Ethical principle; incorporates deontology into greatest-happiness thinking
Part of a series on
Utilitarianism
Predecessors
Mozi
Śāntideva
David Hume
Claude Adrien Helvétius
Cesare Beccaria
William Godwin
Francis Hutcheson
William Paley
Key proponents
Jeremy Bentham
John Stuart Mill
Henry Sidgwick
R. M. Hare
Peter Singer
Types of utilitarianism
Negative
Rule
Act
Two-level
Total
Average
Preference
Classical
Key concepts
Pain
Suffering
Pleasure
Utility
Happiness
Eudaimonia
Consequentialism
Equal consideration
Felicific calculus
Utilitarian social choice rule
Problems
Demandingness objection
Mere addition paradox
Paradox of hedonism
Replaceability argument
Utility monster
Related topics
Rational choice theory
Game theory
Neoclassical economics
Population ethics
Effective altruism
Philosophy portal
v
t
e
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] Philosophers Richard Brandt and Brad Hooker are major proponents of such an approach.
For rule utilitarians, the correctness of a rule is determined by the amount of good it brings about when followed. In contrast, act utilitarians judge an act in terms of the consequences of that act alone (such as stopping at a red light), rather than judging whether it faithfully adhered to the rule of which it was an instance (such as, "always stop at red lights"). Rule utilitarians argue that following rules that tend to lead to the greatest good will have better consequences overall than allowing exceptions to be made in individual instances, even if better consequences can be demonstrated in those instances.
^Garner, Richard T.; Bernard Rosen (1967). Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Introduction to Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics. New York: Macmillan. p. 70. ISBN 0-02-340580-5.
and 26 Related for: Rule utilitarianism information
Ruleutilitarianism 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...
their likely results (act utilitarianism), or whether agents should conform to rules that maximize utility (ruleutilitarianism). There is also disagreement...
enough happiness. Act utilitarianism is often contrasted with a different theory called ruleutilitarianism. Ruleutilitarianism states that the morally...
Preference utilitarianism (also known as preferentialism) is a form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. Unlike value monist forms of utilitarianism, preferentialism...
Average and total utilitarianism (also called averagism and totalism) are variants of utilitarianism that seek to maximize the average or total amount...
chooses rules based on the consequences that the selection of those rules has. Rule consequentialism exists in the forms of ruleutilitarianism and rule egoism...
Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate...
variations of utilitarianism, including the difference between act and ruleutilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism. Deontology...
opposition to unlimited state and social control. Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed...
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who distinguished between Act and Ruleutilitarianism. Notable later developments were made by Henry Sidgwick who introduced...
1467-9213.2009.609.x. Bykvist, Krister (2009). "7. Is utilitarianism too demanding?". Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Continuum. Singer, Peter...
textbook in the field. He defended a version of ruleutilitarianism in "Toward a credible form of utilitarianism" (1963) and performed cultural-anthropological...
291–292 John Stuart Mill in his book, Utilitarianism (originally published in 1861), wrote, "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete...
notable partly for containing one of the earliest statements of ruleutilitarianism. George Berkeley’s theory that matter does not exist comes from the...
best known for his work defending rule consequentialism (often treated as being synonymous with ruleutilitarianism). His book Ideal Code, Real World...
intrinsically right or intrinsically wrong. Proportionalist theories like ruleutilitarianism, however, say that it is never right to go against a principle unless...
rescue which contribute to overall happiness and reduced suffering. Ruleutilitarianism would look not just at whether individual acts of rescue maximize...
Edgeworth). He is considered one of the most important exponents of the "ruleutilitarianism". After moving to the US on a Rockefeller Fellowship where he was...
philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle...
the delicate demands of ecological diversity.Rule-utilitarianism is the view that following certain rules without exception is the surest way to bring...
" The ethical foundation of democratic transhumanism rests upon ruleutilitarianism and non-anthropocentric personhood theory. Democratic transhumanists...
ethics created by philosopher Robert Nozick in 1974 as a criticism of utilitarianism. A hypothetical being, which Nozick calls the utility monster, receives...
Essex, with his wife. Sidgwick summarizes his position in ethics as utilitarianism "on an Intuitional basis". This reflects, and disputes, the rivalry...
focused on forms of ruleutilitarianism, arguing, contra David Lyons, that act utilitarianism and full compliance forms of ruleutilitarianism do not always...
Global Information