However, we might think of situations where the cleaner’s action doesn’t undermine trust. As such a rule such as “never steal” might be advisable, and as a result, stealing from the lady would be condemned by a rule utilitarian. Rule utilitarianism offers the chance of reconciling morality with our intuitions if everyone stole from eachother, there would be a lot less trust in the world, and therefore less utility. Using an act utilitarian decision rule, the carer is morally justified in his action – he gets the benefit of the ornament to sell, whilst the lady doesn’t know its been taken. The ornament normally sits out of the old lady’s reach, so she doesn’t know that it’s been stolen. For instance, a carer might steal a prized ornament from a blind old lady. The supposed attraction of rule utilitarianism is that allows us to avoid actions that we have a natural aversion to, despite the fact they maximise immediate utility. By contrast rule utilitarianism offers the revised decision rule, ‘Perform the action that belongs to the set of rules, that if followed in all circumstances, would result in the most utility’. The decision rule with act utilitarianism is ‘perform the action that results in the maximum sum of utility from those available when making the decision’.
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