PHI 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Act Utilitarianism, James Rachels, Biological Warfare
7 Nov 2016
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Utilitarianism 2: arguments & williams, george, jim, and utilitarianism . Act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism seem different from each other in important ways. They both accept hedonism and an equality principle. But rule-utilitarianism judges actions by whether or not they follow the correct sort of general rule, not on the basis of the utility of each individual action. Act-utilitarianism: the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest balance of pleasure over pain, everyone considered. (vaughn, 67-69) Rule-utilitarianism the morally right action is the one covered by a rule that if generally followed would produce the greatest balance of pleasure over pain, everyone considered. (vaughn, 68, 69) The case of the surgeon and utilitarian killing (vaughn, 90) Argument from unacceptable moral consequences of classical act. If act utilitarianism were true, then there could be cases were one has a moral obligation to do what is morally wrong.
