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Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance". [1]
philosophy portal; Brad Hooker (born 13 September 1957) [1] is a British-American philosopher who specialises in moral philosophy.He is a professor at the University of Reading and is best known for his work defending rule consequentialism (often treated as being synonymous with rule utilitarianism).
Rule consequentialism is a theory that is sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile consequentialism with deontology, or rules-based ethics [15] —and in some cases, this is stated as a criticism of rule consequentialism. [16] Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules. However, rule ...
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.
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the former examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, whereas the latter studies the meaning of moral ...
Two-level utilitarianism is virtually a synthesis of the opposing doctrines of act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism states that in all cases the morally right action is the one which produces the most well-being, whereas rule utilitarianism states that the morally right action is the one that is in accordance with a ...
Proportionalism is an ethical theory that lies between consequential theories and deontological theories. [1] Consequential theories, like utilitarianism, say that an action is right or wrong, depending on the consequences it produces, but deontological theories, such as Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, say that actions are either intrinsically right or intrinsically wrong.
Smart's arguments against rule utilitarianism have been very influential, contributing to a steady decline in its popularity among ethicists during the late 20th century. Worldwide, his defence of act utilitarianism and preference theory has been less prominent but has influenced philosophers who have worked or been educated in Australia, such ...