Essentially, he points out that rational egoism and
act utilitarianism, when stated as principles, represent views that could be held without holding other views about whether some acts "must not be done" or are duties, and so forth.
These untoward implications have been held by many to constitute a reductio ad absurdum of hedonistic
act utilitarianism rather than a weighty consideration in favor of the practice of punishing the innocent or torturing individuals.
A machine might very well have an advantage over a human being in following the theory of
act utilitarianism for several reasons: First, human beings tend not to do the arithmetic strictly, but just estimate that a certain action is likely to result in the greatest net good consequences, and so a human being might make a mistake, whereas such error by a machine would be less likely.
Act utilitarianism states that an act is right if it produces at least as great a balance of happiness over unhappiness in its consequences for all people as would any other act available.
In this paper it is shown that total
act utilitarianism can be derived from a set of axioms that are (or ought to be) acceptable for anyone subscribing to the basic ideals of consequentialism.
This is a wide-ranging defense of a distinctive version of hedonistic
act utilitarianism. It is plainly written, forthright, and stimulating.