expected good.



So, even if rule-consequentialist *agents* need not have an
overriding commitment to maximize expected good, does their
*theory* contain such a commitment? No, rule-consequentialism
is essentially the conjunction of two claims: (1) that rules are to be
selected solely in terms of their consequences and (2) that these
rules determine which kinds of acts are morally wrong. This is really
all there is to the theory -- in particular, there is not some
third component consisting in or entailing an overriding commitment to
maximize expected good.



Without an overriding commitment to maximize the expected good, there
is nothing incoherent in rule-consequentialism's forbidding some
kinds of act, even when they maximize the expected good. Likewise,
there is nothing incoherent about rule-consequentialism's
requiring other kinds of act, even when they conflict with maximizing
the expected good. The best known objection to rule-consequentialism
dies once we realize that neither the rule-consequentialist agent nor
the theory itself contains an overriding commitment to maximize the
good.



The viability of this defense of rule-consequentialism against the
incoherence objection may depend in part on what the argument for
rule-consequentialism is supposed to be. The defense seems less viable
if the argument for rule-consequentialism starts from a commitment to
consequentialist assessment. For starting with such a commitment seems
very close to starting from an overriding commitment to maximize the
expected good. The defence against the incoherence objection seems far
more secure, however, if the argument for rule-consequentialism is
that this theory does better than any other moral theory at specifying
an impartial justification for intuitively plausible moral rules. (For
more on this, see Hooker 2005, 2007; Rajczi 2016; Wolf 2016; Copp
2020.)



Another old objection to rule-consequentialism is that
rule-consequentialists must be "rule-worshipers" --
i.e., people who will stick to the rules even when doing so will
obviously be disastrous.



The answer to this objection is that rule-consequentialism endorses a
rule requiring one to prevent disaster, even if doing so requires
breaking other rules (Brandt 1992: 87-8, 150-1,
156-7). To be sure, there are many complexities about what
counts as a disaster. Think about what counts as a disaster when the
"prevent disaster" rule is in competition with a rule
against lying. Now think about what counts as a disaster when the
"prevent disaster" rule is in competition with a rule
against stealing, or even more when in competition with a rule against
physically harming the innocent. Rule-consequentialism may need to be
clearer about such matters. But at least it cannot rightly be accused
of potentially leading to disaster.



An important confusion to avoid is to think that
rule-consequentialism's including a "prevent
disaster" rule means that rule-consequentialism collapses into
practical equivalence with maximising act-consequentialism. Maximising
act-consequentialism holds that we should lie, or steal, or harm the
innocent whenever doing so would produce even a *little* more
expected good than not doing so would. A rule requiring one to prevent
disaster does not have this implication. Rather, the "prevent
disaster" rule comes into play only when there is a very much
larger difference in the amounts of expected value at stake.



Woodard (2022) contends that the "prevent disaster" rule
needs reconceptualizing. Many rules identify kinds of reasons.
Examples are the reason to prevent harm, the reason not to steal, and
the reason to keep your promises. But, Woodard holds, we should not
think of the "prevent disaster" rule as being a rule
identifying a kind of reason, which then is claimed to have overriding
force. We should rather think that the "prevent disaster"
rule distinguishes between cases in which the reason to prevent harm
overrides opposing moral reasons and cases in which the reason to
prevent harm is weaker than opposing reasons.



Even if Woodard is correct about this, a "prevent
disaster" rule can be accused of vagueness and indeterminacy.
Indeed, the line between cases in which the moral reason to prevent
harm *overrides* opposing moral reasons and cases in which the
moral reason to prevent harm *is weaker* than opposing moral
reasons might well be indeterminant. Woollard (2022) argues that
admitting such vagueness and indeterminacy does not weaken
rule-consequentialism. And she draws on her earlier work (2015) to
explain how rule-consequentialism's "prevent
disaster" rule need not impale the theory on the dilemma of
either being overly demanding or placing a counterintuitive limit on a
requirement to come to the aid of others.


## 9. Other Objections to Rule-consequentialism



From the mid 1960s until the mid 1990s, most philosophers thought
rule-consequentialism couldn't survive the objections discussed
in the previous section. So, during those three decades, most
philosophers didn't bother with other objections to the theory.
However, if rule-consequentialism has convincing replies to all three
of the objections just discussed, then a good question is whether or
not there are other fatal objections to the theory.



Some other objections try to show that, given the theory's
criterion for selecting rules, there are conditions under which it
selects intuitively unacceptable rules. For example, Tom Carson (1991)
argued that rule-consequentialism turns out to be extremely demanding
in the real world. Mulgan (2001, esp. ch. 3) agreed with Carson about
that, and went on to argue that, even if rule-consequentialism's
implications in the actual world are fine, the theory has
counterintuitive implications in possible worlds. If Mulgan were right
about that, this would cast doubt on rule-consequentialism's
claim to explain why certain demands are appropriate in the actual
world. Debate about such matters continues (Hooker 2003; Lawlor 2004;
Parfit 2011, 2017a, 2017b; Woollard 2015: 181-205; Rajczi 2016;
Portmore 2017; Podgorski 2018; D. Miller 2021; Perl 2021, 2022). And
Mulgan has become a developer of rule-consequentialism rather than a
critic (Mulgan 2006, 2009, 2015, 2017, 2020).



A related objection to rule-consequentialism is that
rule-consequentialism makes the justification of familiar rules
contingent on various empirical facts, such as what human nature is
like, and how many people there are in need or in positions to help.
The objection to rule-consequentialism is that some familiar moral
rules are necessarily, not merely contingently, justified (McNaughton
and Rawling 1998; Gaut 1999, 2002; Montague 2000; Suikkanen 2008). A
sibling of this objection is that rule-consequentialism makes the
justification of rules depend on the wrong facts (Arneson 2005;
Portmore 2009; cf. Woollard 2015: esp. pp. 185-86,
203-205; 2022).



The mechanics of teaching new codes throws up serious questions for
forms of rule-consequentialism that count the costs of getting rules
internalised by new generations. As explained earlier, limiting the
targets of the teaching to new generations is meant to avoid having to
count the costs of getting rules internalised by existing generations
of people who have already internalised some other moral rules and
ideas. But can we come up with a coherent description of those who are
supposed to do the teaching of these new generations? If the teachers
are imagined to have already internalised the ideal code themselves,
then how is that supposed to have happened? If these teachers are
imagined not to have already internalised the ideal code, then there
will be costs associated with the conflict between the ideal code and
whatever they have already internalised. (This objection was
formulated by John Andrews, Robert Ehman, and Andrew Moore. Cf. Levy
2000; D. Miller, 2021.) A related objection is that
rule-consequentialism has not yet been formulated in a way that
enables it to deal plausibly with conflicts among rules (Eggleston
2007). But see Copp 2020; D. Miller 2021; Woodard 2022.