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In ethics, Smart was a defender of utilitarianism. Specifically, he defended "extreme", or act utilitarianism , as opposed to "restricted", or rule utilitarianism . The distinction between these two types of ethical theory is explained in his essay Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism .
In social choice and operations research, the utilitarian rule (also called the max-sum rule) is a rule saying that, among all possible alternatives, society should pick the alternative which maximizes the sum of the utilities of all individuals in society.
[1] [2] In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is, in some sense, to maximize utility , which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts.
Two-level utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics according to which a person's moral decisions should be based on a set of moral rules, except in certain rare situations where it is more appropriate to engage in a 'critical' level of moral reasoning. The theory was initially developed by R. M. Hare. [1]
Act utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics that states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces the best possible results in that specific situation. Classical utilitarians, including Jeremy Bentham , John Stuart Mill , and Henry Sidgwick , define happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain.
That is, if people generally experience more happiness following action X than they do action Y, the utilitarian should conclude that action X produces more utility than action Y, and so is to be preferred. [81] Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory, meaning that it holds that acts are justified insofar as they produce a desirable ...
Altruism is often seen as a form of consequentialism, as it indicates that an action is ethically right if it brings good consequences to others. [7] Altruism may be seen as similar to utilitarianism, however an essential difference is that the latter prescribes acts that maximize good consequences for all of society, while altruism prescribes maximizing good consequences for everyone except ...
The demandingness objection is a common [1] [2] argument raised against utilitarianism and other consequentialist ethical theories. The consequentialist requirement that we maximize the good impartially seems to this objection to require us to perform acts that we would normally consider optional.