J.J.C. Smart: Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism

J.J.C. Smart: Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism judges actions by their consequences, but are acts to be judged individually or by classes? Smart refers to the former view as extreme utilitarianism, which holds that we should test individual actions by their consequences. He refers to the latter view as restricted utilitarianism, which holds that actions are to be tested by rules and rules by consequences. The main divide between these two forms of utilitarianism, then, comes down to whether rules have intrinsic moral significance. Smart thinks not.
Smart argues that restricted utilitarianism faces a damning dilemma. If we must follow the rules even when non-optimific, then rule utilitarianism is committed to an implausible form of rule worship. For example, suppose that we knew a given rule produced the best outcome 99% of the time, but we also know that in this particular instance it will not. To follow this rule, when we know it will not produce the best result is, Smart claims, to idolize the rule. And rules, unlike the good, do not themselves provide us with reasons. If, to avoid such worship, we implement a rule that prescribes breaking the rules when non-optimific, then rule utilitarianism collapses into extreme utilitarianism. Thus, either rule utilitarianism is implausible or it is extensionally identical to act utilitarianism. Either way, Smart concludes, extreme utilitarianism is to be preferred.
-Smart conceives of ethics as:

A) the study of how it would be most rational to act.
B) the study of the rules we ought to follow.
C) the study of how we should live.
D) the study of who we should be.

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