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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 501 Sidgwick the view that in a thoroughgoing Utilitarian society everyone is essentially alike, so that a similarity in situation suffices to determine a similarity of response. While this may in fact be a valid implication of the Utilitarian doctrine in its ideal form8, it is debatable whether Sidgwick would accede to it. A weaker but more sympathetic reading would construe Sidgwick as meaning that if everyone held to Utilitarian principles, my reasons for acting in a certain way would, in theory, be acknowledged as valid by everyone, even though no one else can, strictly speaking, be conditioned just as I am. Here my supposition that others would behave similarly if similarly conditioned is actually a supposition that, since we all share the same moral principles, others would, if necessary, condone and support my action as being what they would have done if they were, so to speak, in my shoes. The first reading explains Sidgwick's claim in terms of an assumed uniformity of motives, beliefs, and responses among Utilitarians - not a clearly desirable condition to impose on the ideal society. The second explains it in terms of an implicit acknowledgment of Utilitarian principles as binding on all individuals in the community. The latter would seem more faithful to Sidgwick's intended meaning. He cannot, then, be understood as simply asserting the truism that an exception to a rule that ranges over some class of cases itself ranges over some class of cases. Rather, he is asserting that if everyone justified his actions of grounds of utility, these grounds would be acknowledged under the relevant circumstances as valid and accessible to anyone in any situation - that any action consistently and adequately justified on these grounds could be expected by the agent to receive validation by others in the community. It is in this sense, then, that the rule in question would acquire a qualifying clause, and it is for this reason, seemingly, that Sidgwick sees the principle of Utilitarianism as public in the ideal case. It would seem to be public in the sense that we could not know what someone had done without thereby knowing why; and moreover knowing that they had acted rightly, even in breaking the rule. This is a consequence of Sidgwick's conception of the ideal community as consisting of what are essentially Act-Utilitarians.9 Although moral rules are held in common, the decision to follow or not follow them is made on ActUtilitarian grounds.10 For even where an apparently Rule-Utilitarian stance is adopted (for example where Sidgwick appraises the utility value of commonsense moral rules), this is done on the grounds that the overall utility of following and promulgating the rule outweighs the personal disutility of In fact, I suspect that it is, though I will not try to argue this here. Thus I use the terms "Utilitarianism" and "Act-Utilitarianism" indifferently in discussing Sidgwick's Utilitarianism and its implications. 10 Sidgwick, op. cit., Note 1, pp. 486-90, passim. 8 9 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
