Abstract

That utility is not a sufficient test for a set of social rules to be morally binding upon a group of persons has been argued in a number of recent books and articles. Yet it is generally conceded in these arguments that a group's observance of rules makes possible greater benefits than would accrue if each did not associate himself with others under the rules. It is not denied that the practice of morality is socially advantageous. What is denied is that social advantage is either the sole criterion or a sufficient criterion for the justifiability of any set of rules that could constitute the de facto system of moral requirements in a given society.What, then, is sufficient? The answer I am interested in defending in this paper is that both utility as an aggregative principle and justice as a distributive principle are each a necessary condition and together provide a sufficient condition for the justification of a moral code. In the first two parts of this paper, I shall explain how the concepts of justice and utility, respectively, are to be construed in the argument of the third part.