Rule utilitarianism works as a moral theory, but act utilitarianism does not

Act utilitarianism is also a less moral theory because it remains as a scale, and some people may not have the time, or intellectual capacity even if the information available in order to make a choice based purely on a scale, for example the amount of pleasure that a child would bring you is not the same as the slice of pizza would bring you. It would also be quite bizarre to say to a child who is about to stick their finger into an electric socket ‘before you put your finger in the electric socket calculate whether that would lead to the greatest pleasure’, whereas it would be so much better for the parent to say “Don’t do that!”, following rules like rule utilitarianism might lead to missing particular instance of fun but it would mean the best result.

Some people may believe that act utilitarianism works better as it is seen as the most natural interpretation of utilitarianism. If our aim is always to produce the best results it seem plausible to think that in each case of deciding what is the right thing to do, we should consider the available options, predict their outcomes and approve of the action that will bring the most pleasure.

Overall, I believe that rule utilitarianism is a moral theory compared to act utilitarianism because it can be applied more to our daily lives as we follow laws and rules every day, whereas act utilitarianism seems quite unrealistic compared to rue utilitarianism. However, I believe both theories are flawed because there is no way we could completely apply both to real life.