ABSTRACT
Fred Feldman’s clarity, rigor, and fair-mindedness have been admired, but his arguments against rule-utilitarianism will not torpedo the best version of rule-consequentialism. This chapter explains this matter before considering Feldman's own desert-adjusted world utilitarianism and the ways in which it contrasts with the best version of rule-consequentialism. Feldman’s classic Introductory Ethics (1978) discusses a number of different versions of rule-consequentialism. The first is ‘primitive’ rule-utilitarianism. He then considers a more plausible form of rule-utilitarianism, i.e., Richard Brandt’s. Feldman accepts that hedonistic utilitarianism has been hammered by objections concerning promises, rights, and desert In order to make a consequentialist moral theory come out with plausible implications, we may have to postulate lots of deontological elements by building them into our axiology. On the other hand, we may not. Rule-consequentialism formulated in terms of expected value has considerably more plausibility than rule-consequentialism formulated in terms of actual value.
