Utilitarianism occupies a central place in the moral philosophy of our time. It is not the view which most people hold; certainly there are very few who would claim to be act utilitarians. But for a much wider range of people it is the view towards which they find themselves pressed when they try to give a theoretical account of their moral beliefs. Within moral philosophy it represents a position one must struggle against if one wishes to avoid it. This is so in spite of the fact that the implications of act utilitarianism are wildly at variance with firmly held moral convictions, while rule utilitarianism, the most common alternative formulation, strikes most people as an unstable compromise.
(T. M. Scanlon, “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” chap. 5 in Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 103-28, at 103)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 