Rule and Act Utilitarianism in

Rule and Act Utilitarianism in Society Modern society is a balance of individual freedoms and the compulsory acceptance of social rules designed to benefit everyone collectively. Generally, societal rules are utilitarian in that they are intended to promote behavior of the individual for the good of all. Utilitarian rules need not necessarily have any inherent value in and of themselves; in fact, they may be completely arbitrary. Nevertheless, they are often crucial, as illustrated by the simple rules expressed in motor vehicle codes and laws of the road.

Rule Utilitarianism: Actually, it makes absolutely no difference whether a rule of the road requires stopping on a red traffic signal and proceeding on a green signal or the complete reverse. The choice of which color designates "stop" and which designates "go" is, in fact, arbitrary, because either version would work equally well.

Likewise, it makes no difference whether we drive on the right or left side of the road, and some countries do apply the exact opposite rule, requiring driving on the left instead of on the right of the road.

The benefit (or utility) of the rules is that they allow for safe driving simply because they result in uniform driving habits that dramatically reduce the risk of accidents in comparison to driving without any such rules, whereby some drivers choose to drive on the right of the road, others choose to drive on the left, and traffic flow is completely unregulated and unrestricted in speed, right of way, and direction of travel.

The utilitarian benefit of traffic laws is not a function of the rightness or wrongness of their specific rules and regulations; the social benefit is that driving would be far more dangerous for everyone without a coherent set of rules of the road that standardize procedure and allow us to coordinate a mutual understanding of predictability in the way that we use the roads that we all share.

Act Utilitarianism: Whereas rule utilitarianism focuses on the relative social benefit of rules, act utilitarianism concerns specific ethics of actions rather than the rules governing those actions. In many respects, act utilitarianism can be considered an extension, or a refinement, of rule utilitarianism, because it provides a method of incorporating useful or beneficial exceptions to general rules that benefit society more than rigid or absolute adherence to rules.

Using the same example of vehicular rules of the road, there are situations that sometimes justify violating those rules, notwithstanding the fact that those rules are generally useful, beneficial, and necessary. In emergencies, the value of violating a rule in specific instances sometimes outweighs the importance of following those.