Coursework.Info - Inspiration in an Instant

On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:

Mill 8th Week - Helena McDermott Does rule-utilitarianism solve the problems faced by act-utilitarianism? Utilitarianism is a broad discipline, encompassing moral philosophers with fundamentally contrasting bases to their ethics. One of these conflicts is between the absolutist act based philosophers, of whom I believe Mill is one, and the less stringent rule-utilitarians. The crux of the conflict between the schools lies in the leeway given to an individual when making behavioural choices; act-utilitarians would have us rely entirely on an ordinal system of hedonism, and rule-utilitarians would replace this calculation with a set of moral guides based on the tendency of an action to promote welfare. The uncompromising position of act-utilitarians has the advantage of remaining true to the attractive, simple core of utilitarianism - that welfare is desirable and maximising welfare our ultimate goal. However, in advocating an inflexible ethic, particularly to a society with a well established moral code, the...

To see the full version of this document, and 145,841 others