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3.
Rule utilitarianism solves the problem of moral luck.
Since it is interested in the typical result of an action, the highly unusual result does
not affect the goodness of an action. A rule utilitarian would conclude that sending
flowers to people in the hospital is a good action.
4.
Rule utilitarianism reduces the problem of bias.
A weakness of act utilitarianism is that it creates the temptation to perform a biased
analysis. By asking, “Is it okay for me to do this?” an act utilitarian may conclude the
action is acceptable by consciously or unconsciously inflating the personal benefits
and/or deflating the anticipated harms to others. In contrast, a rule utilitarian must
ask the question, “Is it okay for everyone in a similar circumstance to do this?” The
person who answers the latter question is more likely to place appropriate weights
on the benefits and harms of the action.
5.
It appeals to a wide cross section of society.
Bernard Gert points out that utilitarianism is “paradoxically, the kind of moral
theory usually held by people who claim that they have no moral theory. Their
view is often expressed in phrases like the following: 'It is all right to do anything
as long as no one gets hurt,' 'It is the actual consequences that count, not some silly
rules,' or 'What is important is that things turn out for the best, not how one goes
about making that happen.' On the moral system, it is not the consequences of the
particular violation that are decisive in determining its justifiability, but rather the
consequences of such a violation being publicly allowed” [22]. In other words, an
action is justifiable if allowing that action would, as a rule, bring about greater net
happiness than forbidding that action.
As we have just seen, rule utilitarianism seems to solve several problems associated with
act utilitarianism. However, two criticisms have been leveled at utilitarian theories in
general. These problems are shared by both act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.
1.
Utilitarianism forces us to use a single scale or measure to evaluate completely different
kinds of consequences.
In order to perform the utilitarian calculus, all consequences must be put into the
same units. Otherwise we cannot add them up. For example, if we are going to
determine the total amount of happiness resulting from the construction of a new
highway, many of the costs and benefits (such as construction costs and the gas
expenses of car drivers) are easily expressed in dollars. Other costs and benefits
are intangible, but we must express them in terms of dollars in order to find the
total amount of happiness created or destroyed as a result of the project. Suppose a
sociologist informs the state that if it condemns 150 homes, it is likely to cause five
divorces among the families being displaced. How do we assign a dollar value to that
unfortunate consequence? In certain circumstances utilitarians must quantify the
value of a human life. How can the value of a human life be reduced to an amount
of money?
