Abstract
According to rule-consequentialism’s moral criterion, a given action is morally right if and only if it complies with an ideal code of rules, regardless of the consequences of that action. Rules are to be assessed by their consequences, not actions. This being so, one of the many accusations that have been made against rule-consequentialism is that it can turn suboptimal decisions into morally right decisions and optimal decisions into morally wrong decisions. After all, in certain circumstances, a rule that has the best consequences overall can require an action that does less good or forbid an action that does more good. This is the core of the original rule-worship objection. However, recently, different versions of rule-consequentialism have been developed in order to address that challenge. This paper focuses on three of them, those offered by Brad Hooker, Susan Wolf, and David Copp. My claim is that their arguments, however ingenious, are unsuccessful, because they are innocuous if the charge is reformulated as it should be.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I use both terms—consequentialism and utilitarianism—interchangeably, as the difference between them does not matter for the problem at issue in this paper.
For the locus classicus of the collapse objection against primitive forms of rule-consequentialism, see Lyons (1965).
Hooker (1996, p. 534, 2000, p. 105) understands moral pluralism as a moral theory for which there are many moral values or principles, whereas there is no underlying principle that justifies them. Furthermore, moral pluralism is described by Hooker as intuitionism if these different values or principles can conflict, but there is no priority rule to resolve these conflicts, resulting that a capacity of judgment is to solve at least some of these conflicts.
Based on this evidence, Hursthouse (2002, p. 50) classifies Hooker as a foundationalist.
Card (2007, pp. 248–250) argues that Hooker’s theory does have an overarching commitment to maximizing the good, because the consequentialist justification of rules ends up influencing the justification of particular actions. Card’s argument is based on Hooker’s claim that the commitment to preventing disasters overrides obligations derived from other rules belonging to the ideal code of rules, and Hooker’s analysis of our obligations to do good to others. I believe these charges have already been satisfactorily answered by Hooker (2007, pp. 517–518).
Wolf’s conception of morality as a practice is subject to some of Joseph Raz’s criticisms of H. L. A. Hart’s practice theory of rules (Raz, 1999, p. 53). In Raz’s view, a conception of rules as practices suffers from three fatal flaws. One of these defects matters here: such a conception of rules cannot explain rules that are not practices, and moral rules, for Raz, are precisely the clearest example of such rules. Raz’s remarks on the point seem essentially correct to me. He points out that if one believes that a rule is morally valid, and that belief is shared by the majority in her society, it does not mean that one believes or has to believe, under pain of inconsistency, that the rule must be practiced in order to be morally valid. For example, one can coherently believe that promises must be kept without belonging to a community that practices this rule. Besides, there are cases of moral ideals that are not really shared by large groups, such as vegetarianism. One can coherently believe that there is a moral injunction against the consumption of animal products without knowing a single person who thinks this way, and even without practicing a personal rule to that effect. Indeed, even John Rawls, who distinguished between rules of thumb and rules as practices, ended his paper on the subject with a skeptical remark on the possibility of an account of morality as a practice. For Rawls (1955, p. 32, n. 27), only a small part of moral life is defined by practices, that part related to legal arguments and the like. This is why, in this paper, I accept that morality can be a practice for the sake of argumentation only.
See Sect. 1 above.
The issue of formal justice and rules will be assessed in Sect. 4.1 below.
See Sect. 2.1 above.
See Sect. 2.2 above.
Hart (1994, p. 218) distinguishes between internal normative statements, those in which an agent accepts an obligation, and external predictive statements, those in which an agent recognizes the likelihood of suffering from disobedience.
As is well known, the specificity of following a rule (as opposed to acting on the balance of reasons) is conceptualized by Schauer (1991a, Chap. 3) as the entrenchment of generalizations and by Raz (1999, pp. 35–48) as the practical phenomenon of exclusionary reasons. However, my paper does not need to commit to any of the details of these analyses.
See Sect. 2.3. above.
References
Arneson, R. (2005). Sophisticated rule consequentialism: Some simple objections. Philosophical Issues, 15(1), 235–251. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2005.00064.x.
Card, R. F. (2007). Inconsistency and the theoretical commitments of Hooker’s rule-consequentialism. Utilitas, 19(2), 243–258. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095382080700249X.
Clark, D. S. Jr. (1977). Exclusionary reasons. Mind, LXXXVI(342), 252–255. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LXXXVI.342.252.
Copp, D. (2020). The rule worship and idealization objections revisited and resisted. In D. Copp (Ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics (Vol. 10, pp. 131–155). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198867944.003.0007.
Harrod, R. F. (1936). Utilitarianism revised. Mind. XLV, (178), 137–156. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XLV.178.137.
Hart, H. L. A. (1994). The concept of law (2nd ed.). Clarendon Press; Oxford University.
Hooker, B. (1994). Is rule-consequentialism a rubber duck? Analysis, 54(2), 92–97.
Hooker, B. (1996). Ross-Style pluralism versus rule-consequentialism. Mind, 105(420), 531–552.
Hooker, B. (2000). Ideal code, real world: A rule-consequentialist theory of morality. Clarendon Press; Oxford University.
Hooker, B. (2005). Reply to Arneson and McIntyre. Philosophical Issues, 15(1), 264–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2005.00066.x.
Hooker, B. (2007). Rule-consequentialism and internal consistency: A reply to Card. Utilitas, 19(4), 514–519. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820807002786.
Hooker, B. (2008). Rule-consequentialism versus act-consequentialism. Politeia, 24(90), 75–85.
Hooker, B. (2011). Promises and rule-consequentialism. In H. Sheinman (Ed.), Promises and agreements: Philosophical essays (pp. 237–254). Oxford University Press.
Hooker, B. (2016). Rule consequentialism. In Edward N. Zalta, & Uri Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/consequentialism-rule.
Hooker, B. (2020). The role(s) of rules in consequentialist ethics. In D. W. Portmore (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism (pp. 440–462). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190905323.013.12.
Howard-Snyder, F. (1993). Rule consequentialism is a rubber duck. American Philosophical Quarterly, 30(3), 271–278.
Hursthouse, R. (2002). Virtue ethics vs. rule-consequentialism: A reply to Brad Hooker. Utilitas, 14(1), 41–53. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820800003381.
Kagan, S. (1998). Normative ethics. Westview.
Kahn, L. (2013). Rule consequentialism and disasters. Philosophical Studies, 162(2), 219–236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9756-8.
Lyons, D. (1965). Forms and limits of utilitarianism (Repr. with corr). Clarendon.
Rawls, J. (1955). Two concepts of rules. The Philosophical Review, 64(1), 30. https://doi.org/10.2307/2182230.
Raz, J. (1999). Practical reason and norms. Oxford Univ. Press.
Schauer, F. F. (1991a). Playing by the rules: A philosophical examination of rule-based decision-making in law and in life. Clarendon Press; Oxford University.
Schauer, F. F. (1991b). Rules and the rule of law. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 14(3), 645–695.
Smart, J. J. C. (1956). Extreme and restricted utilitarianism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 6(25), 344–354.
Wolf, S. (2016). Two concepts of rule utilitarianism. In M. Timmons (Ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, volume 6 (pp. 123–144). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198790587.003.0007.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (Grant number: 301418/2022-5).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing Interests
The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Faggion, A.L.B. The Charge of Rule Worship Against Rule-Consequentialism Restated. Philosophia (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00743-3
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00743-3