Act utilitarians imagined a single utilitarian agent, heroically maximizing human happiness in a non-utilitarian world. Unsurprisingly, her life is demanding, alienating and unattractive. Rule utilitarians pictured morality as a task given not to each individual agent, but to a community of human beings. We imagine ourselves choosing a moral code to govern our community, deciding what code to teach the next generation. Rule utilitarians' guiding questi ons were “What if everyone did that?” and “How should we live?” We first seek an ideal moral code. Acts are then assessed indirectly: the right act is the act called for by the ideal code. One leading a. uent rule utilitarian o. ered this formulation:

Rule utilitarianism covered all aspects of human life, from individual actions to large-scale institutions. Some affluent utilitarians were more modest. Following the priorities of Bentham, these institutional utilitarians sought to design public institutions (political, legislative or social) that maximized human happiness.