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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.
In ethics, Norcross defends a version of act utilitarianism known as scalar utilitarianism, which is the theory that there are no right or wrong actions, only better or worse actions ranked along a continuum from the action (or actions) that contributes most to overall utility to the action (or actions) that contributes the least.
This resulted in the Depredations on the Thames Act 1800 (39 & 40 Geo. 3. c. 87). [46] The Act created the Thames River Police, which was the first preventive police force in the country and was a precedent for Robert Peel's reforms 30 years later. [47]: 67–69
This is an incomplete list of advocates of utilitarianism and/or consequentialism This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources .
However, it is not clear that this distinction is made in the academic literature. It has been argued that rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism, because for any given rule, in the case where breaking the rule produces more utility, the rule can be refined by the addition of a sub-rule that handles cases like the exception. [56]
McCloskey is known for his sheriff scenario, a thought experiment he used to criticize "extreme" utilitarianism, or what later came to be known as act utilitarianism. He was married to Mary Agnes McCloskey. [2] McCloskey was an atheist. He argued that the problem of evil provides conclusive evidence against theism.
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. [14] Smart gave two arguments against rule utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory, meaning that it holds that acts are justified insofar as they produce a desirable outcome. The overarching goal of utilitarianism—the ideal consequence—is to achieve the "greatest good for the greatest number as the result of human action". [ 82 ]