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From: tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Types of Utilitarianisms (really the "Rule Rule")
Message-ID: <16091@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 19:07:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.16091
Posted: Fri Oct 10 19:07:55 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 06:21:01 EDT
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Reply-To: tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tom Tedrick)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 13

>>Case by case optimiza-
>>tion  is  not optimal - for at least two reasons: the overhead is
>>too high, and human weakness distorts judgement, exposing one  to
>>the  temptations  of  the  moment - cumulative temptations of
>>many moments. This leads to what I call the Principle Principle -
>>or  the  Rule Rule - which is that one needs inflexible rules. In
>>legal sphere, this justifies  written  law  -  and  as  laws  are
>>changeable too, constitutions.

Well said. In any case, we are at a point in time when it is 
becoming possible to formalize "rule-based protocols" as
mathematical objects and study this problem scientifically
(as I was saying from my soapbox last year ... :-)