Criterion of rightness vs. decision procedure (also: multi-level utilitarianism)
Ideas similar to these were present to some degree among early utilitarians like Mill and Sidgwick, and the concepts were crystallized by later philosophers including Bales (1971) and Hare (1981).
Thanks! But no, I think what I am getting at is the opposite of that:
It is not feasible for any human not to often fall back on heuristics, so to the extent that your behavior is accurately captured by your description here, you are sitting firmly in the reference class of act utilitarian humans.
But also, if I may (unless you're already doing it), aim more for choosing your policy, not individual acts.
Thanks. How many people do you think would understand it if I called myself a "vibe utilitarian"?
I recently had a discussion with a fellow rationalist about the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarianism. We realized that our disagreement was at least in part one of words:
The utilitarianism I describe is not necessarily rule utilitarianism, because I am not necessarily trying to establish a clear set of rules to follow. It is more of a "winging it"-utilitarianism: I try to guess which action will lead to greater utility if feasible, but often I fall back on guidelines like "tell the truth whenever reasonably convenient" and "only go by car if the alternative is too slow or painful".
Does this make sense? Is this kind of thing distinct from the recognized classical kinds of utilitarianism? Do we have any terms for this sort of thing?