Actual Utility , the Objection from Impracticality , and the Move to Expected

Utilitarians are attracted to the idea that an act is morally right iff it leads to the best outcome. But critics have pointed out that in many cases we cannot determine which of our alternatives in fact would lead to the best outcome. So we can’t use the classic principle to determine what we should do. It’s not “practical”; it’s not “action-guiding”. Some take this to be a serious objection to utilitarianism, since they think a moral theory ought to be practical and actionguiding. In response, some utilitarians propose to modify utilitarianism by replacing talk of actual utility with talk of expected utility. Others propose to leave the original utilitarian principle in place, but to combine it with a decision procedure involving expected utility. What all these philosophers have in common is this: they move toward expected utility in order to defend utilitarianism against the impracticality objection. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on this way of replying to the objection. My central claim is that if utilitarians are worried about the impracticality objection, they should not turn to expected utility utilitarianism. That theory does not provide the basis for a cogent reply to the objection. Utilitarians are attracted to the idea that an act is morally right iff it leads to the best outcome. But critics have pointed out that in many cases we cannot determine which of our alternatives in fact would lead to the best outcome. So we can’t use the classic principle to determine what we should do. It’s not “practical”; it’s not “action-guiding”. Some take this to be a serious objection to utilitarianism, since they think a moral theory ought to be practical and actionguiding. Some utilitarians respond by revising the principle by appeal to expected utility. The classic principle is replaced by a new principle that says that an act is morally right iff it maximizes expected utility. They then suggest that since the revised principle is practical and action-guiding, the objection has been answered. This pattern of reasoning (or something quite like it) can be found in the writings of Richard Brandt, J. J. C. Smart, Frank Jackson, Bart Gruzalski, and others. Instead of responding to the objection by replacing the classic utilitarian principle with a principle requiring the maximization of expected utility, some philosophers respond by distinguishing between a criterion for rightness and decision procedure for rightness. They retain the classic principle as the criterion for rightness. They acknowledge that in many typical circumstances we don’t know what is actually the right thing to do. But they then propose to supplement the classic utilitarian principle for rightness by adding a decision procedure to be used for practical purposes. The decision procedure makes use of the concept of expected utility. Perhaps it advises us to engage in a pattern of reasoning designed to identify the act that maximizes expected utility. The addition of this decision procedure thus creates a “package”