There is a recognized distinction here between a moral decision procedure and the criterion for an action to be right or wrong.
Pretty much all serious act utilitarians approve a rule-utilitarian decision procedure i.e. they recommend moral agents to follow the usual moral rules (or heuristics) even in those cases where the agent believes that departing from the rules would lead to better consequences. The justification for such a decision procedure is of course that humans are not ideal reasoners, we can not predict and evaluate all consequences of our actions (including others imitating us), we do not have an ideal, impartial conception of the good, and we tend to get things horribly wrong when we depart from the rules with the best of intentions.
Yet still, from an act utilitarian criterion for “right” and “wrong” a rule-violating action which maximizes expected utility is “right”. This leads to some odd situations, whereby the act utilitarian would have to (privately) classify such a rule-violating action as right, but publically condemn it, call it the “wrong choice”, quite possibly punish it, and generally discourage people from following it!
Yes, I was (improperly) ignoring the typically backward-looking nature of act utilitarianism. I kept saying “maximize expected utility” rather than “maximize utility” which resulted in true statements that did not reflect what act utilitarians really say.
I blame the principle of charity.
EDIT: And if I were being really careful, I’d make sure to phrase “maximize expected utility” in such a way that it’s clear that you’re maximizing the utility according to your expectations, not maximizing your expectations of utility (wireheading).
There is a recognized distinction here between a moral decision procedure and the criterion for an action to be right or wrong.
Pretty much all serious act utilitarians approve a rule-utilitarian decision procedure i.e. they recommend moral agents to follow the usual moral rules (or heuristics) even in those cases where the agent believes that departing from the rules would lead to better consequences. The justification for such a decision procedure is of course that humans are not ideal reasoners, we can not predict and evaluate all consequences of our actions (including others imitating us), we do not have an ideal, impartial conception of the good, and we tend to get things horribly wrong when we depart from the rules with the best of intentions.
Yet still, from an act utilitarian criterion for “right” and “wrong” a rule-violating action which maximizes expected utility is “right”. This leads to some odd situations, whereby the act utilitarian would have to (privately) classify such a rule-violating action as right, but publically condemn it, call it the “wrong choice”, quite possibly punish it, and generally discourage people from following it!
Yes, I was (improperly) ignoring the typically backward-looking nature of act utilitarianism. I kept saying “maximize expected utility” rather than “maximize utility” which resulted in true statements that did not reflect what act utilitarians really say.
I blame the principle of charity.
EDIT: And if I were being really careful, I’d make sure to phrase “maximize expected utility” in such a way that it’s clear that you’re maximizing the utility according to your expectations, not maximizing your expectations of utility (wireheading).