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Rule Consequentialism - Coggle Diagram

- - - - impartial between people, and have to be educated to rationally apply - intension with what is possible in a society (e.g. family, children, ED levels, etc)
      - if there are not definitive rules on how long we can spend calculating what is the best way to maximise utility, then we will never stop calculating
  - - - sets an acceptable "aspiration level"
      - chooses the first option meeting that level
      - does not necessarily seek the absolute best option
    - - individual rationality examples - follows common sense
        
        choosing a satisfactory house price, rather than maximising someone else's utility to you detriment
        
        declining an unnecessary afternoon snack
        
        fairy tale wishes for moderate wealth
      - advantages
        
        reduces decision-making complexity
        
        avoids exhaustive evaluation of all alternatives
        
        prevents decision paralysis
    - - PHILIP PETTIT - potential irrationality of intentionally choosing sub-optimal options; risk of undermining meaningful evaluation; circular reasoning in meta-preferences
- - - - Consequentialist argument
        
        Goal - produce good consequences impartially; also ensure that people keep their promises (can be both short term and long term maximisation)
        
        Challenges - unrealistic calculation of every action's consequences; potential breakdown of social trust (e.g. families and friendships); excessive cognitive demands on individuals
      - Reflective Equilibrium argument
        
        seeks to explain and justify specific moral convictions
        
        tests moral theories against existing moral intuitions
        
        provides impartial justification for moral rules
    - - maximising Act C
        
        limitation - extremely restrictive moral permissions; demands excessive self-sacrifice
      - Satisficing Act C
        
        allows actions that meet a "good enough" threshold; vulnerable to counterexamples demonstrating moral inconsistency
      - Scalar C
        
        rejects fundamental moral categories like "right" and "wrong"; focuses on "morally better" and "morally worse" concepts - similar issues to satisficing Act C
    - - "Moral wrongness is determined by the code of rules whose internalisation by the overwhelming majority of everyone everywhere in each new generation has maximum expected value in terms of well-being, with some priority for the worst off"
      - internalisation of rules by the majority (90%), with only educating the next generation on any new set of rules which they agree upon as the moral standard for actions
        
        ensures rule compliance, through psychological and social internalisation
        
        rules are made by their expected values - what people reasonably anticipate
        
        looks specifically at how rules would be internalised by new generations - avoids the biases of existing moral attitudes
        
        not universalistic - employs prioritarianism - those who are worst off are given extra weight in the expected utility they might receive,
      - Strengths
        
        systematic approach to moral reasoning
        
        considers broader social consequences
      - weakenesses
        
        complexity in rule formulation
        
        potential for over-simplification
      - Disaster avoidance rule - if following a rule would lead to disaster, an overarching rule of "avoid disaster at all costs" kicks in and allows you to ignore the previous rule which would have led to disaster.
  - - - Adresses previous criticisms of the philosophical approach
        
        Rule worship - advocated following rules even when doing so produces suboptimal consequences
        
        Utopianism - suggests following ideal moral codes even when others aren't participating
        
        Collapse problem - potential for rule consequentialism to essentially become act consequentialism
        
        illustrates each of these though the soldier example - front line alone (should you stay and fight when it would do little to no good, purely because of the idealised rule?)
      - evaluation of moral theories:
        
        developing pre-theoretical moral intuitions
        
        maintaining internal consistency
        
        coherence with considered moral judgements
        
        identifying fundamental moral principles
        
        providing guidance for controversial issues
      - developed a more nuanced version of Rule C
        
        an act is wrong if forbidden by a rule code that, if internalised by most people, would - maximise expected value, prioritise well-being, consider costs of rule internalisation, remain close to conventional morality
      - ISSUES
        
        fails to overcome the three main issues of Rule C
        
        rule worship
        
        disaster avoidance - definition of disaster is inherently vague; creates complex scenarios about when exactly one should deviate from ideal moral rules; by including the overarching rule, we are still following the ideal code in situations
        
        Utopian Objection
        
        the approach to suggest a code that would work if universally accepted, even if it's not currently being followed - flawed as it still recommends following an ideal set of rules
        
        most people aren't following these rules
        
        following the rules may produce no good consequences
        
        compliance may not do another to improve the overall situation
        
        Collapse problem
        
        attempts to add higher-order rules (e.g. disaster avoidance rule), to deal with non-acceptance scenarios are ultimately unsuccessful.
        
        the new rules it implies do not work in the scenario, as we have the same problem at a different level of acceptance - rules can become meaningless, even these overarching ones.
- - - - 100% acceptance
        
        completely universal moral code; no provision for the highly probable non-acceptance scenarios; unrealistic for human societies
      - less than 100% acceptance
        
        arbitrary selection of acceptance percentage; lack of philosophical depth; limited applicability across different social contexts
    - - innovative approach - evaluates rules across ALL possible levels of social acceptance
      - Advantages
        
        avoids arbitrariness of fixed percentage approaches
        
        generates flexible, adaptable moral rules
        
        addresses problems of non-acceptance more comprehensively
      - practical implementation
        
        able to have different converting/teaching strategies at different acceptance percentages - often a range to make it more simple
        
        designate "moral experts" to manage complex rule adaptations - collective responsibility for moral code evolution
      - Complexity vs. Utility trade offs
        
        more complex rules might have higher cognitive costs; balance is needed between rule sophistication and learnability
      - critical evaluation
        
        strengths
        
        addresses fundamental rule-utilitarian challenges
        
        offers sophisticaed moral reaosning framework
        
        adaptable across different social context - deals with Arneson's soldier example
        
        potential limitations
        
        increased computational complexity - Hooker works better here due to recognition of learning costs for different generations
        
        requires ongoing refinement - somewhat dealt with by moral experts - but still, who are they and do we trust them/who do we replace them with if they leave the position (lack of bias needed)
        
        potential for over-interpretation
        
        TOBIA - potential skewing by anomalies
  - - - Solution - use the code with the greatest weighted average value across acceptance levels - probability is take into account here - Mill would not do this if he was Rule C
      - Tobia's method
        
        assigns probability to each acceptance level
        
        multiply each valye by its probability
        
        sum these weighted values
        
        select the code with the highest total expected value
    - - considers multiple scenarios
      - accounts for real-world uncertainty
      - more nuanced than fixed-rate approaches
      - mathematically robust
      - takes into account the cost of training codes and how people would respond to this training.
- - - - Mill argues for a moral theory where rightness is in terms of what the agent is justified in believing at the time of the action
      - does not take probability of the outcome into account - high actual value, but low probability would be chosen over a low actual outcome but high probability
    - - subjective rightness - NOT MILL - probabilism employed - maximise expected happiness
      - objective rightness - MILL - actualism employed - maximise actual happiness
    - - argues for the general law in (2.2)
      - however, Mill still refers to tendencies (e.g. GHP)
        
        tend to promote happiness, is equivalent to the claim that they are right to the extent that they promote happiness - ENSURES THAT MILL IS AN ACT U
      - MULTI-LEVEL ACT UTILITARIAN -MILL'S VIEW
        
        it is a function of customary morality - shapes what we think about, how we think and which options we take seriously
        
        these are defined by rules of thumb - rules about what is normally found from calculations
        
        not the ultimate justification, but reliable due to historical experiences and calculations - can go against it if it did not yield the maximisation
        
        should use customary morality and the Act U principle of impartial beneficiating
        
        "Mill is claiming here, then, that in your everyday life, you should not consult the principle of utility expect when two non-utilitarian principles conflict"
      - Critique - DEMANDINGNESS OBJECTION - sheriff problem
        
        illustrates how we cannot be sure that breaking the rule will maximise, while assumption of rule to not break will maximise, means they will follow the rule
        
        they do not want to create a predicate for it to occur again
        
        tautology to protect welfare in the long-run