Editing Utilitarianism (section)

=== Act and rule utilitarianism ===
{{Main|Act utilitarianism|Rule utilitarianism}}
In the mid-20th century, a number of philosophers focused on the place of rules in utilitarian thought.<ref name=":0">Bayles, M. D., ed. 1968. ''Contemporary Utilitarianism''. Doubleday: [[Anchor Books]].</ref> It was already considered necessary to use rules to help choose the right action, because estimating the consequences every time seemed error-prone and unlikely to bring the best outcome. Paley had justified the use of rules and Mill says:<ref>{{cite book |last = Mill | first = John Stuart |editor-first= Roger |editor-last= Crisp |title = Utilitarianism |publisher = Oxford University Press |year= 1998 |page = 70 |isbn = 978-0-19-875163-2}}</ref>

{{blockquote|It is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed in considering utility to be the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as to what is useful, and would take no measures for having their notions on the subject taught to the young, and enforced by law and opinion... to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generalisations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another.… The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal.{{nbsp}}... Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong.|author=|title=|source=}}

However, rule utilitarianism proposes a more central role for rules that was thought to rescue the theory from some of its more devastating criticisms, particularly problems to do with justice and promise keeping. Smart (1956) and McCloskey (1957) initially use the terms ''extreme'' and ''restricted'' utilitarianism but eventually settled on the prefixes ''act'' and ''rule'' instead.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Smart|first=J. J. C.|year=1956|title=Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism|journal=Philosophical Quarterly|volume=6|issue=25|pages=344–54|doi=10.2307/2216786|jstor=2216786|s2cid=147501349}}</ref><ref name="McCloskey1957">{{cite journal|last=McCloskey|first=H. J.|date=October 1957|title=An Examination of Restricted Utilitarianism|journal=Philosophical Review|volume=66|issue=4|pages=466–85|doi=10.2307/2182745|jstor=2182745}}</ref> Likewise, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, articles were published both for and against the new form of utilitarianism, and through this debate the theory we now call ''rule utilitarianism'' was created. In an introduction to an anthology of these articles, the editor was able to say: "The development of this theory was a [[dialectic]]al process of formulation, criticism, reply and reformulation; the record of this process well illustrates the co-operative development of a philosophical theory."<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|1}}

The essential difference is in what determines whether or not an action is the right action. ''Act utilitarianism'' maintains that an action is right if it maximizes utility; ''rule utilitarianism'' maintains that an action is right if it conforms to a rule that maximizes utility.

In 1956, Urmson (1953) published an influential article arguing that Mill justified rules on utilitarian principles.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Urmson|first=J. O.|year=1953|title=The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill|journal=Philosophical Quarterly|volume=3|issue=10|pages=33–39|doi=10.2307/2216697|jstor=2216697}}</ref> From then on, articles have debated this interpretation of Mill. In all probability, it was not a distinction that Mill was particularly trying to make and so the evidence in his writing is inevitably mixed. A collection of Mill's writing published in 1977 includes a letter that seems to tip the balance in favour of the notion that Mill is best classified as an ''act utilitarian''. In the letter, Mill says:<ref>Mill, John Stuart. ''The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill'' 17, edited by J. M. Robson. Toronto: [[University of Toronto Press]]. 1963–91. p. 1881.</ref>
{{blockquote|I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by the natural consequences of the particular action, and not by those which would follow if everyone did the same. But, for the most part, the consideration of what would happen if everyone did the same, is the only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case.}}

Some school level textbooks and at least one British examination board make a further distinction between strong and weak rule utilitarianism.<ref>Oliphant, Jill. 2007. ''OCR Religious Ethics for AS and A2''. Routledge.</ref> 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.<ref>[[David Lyons (philosopher)|Lyons, David]]. 1965. ''Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism''.</ref> This process holds for all cases of exceptions, and so the "rules" have as many "sub-rules" as there are exceptional cases, which, in the end, makes an agent seek out whatever outcome produces the maximum utility.<ref>Habib, Allen. [2008] 2014. "[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/promises/ Promises]." ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''.</ref>