Talk:Act utilitarianism

message: I've done some significant copyediting of the page, as well as making a few important editorial changes. The page had been marked as needing additional citations, and it turns out that most of the content was plagiarized from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In the spots where I've retained ideas of IEP, I've rewritten the text from scratch. The editorial changes include: (1) Offering a more precise definition of AU. The existing definition conflated the question of a criterion of rightness with the question of the decision procedure. (See, e.g., http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/#WhiConActVsExpCon.) (2) Removing all references to "summary rules" (e.g., rules of thumb) and their role in AU. There was some disagreement further down the talk page about how they should be handled. Since I didn't think the current text explained them very well, I thought I'd just remove that text. I think that issue might best be handled in a new subsection. Davidmorrow (talk) 05:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: One problem that I constantly see with "criticism" sections for Act Utilitarianism article that is certainly now present here is ignoring that the pleasure of the actor is a relevant part of the decision making process.  Sitting on the couch watching TV may very well be the ideal thing to do in certain circumstances. - Richfife (talk) 16:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that it would be helpful to emphasize that. I rewrote the text to avoid the plagiarism problem, but I didn't change the ideas expressed in the source (viz., the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). I don't think the moral judgment in this example depends on ignoring the agent's happiness, but it is worth emphasizing that AU doesn't ignore the agent's own happiness. Davidmorrow (talk) 17:04, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Refining and expanding the article

message: On Talk:Rule_utilitarianism I explained a persistent confusion that I'll repeat briefly here.  It is simply false to say, as this article does, that "Act utilitarianism makes no appeals to general rules".  Of course it does; no one, least of all a utilitarian, would know what to do without general rules.  "Maximize utility" is a general rule. "Killing people almost never maximizes utility, so don't do it except in the gravest of situations" is a general rule. As utilitarians like Mill and Hare have always insisted, such rules are essential to utilitarian calculation, indeed pretty much any ethical reasoning; rejection of this leads one into pure spontaneous intuitionism.  Rather, act utilitarians believe that we should perform actions that maximize utility, given the world as we find it, period; rule utilitarians believe we should act in accordance with those rules which are such that, if everybody in the world followed them, utility would be at least as high as it would be under any alternate set of rules. This may appeal to those who like ideal theory; but as has often been pointed out (by JJC Smart, David Lyons) it can lead to non-maximization of utility, and even utter disaster, in a world where not everyone is playing by the same rules (i.e., the real one we are always likely to live in).--ScottForschler (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Persistent confusion

message: Which now says:
: (Paragraph about how Act Utilitarianism can lead to unpredictable actions, leading to problems.  I'm removing it from here too because it may have been copyvio)
It's a) unreferenced and b) is not an actual problem.  Taking the negative impact of unpredictability into account is a necessary part of act utilitarianism, so all it's really saying is "You may find it difficult to take everything into consideration".  If we want to list everything that needs to be taken into account for Act Utilitarianism, we're going to be here a while. - Richfife (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second paragraph 

message: A common (practically epidemic) problem with examples of Act Utilitarianism that they leave the actor out of the pleasure / pain equation.  The one cited is particularly bad. - Richfife (talk) 00:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we get a better example?