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Frameworks

Advanced / hybrid

Rule Utilitarianism

Follow the rules whose general adoption maximizes welfare.

Guiding principle

An act is right iff it conforms to a rule whose general acceptance would produce the greatest utility.

Key thinkers

R. M. Hare · Brad Hooker

Strengths

  • Preserves utilitarian impartiality while blocking one-off atrocities.
  • Explains the moral weight of promises and rights within a consequentialist frame.

Common objections

  • Collapses back into act-utilitarianism under refinement of rules.
  • Which set of rules? Level of idealization is arbitrary.

Mini-example

A rule permitting judicial framing to prevent riots would erode trust in courts, so rule-utilitarianism forbids it even when a single case would net positive utility.