Explain the different between act and rule utilitarianism and offer one issue with these approaches.

Both act and rule utilitarianism are founded on the principle that to do good is to maximise the greatest utility. However, there are different ways of putting this principle into practice in normal life. Consider the following example. There is a rich man down your road with buckets of money and just next door an orphanage that is running out of money. You see that the rich man has gone away for a weekend and left some of the buckets of money on their front garden. You now have the option to leave the money there or take it and donate it to the orphanage. The act utilitarian in this specific case will be concerned only with how their actions can maximise the greatest utility. Accordingly, assuming that the harm done to the rich man is not that great (he already has a great amount of money so will not notice a small portion of it going missing) and that the money would greatly benefit the children at the orphanage then according to the utilitarian calculus the right action is to take the money and give it to the orphanage. The implication of this is that in certain situations stealing are not just permissible but the right thing to do. However, as some point out, more often than not stealing is not the right thing to do according to the utilitarian calculus and, further, it is impossible to always be able to calculate the best action in specific circumstances. Because of this, some (such as J.S. Mill) argue that the utilitarian calculus and principle of maximising utility should be used to create rules of morality instead of guide individual action. So, as more often than not stealing does not maximise utility, one rule that can be implemented is that stealing is bad. The same may be said for murder, assault or rape. As in all these cases the action more often than not causes more harm then good, we can create a rule that "murder is wrong" and conclude that one should not murder.The key difference between act and rule utilitarianism then is that act utilitarianism is concerned with using the utilitarian calculus to guide specific action and rule utilitarianism uses the utilitarian calculus to develop rules or guidelines that individuals must follow to do the right thing. One issue with the rule utilitarian approach is that following rules may not always maximise utility. For example, if murder is wrong but someone has come to your door saying they are going to kill five people in your house unless you kill them, there is a strong case to say that under the utilitarian calculus the right thing to do is kill them. That which the act utilitarian would say is right. In this way, it may be argues that rule utilitarianism is more similar to deontological ethics which relies on rules of morality to determine how one should act.