Enduring Objections to Actual Rule Consequentialism

Abstract According to rule consequentialism, the moral status of actions is determined by their conformity to authoritative moral rules, and the authoritativeness of rules is determined by their consequences. While ideal rule consequentialism focuses on the consequences the adoption of rules would have, actual rule consequentialism focuses on occurrent consequences. In this paper, I criticize two recent versions of actual rule consequentialism. According to Richard B. Miller’s account, actions are morally right unless they are proscribed by sufficiently weighty, legitimate ethical rules that are actually adopted in the agent’s society. According to Caleb Perl’s Patterned View, while rules can be authoritative without being actually adopted, the evaluation of rules turns on the occurrent consequences of actually obtaining behavior. I argue that both Miller’s and Perl’s views share the problems of earlier versions of actual rule consequentialism, originally identified by D.H. Hodgson and Fred Feldman: they are overly conservative and objectionably conventionalist.