Utilitarianism is one of the main moral theories within ethics. Its core idea is, whether your actions are good or bad, is dictated by the net-positive and net-negative effects it has on the individual or the group as a whole. Utilitarianism aims to produce the most amount of happiness, good and well-being while minimizing the net-amount of unhappiness by choosing our actions wisely.1 While the Philosophy world largely supports utilitarianism, supporters remain split between two major utilitarian branches, act and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism states that one should choose their course of action based on the premise that it will create more happiness, good or well-being. Whereas rule utilitarianism desires to provide the most well-being, good and happiness through the implementation and adherence to moral codes/ rules which then are followed to provide the most good.2
In order to understand what both act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism aim to achieve, one must first understand what utilitarians define as good or creating “more” well-being. Jeremy Bentham helps to answer this question through the adoption and use of hedonism. Hedonism is the school of thought which suggests that the only thing that is truly good, is pleasure (i.e. happiness). While hedonists concede that things such as sex, food, material items and friends while are instrumentally good things to have, they maintain that the only reason they are perceived as good is due to the fact that they produce feelings of pleasure or happiness.3 Hedonists contend that pleasure and happiness are the only true good because they do not create more pleasure, but rather are the end result and therefore cannot produce any further pleasure.4
Additionally, objects and actions such as lack of shelter, food, the necessities, love and friendship are inherently “bad” due to the premise that when lacking in aforementioned categories they cultivate feelings of pain and suffering. Thus emotions such as, pain and suffering (i.e. unhappiness) are intrinsically bad, not because they produce unhappiness but rather because they are the end product of negative circumstances5 and thus, cannot create more unhappiness or displeasure.
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There are two types of consequences for which the argument can be made that one should base their actions off of, the foreseeable consequences and the actual consequences. In order to understand which type of consequence one must base their actions off of, J.C.C Smart proposes an example. Todd is walking next to a river in 1938 in the proximity of Germany, and sees a man drowning, upon seeing the downing man Todd jumps in to save him, while wasting no time to check whom the drowning man is, upon pulling the man out of the river and out of harm’s way. The moustached man then commends Todd for his honorable actions and they part ways. Years later Todd comes to a sudden realization that the man he saved is Adolf Hitler after thinking back to the event.6 Should Todd feel he chose the wrong course of action to save the drowning Hitler all those years earlier. Is Todd partly to blame for the death of millions because he saved a drowning man who then went on to commit countless atrocities? How could have Todd known? Due to fact that it was inconceivable for Todd to determine who the drowning man was before jumping in to save the man nor was it possible to know the future actions of the man, Smart concludes that one must base their actions off of foreseeable consequences rather than the actual consequences.7
Act utilitarianism says that whenever we are posed with a choice in which there is a possibility to have a right and wrong course of action, we should do what causes the most net-utility (i.e. most well-being) which may vary from case to case8. This form of utilitarianism justifies the means so long as the choice produces the most net-utility. This way of thinking is an inherently short-sighted approach to utilitarianism as it focuses on what will provide the most good for the individual and does not take into consideration the societal moral code.9
For example, say you come across a group of 20 rural and uneducated villagers, one of whom has a highly contagious and terminal disease for which there is no cure (i.e. becoming a zombie). Because these villagers have no formal schooling and no knowledge or means of modern disease prevention practices (i.e. quarantine), if left to themselves the whole village will, without a doubt, be overrun with this disease and perish. The dilemma you face is whether or not to kill the terminally ill man before the disease does, in order to prevent the deaths of a whole village. An act utilitarian will surely argue that because killing the man will save the village and thus produce the most well-being this is the course of action that must be taken.10
Rule utilitarianism says we ought to live by rules that, in general, which are likely to lead to the greatest good for the greatest number (i.e. without compromising one’s moral code). That is to live by a set of moral codes that one should not break from regardless of whether breaking from them will cause more net-utility. This allows followers of rule utilitarianism to refrain from acts that will maximize utility in the short run and instead follow rules that will maximize utility for the majority of the time.
For example, say that a doctor has a patient come in complaining about chronic pain, you perform some diagnostic tests and come to find that the patient is suffering from a terminal illness. The dilemma the doctor faces is whether to tell the patient about his terminal illness or not. A rule utilitarian will argue that one should not compromise societies widely accepted morals, therefore the doctor should tell the patient about their terminal illness. While an act utilitarian would postpone on telling the patient about their grim fate until the patient’s condition begins to deteriorate, thus providing the patient with more well-being by not knowing of his terminal illness.11
Act utilitarianism, because it does not take into account the widespread and accepted moral rules such as not lying and don’t murder, rather it asks the question is this going to create greater well-being/ good for me or the group, has many critics.12 Critics of act utilitarianism will argue that due to the inherent selfish behavior that is prevalent in act utilitarianism it does not provide greater net utility for the greater good. The desert island problem posed by Professor Roderick Firth of Harvard University is as follows. You and Jones are marooned on a desert island. Jones takes to cultivating flowers. Jones falls ill and asks you to take care of his flowers for him after he dies. You promise to do so, though you have no interest in flowers. Let us assume that caring for the flowers will not bring any happiness.13 The act utilitarian then has to say that there is no moral value in taking care of the flowers after Jones dies, but an ordinary intuition is that there is value.14
An act utilitarian would have no problem in breaking the promise you made to Jones due to the fact that taking care of Jones’s flowers would not provide you any more well-being/ happiness, while it would most certainly burden you with the task of doing an action that is causing you to be less happy. Why would an act utilitarian then agree to such a promise if he has no intentions of keeping the promise as soon as it becomes of an inconvenience? This again falls back to the fact that making the promise, at the time, provides greater happiness and well-being in Jones. Once Jones dies the well-being and happiness that you provided by assuring Jones that you will take care of his flowers is lost, he’s dead, so what is the reason in keeping the promise if Jones can never find out the fate of his flowers.15
As it pertains to the desert island problem first posed by Rodrick Firth, a rule utilitarian will contend that you should tend to Jones’s garden and thus follow through on your promise. Advocates of rule utilitarianism argue this because they believe that by following a moral code/ rule that generates the most well-being the greater good is preserved.16 Recall that rule utilitarians change the context of moral evaluation from individual acts to rules governing actions (i.e. they believe that by following a moral rule/ rule-set, more well-being can be created, without compromising one’s trust/ integrity).
While rule utilitarianism provides a set of rules from which to base your decisions off of, it does not account for the exceptional cases for which sub rules would account for. In David Lyons 1965 book Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, Lyons argues that rule utilitarianism inevitably collapses back into act utilitarianism, because for any given rule, in the exceptional case where breaking the rule produces more utility, the rule can always be sophisticated by the addition of a sub-rule that handles cases like the exception. But the validity of this process on the utilitarian framework holds for all cases of exceptions, and so the ‘rules’ will have as many ‘sub-rules’ as there are exceptional cases, which, in the end, is to abandon the rule and be guided by the principle of utility, to seek out whatever outcome produces the maximum utility.17
In Layman’s terms what Lyons is trying to emphasize is that, for any rule that fails to provide a correct course of action, the addition of a sub rule (i.e. an exception to the rule) may be added. Due to anyone’s ability to add a sub rule for the exceptional cases, rule utilitarianism then becomes no more than act utilitarianism18.
Understanding the differences between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism helps us to better understand what should be consider before making our moral judgements. While understanding that both act and rule utilitarianism strive to provide the most good and well-being one must also be conscious of the key differences between the two. Act utilitarianism provides a one size fits all approach to our dilemmas, which puts our own ultimate goal of greater happiness and satisfaction above all else. Rule utilitarianism provides a more structured and rigid frame work from which we are to base our actions off of, it provides a rigid rule-based system which in most cases provides the morally correct answer from which one could base their actions off of. It provides a general rule to apply for classes of recurring issues such as stealing, rape, murder, lying and helping others.
