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BRANDT ON IZILITARIANISM
AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF ETHICS
Thomas L. Carson
1. Rule-Utilitarianism
Brandt's very influential paper "Some merits of one form of rule- utilitarianism
defends the following version of RU:
[A]n action is right if and only if it would not be prohibited by the moral code ideal
for the society in which it occurs, where a moral code is taken to be "ideal" if and
only if its currency would produce at least as much good per person as the currency
of any other moral code (pp. 124 5).
Brandt calls this the "ideal moral code theory" (IMCT). The IMCT employs the
notion of what it is for a moral code to have currency in a society. Brandt explains
this in the following passage:
t1997. Business Ethics Quarlerly, Volume 7, Issue 1. ISSN 1052-1SOX. pp. 87-100
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88 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
[Flor a moral code to have currency in a society two things must be true. First, a high
proportion of adults in the society must subscribe to the moral principles, or have the
moral opinions, constitutive of the code.... probably it would not be wrong to require
at least 90 percent agreement. Second, we want to say that certain principles A, B,
etc. belong to the moral code of a society only if they are recognized as such (p. 120).
Brandt offers an interesting argument for thinking that Mill endorsed something like
the IMCT.
Brandt stresses that when assessing the consequences of the currency of a moral
code we must not only weigh the benefits of compliance or partial compliance with its
rules and prohibitions we must also weigh the good and bad consequences of teaching
such a code, e.g, guilt and other risks associated with interiorizing strong prohibitions
(p. 125). The IMCT and other versions of rule- utilitarianism are often characterized
as "indirect" versions of utilitarianism. Unlike act-utilitarianism (AU), they do not
hold that the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is determined by its conse-
quences. Rather, they hold that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined
by the content of the ideal moral code for the agent's society; moral codes are assessed
in terms of their consequences.
What would be the content of an ideal moral code? Some have suggested that the
ideal or utility maximizing moral code for any society would be act utilitarianism
itself. On this interpretation, RU and AU are equivalent for all practical purposes.
Brandt rejects this interpretation of the IMCT. He claims that AU is not the moral
code whose currency would have the best consequences (in any society). His argu-
ments for this (which are developed in a later paper in this volume "Fairness to
Indirect Optimific Theories in Ethics") resemble certain standard objections to AU.
First, the use of AU as a decision procedure requires people to make difficult and
time-consuming calculations. Second, "many people are just not bright enough, or
well enough educated, to make reliable judgments about the utilities of their options"
(p. 142). Third, the subtlety of the calculations required is "a standing invitation to
rationalize in one's own favor" (p. 142). These three objections all appeal to the idea
that people are likely to misapply AU and, as a result, perform actions that are not
optimific. Brandt's final argument is somewhat different. He claims that the general
acceptance of AU would render human actions too unpredictable for people to be able
to enter into beneficial agreements and activities which require complex coordination
of the actions of different people. Brandt explains this claim in the following passage.
[W]here individuals to reach moral decisions in this way, it would be difficult to pre-
dict where they would come out: We would not know whether a person would keep
a promise unless we could see how the benefits looked to him. As a result, there
would not be the security in predicting how others would behave necessary for mak-
ing personal plans or effectuating schemes of cooperation (p. 142).
This kind of argument is developed with great force and subtlety by David
Hodgson in Consequences of Utilitarianism.2 Hodgson claims that his argument is
independent of the idea that people are likely to misapply AU. According to him,
cooperation and the institution of promise keeping would be seriously undermined if
everyone accepted and correctly followed AU.
Brandt claims that the ideal moral code for any society would include principles
very similar to Ross's prima facie duties.3 It would include "obligations of fidelity,
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BRANDT: A REVIEW ARTICLE 89
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9o BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
consequences if the great majority of people accepted it, might require actions that
have very bad consequences in a non-ideal world in which very few people accept it.
For example, most ideal moral codes would include rules forbidding discrimination
on grounds of race, religion or gender. But following such rules might be disastrous
for the agent if the agent's actual society institutionalizes such discrimination. Those
who practice nondiscrimination in societies whose moral and legal codes require dis-
crimination might bring harsh punishment upon themselves. Brandt regards acting
contrary to the demands of a discriminatory code as supererogatory (or at least not
obligatory) under such circumstances. He claims that his theory can accommodate
this view because the optimal morality for a society will include "disjunctive rules"
that speak to such cases. The disjunctive rules for discrimination would be something
like the following:
Treat everyone equally, without regard to race, religion, or sex; but in case such con-
duct would produce serious social harm because of massive disagreement, then per-
form that act which is beneE1t-maximizing, for all of society, for you (your group) to
do, as a means to social chunge in the direction of equal treatment. (p. 156)
iii) J.J.C. Smart and other act-utilitarian critics of RU accuse rule utilitarians of
"rule-worship." In cases in which AU and RU disagree about the rightness or wrong-
ness of an action RU will recommend a non-optimal action on the ground of its con-
formity to certain (utility maximizing) rules. Smart states his objection in the
following passage:
[Tlhe rule-utilitarian presumably advocates his principle because he is ultimately
concerned with human happiness: why then should he advocate abiding by a rule
when he knows that it will not in the present case be most beneficial to abide by it?
The reply that in most cases it is beneficial to abide by the rule seems irrelevant. And
so is the reply that it would be better that everybody should abide by the rule than that
nobody should. This is to suppose that the only alternative to 'everybody does A' is
'no one does A'. But clearly we have the possibility 'some people do A and some
don't'. Hence to refuse to break a generally beneElcial rule in those cases in which it
is not most beneficial to obey it seems irrational axld to be a case of rule worship.5
If the purpose of moral rules is to promote human welfare, then isn't it irrational to
follow them in cases in which doing so does not promote human welfare? By way of
reply, Brandt tries to minimize the difference between AU and RU. He suggests that
the ideal moral code for most societies would include something like the following
. .
prlnclp e:
If following an otherwise optimiflc set of rules would cause a very large utility loss
or forgo a very large utility gain on this occasion, the agent is permitted to perform
an act that is (close to) utility maximizing on that occasion (p. lSl).
Given that ideal moral codes include something like the foregoing principle, AU
and RU will differ only in cases in which the harm produced or benefit foregone by
following RU is relatively small. In trying to avoid this objection, Brandt has formu-
lated a version of RU that, in practice, does not differ greatly from AU. Brandt's ver-
sion of RU will never require agents to perform actions that produce a great deal less
utility than some possible alternative.
iv) Several critics have argued that RU exacerbates the problems that AU has in
trying to identify which actions maximize human welfare. It is often difficult to com-
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BRANDT: A REVIEW ARTICLE 91
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92 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
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BRANDT: A REVIEW ARTICLE 93
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94 BUSBESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
Brandt questions whether the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare can deal plausi-
bly with cases in which people's desires change. His worries about such cases led him
to abandon the desire satisfaction theory. The problem is that it is unclear that we can
speak coherently about what maximizes the satisfaction of a person's desires in cases
in which her desires change over time. Brandt presents the following example.
Suppose that a father is deciding what to give his son for his twentieth birthday. The
father is trying to decide between giving his son a bicycle and a Greek lexicon.
Which course of action will be most beneficial to his son? Which will maximize the
satisfaction of the son's desires? Suppose that the following are the case: between
the ages of 6 and 18 the son strongly preferred to have the bicycle [when he is twen-
ty]; between the ages of 18 and 22 he will prefer to have the lexicon; and from then
on he will prefer to have the bicycle. [For the sake of simplicity, Brandt talks about
the maximization of one's actual desires but this example could easily be adopted to
deal with "ideals' or rational desires.] Given that his desires change over time, it's not
clear which course of action will maximize the satisfaction of his desires. Getting the
bike will best satisfy the son's present desires but getting the lexicon will best satisfy
the desires the son will have at most other times in his life. We might try to resolve
this in accordance with any of the following principles [this list is not intended to be
exhaustivel2]:
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BRANDT: A REVEW ARTICLE
59
According to Hare, when such desires conflict the former override the latter for
determining one's own welfare.l4 When assessing the bearing of some event that
occurs at time T on one's welfare, the only preferences that matter are the (ideal) pref-
erences that one has at T.
In 4'Fairness to Happiness" (a more recent paper which is unfortunately not includ-
ed in the present volume), Brandt again defends a hedonistic theory of welfare.ls This
paper is particularly interesting because Brandt defends the hedonistic theory of wel-
fare by appeal to what we would prefer or desire if we were fully informed. Drawing
on recent work in empirical psychology, Brandt argues that it is likely that the only
intrinsic desires that would survive full information and maximal criticism are desires
for pleasant experiences.
III. Rationality
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96 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
1E Moral Language
Brandt's papers "Moral Philosophy and the Analysis of Language" and "The
Explanation of Moral Language" mount a vigorous attack on the view that philo-
sophical accounts of moral language and analyses of moral concepts should aim at
explicating the actual meaning or use of moral terms in ordinary language, rather than
proposing new concepts or suggesting ways of reforming existing moral language.
The view that Brandt attacks dominated meta-ethics during the first half of the twen-
tieth century. For all their disagreements, such diverse figures as Moore, Hare, Foot,
and at least some of the emotivists all take themselves to be analyzing the meaning of
ordinary language concepts and take the appeal to the meaning of terms in ordinary
language to be the last court of appeal in conceptual disputes.
Ordinary language is often vague or imprecise. It should not be presumed a priori
that the moral/conceptual framework of one's own society is adequate or optimal for
the purposes for which it is used. Some conceptual frameworks may make it impos-
sible for people to raise certain important questions or make certain important dis-
tinctions (pp. 28-29). Brandt gives the following hypothetical example. Suppose that
the only terms in a language that are used to make overall assessments and commen-
dations of actions are terms that mean roughly the same as "prudent" and "impru-
dent." In such a language it would be impossible to condemn actions that are known
to be beneficial to the agent.
[W]e would think that there should be terminology available for classifying an action
as beneficial or harmful from the point of view of the whole social group, and not
merely from the point of view of the agent or family group.... (p. 28).
I agree fully with Brandt about these matters and would like to add two further
arguments of my own. First, we can sensibly ask whether we should care whether a
certain act counts as right or wrong according to the linguistic criteria of a given com-
munity (whether or not it is one's own community). The fact that the meaning of
moral terms in a particular language presupposes or embodies certain standards for
evaluating things does not show that those standards are justified or correct. Second,
moral discourse includes "thick" evaluative notions terms which have both descrip-
tive and evaluative meaning, e.g., "courage." These terms encapsulate evaluations of
certain descriptive properties. The word "courage" encapsulates a favorable evalua-
tion of the willingness to face danger. An "ethnic slur word" expresses contempt and
disdain for members of a certain ethic group qau members of that group.
Philosophers should not be content to analyze the conventional meanings of thick
moraUnormative concepts. They need to ask whether the evaluations implicit in those
concepts are justified. Ethnic slur words and at least some other thick normative
terms such as "honorable" (as it is understood in certain warrior societies) presuppose
evaluations which are not justified. We should refuse to use such terms.
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BRANDT: A REVEW ARTICLE
79
mere appeal to moral intuitions. The problem with this is that people often appeal to
disputed intuitions, i.e., intuitions which conflict with at least some other people's
intuitions. Discussions of business ethics reveal (as do most other discussions of eth-
ical questions) a tremendous amount of disagreement between the intuitions of dif-
ferent philosophers/writers. We cannot, in good conscience, defend or attack ethical
views simply by appealing to disputed intuitions. When we discover that other peo-
ple have intuitions that are opposed to our own we are not entitled to assume that ours
are correct and the other people's mistaken at least not without being able to give
reasons for thinking that this is the case.l8 Applied ethicists who postulate rights
willy nilly without argument should look to Brandt's papers, "The Concept of a Moral
Right and Its Function" and "Utilitarianism and Moral Rights." These papers attempt
to provide a conceptual and normative framework within which claims about rights
(claims to the effect that we do or do not have certain rights) can be justified.
Ross's concept of a primafacie duty is extremely important for business and pro-
fessional ethics. It is difficult to talk about conflicts of duties or the obligations attach-
ing to particular roles or offices without employing Ross's concept of a prima facie
duty. But Ross's theory of prima facie duties is more impressive than his defense of
it. His defense of his theory is little more than an appeal to intuition. He claims that
the basic primafacie obligations are "self-evident" (for example, it is self-evident that
there is a primafacie duty to keep promises).l9 Brandt's rule-utilitarianism provides a
surer foundation for an ethic of primafacie duties than Ross's own theory.
Conceptual analysis of moral concepts is an important part of business ethics. A
number of "thick" concepts such as conflict of interest, bribery, sexual harassment,
loyalty, and lying are of special importance in our field. Brandt's work warns us
against conducting this analysis simply by appeal to the use or meaning of these con-
cepts in ordinary language. Brandt's arguments also provide us with reasons not to
slavishly follow the definitions employed in the law. We need to consider the possi-
bility and desirability of conceptual reform. We should not reject out of hand analy-
ses of normative concepts that are inconsistent with conventional usage.20
No living philosopher has contributed more to the discussion of the concept of
rationality than Brandt. The concept of rationality is of considerable importance in
business ethics. Among other things, it is a central notion in the idea of a "morally
acceptable exchange" that figures so importantly is questions about the ethics of sales,
deception in advertising, and larger questions about the justification of the market
system. Brandt's discussion of rationality is an essential point of departure for those
who work in these areas. Full information of the sort that Brandt describes in his the-
ory seems to me to be at least a necessary condition of full rationality.
A final thought about the significance of Brandt's work: RU is a plausible way to
think about the issue of corporate social responsibility. Theories of corporate social
responsibility, as they are usually formulated, are not plausible.as statements of basic
or fundamental moral principles. They are most plausibly construed as claims about
the best policies or moral codes for business people to follow. (This is surely true in
the case of Milton Friedman's theory about the social responsibilities of business.)
Those who defend views about the social responsibilities of business would do well
to consult the literature on RU, in particulars the attempts by various rule-utilitarians
to justify claims about which moral codes would be optimific for particular societies.
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98 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
A Brief Lament
The areas of Brandt's work covered in this volume are well known to contemporary
philosophers. Unfortunately, some of Brandt's earlier work is less well-known and
currently out of print. His work on the ideal observer theory (his critique of Firth and
his own formulation of the ideal observer theory in Ethical Theory) and the issue of
relativism are particularly important. Brandt's Hopi Ethics is a distinguished work of
philosophical anthropology. Both Hopi Ethics and Ethical Theory are now out of print.
These books and many of Brandt' s papers not included in this volume are still very
much worth reading .21
Endnotes
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BRANDT: A REVIEW ARTICLE 99
8I have in mind Mill's harm principle (which says that the only reason for which
the state can be justified in limiting a person's freedom is to prevent harm to others)
and theories of corporate social responsibility according to which a corporation's pur-
suit of profits is constrained by the duty not to harm others. See Kenneth Goodpaster
"Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis," in Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 1
number 1, pp. 53-72 and John Simon, Charles Powers, and Jon Gunneman, "The
Responsibilities of Corporations and Their Owners," in Ethical Theory and Business,
Tom Beauchamp and Norman Bowie, eds., fourth edition, (Englewood: Prentice Hall,
1994), pp. 60-65.
9This greatly oversimplifies the argument. For needed qualifications see "Self-
Interest and the Concept of Self-Sacrifice," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10,
1980. Overvold refines the argument to make the even stronger objection that
Brandt's view makes it logically impossible for there to be any genuine acts of self-
sacrifice. See Brad Hooker, "A Breakthrough in the Desire Theory of Welfare,"
Richard Brandt, "Overvold on Self-Interest and Self-Sacrifice," and Thomas Carson,
"The Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Welfare: Overvold's Critique and Reformulation,"
all included in Rationality, Moralit:y, and Self-Interest: Essays Honoring Mark Carl
Overvold, John Heil, editor (Lanhan: Rowman Littlefield, 1993).
l°"Morality, Self-Interest and Reasons for Being Moral," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 44, 1984, p. 499.
ll"Two Concepts of Utility," in The Limits of Utilitarianism, Miller and Williams
eds. (Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press, 1982); see p. 173 in particular. Also
see Brandt's paper "Overvold on Self-Interest and Self-Sacrifice," in Rationality.
Morality, and Self-Interest: Essays Honoring Mark Carl Overvold, John Heil, editor.
Indeed, I haven't listed all of those that Brandt himself enumerates.
l3See my paper "The Desire-Satisfaction Theory of Welfare: Overvold's Critique
and Reformulation," in Rationality, Morality, and Self-Interest: Essays Honoring
Mark Carl Overvold, John Heil, editor.
14R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 105-
106.
l 550cial Theory and Practice, 15, 1989, pp. 33-58.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
17I develop this in greater detail in The Status of Morality (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1984), pp. 66-67 and 178-179. 19
l8Cf. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, seventh edition, (New York: Dover,
1966):
Since it is implied in the very notion of Truth that it is essentially the same for all
minds, the denial by another of a proposition that I have affirmed has a tendency to
impair my confidence in its validity.... the absence of such disagreement must remain
an indispensable negative condition of the certainty of our beliefs. For if I find any
of my judgments, intuitive or inferential, in direct conflict with a judgment of some
other mind, there must be error somewhere: and I have no more reason to suspect
error in the other mind than in my own (pp. 341-342).
9See, The Right and the Good, pp. 27-29.
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100 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
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