University of Kansas, Fall 2002
Philosophy 880: Topics in Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Class notes: beyond the act/rule divide

The following notes correspond roughly to what we cover, including at least a portion of what I put on the board or the screen, in class. In places they may be more or less comprehensive than what we actually cover in class, and should not be taken as a substitute for your own observations and records of what goes on in class.

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1. Pettit and Smith
   1. global consequentialism
      1. p. 122.3: no privileging of acts as evaluands
      2. p. 122.4: difference between judging motives in terms of their propensity to produce right acts and judging motives in terms of their propensity to have good consequences
   2. local consequentialism
      1. p. 122.6: privileging of some category of evaluands
      2. p. 122.7: one kind of local consequentialism (one that privileges acts)
      3. p. 122.8–123.7: other kinds of local consequentialism (privileging different categories of evaluand)
   3. aim and strategy
      1. p. 124.2: aim of showing that that forms of local consequentialism that privilege evaluands other than acts are as bad as forms of local consequentialism that privilege acts
      2. p. 125.1–2: strategy of showing problems with various versions of local motive consequentialism, showing that the same problems arise for corresponding versions of local rule consequentialism, and suggesting that the results can be extended
   4. local motive consequentialism, first version
      1. standard of right and wrong: right acts are those which are caused by the motives that it is best for people to have
      2. first objection: too demanding—surely some right acts can be done even by people who do not have the right motives
      3. second objection: too permissive—surely some acts caused by the right motives are wrong
   5. local motive consequentialism, second version
      1. standard of right and wrong: right acts are those which would be caused by the motives that it is best for people to have (i.e., apparently, those which someone with the best motives would do)
      2. a reason in support of this: so acting may contribute to the formation of the right motives
      3. three objections to this
         1. Acting in this way will not necessarily contribute to the formation of the right motives.
         2. Acting in this way can hardly be sanctioned by the standard of right and wrong in question, since someone with the right motives would hardly aim to acquire them. (Here, though, Pettit and Smith may err. For l.m.c. may enjoin acts that happen to make agents have the right motives, just not under that description.)
         3. Acting in this way might contribute to the formation of bad motives. (This objection seems to be barking up the same tree at the first objection.)
      4. same objection as the second objection to the first version
   6. local motive consequentialism, third version
      1. standard of right and wrong: right acts are those which would be caused by the motives that it would be best for people to try to have
      2. same reason in support; same three objections
      3. same objection as to the second version
   7. generalizing the argument
      1. analogous forms of local rule consequentialism
      2. same pattern of objections
   8. conclusion: rejection of all local forms of consequentialism; consequentialists must go global or not at all
2. Kagan
   1. p. 135.5: structural similarity between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism (but note Kagan’s remark about how his special understanding of act consequentialism—this will be important)
   2. rule consequentialism
      1. p. 137.3: ideal embedding vs. realistic embedding (as possible embeddings assumed for selecting the optimal rules)
      2. pp. 137.9–138.1: conformity vs. causal upshot (as possible relation of right acts to rules—“the right act is the act that conforms to the rules, or the right act is the act that would be the upshot of the rules (if realistically embedded)”—p. 138.7)
      3. p. 138.9: four basic forms of rule consequentialism
         1. the right act conforms to realistic rules (ideal embedding of rules realistically chosen)
         2. the right act is the upshot of realistic rules (realistic embedding of rules realistically chosen)
         3. the right act conforms to ideal rules (ideal embedding of rules ideally chosen)
         4. the right act is the upshot of ideal rules (realistic embedding of rules ideally chosen)
      4. problems with each of these
         1. first version (ideal/realistic): This form of rule consequentialism would implausibly forbid (declare to be wrong) acts of desirable nonconformity, even when these cases of desirable nonconformity are among the merits of the code of rules selected as optimal.
         2. second version (realistic/realistic): This form of rule consequentialism would implausibly permit (declare to be right) acts of undesirable nonconformity—this is implausible because the fact that the realistic embedding of the optimal rules (even realistically chosen) may lead to some acts of nonconformity does not mean that they’re o.k. (the fact that any society will have some criminals does not mean it’s o.k. to be a criminal in any society).
         3. fourth version (realistic/ideal): This form of rule consequentialism, like the second, would implausibly permit acts of undesirable nonconformity—again, the fact that the realistic embedding of optimal rules may lead to some acts of nonconformity does not mean that they’re o.k. (especially when the optimal rules are selected on the assumption of ideal embedding!).
         4. third version (ideal/ideal): This form of rule consequentialism, like the first, would implausibly forbid acts of desirable nonconformity. (Acts of nonconformity might be desirable given others’ noncompliance—for example, when a criminal has to be punished. Presumably such punishment is not permitted by the ideal rules (since they contain no partial-compliance rules), but is necessary in order to avert great harm, such as continued criminal activity.)
   3. act consequentialism
      1. p. 145.3: natural embedding of actual results
      2. p. 145.4–5: prescribing vs. producing (analogous to conformity vs. causal upshot, above)
      3. p. 145.6: two basic forms of act consequentialism (in regard to what the right rules are)
         1. the best rules are those that prescribe the right acts
         2. the best rules are those that produce the right acts
      4. problems with each of these
         1. first version: This form of act consequentialism would say that ‘Do the right thing’ is a rule that cannot be improved upon. But surely this is implausible—this is not really a good rule, from any kind of practical standpoint.
         2. second version: This form of act consequentialism would say that the best rules are those that produce the most right acts, or produce right acts most reliably. But it is implausible to be so focused on rightness and so little concerned with good consequences.
      5. a note on Kagan’s discussion
         1. As Kagan mentions on p. 150.7, act consequentialism is often taken to mean what Kagan calls direct consequentialism, rather than what Kagan calls act consequentialism. (For example, this is how Hare appears to understand act consequentialism.)
         2. So Kagan’s critique of what he calls act consequentialism must be read as a critique of a particular version of (what is standardly called act consequentialism), rather than a critique of what is (standardly called) act consequentialism in general.
   4. evaluative focal points
      1. superiority of direct consequentialism
      2. direct/indirect forms of other kinds of theory; possible superiority of direct forms in general?