Harrod\u27s Universality and Generality in Ethical Norms

Roy Forbes Harrod regards classical utilitarianism as crude utilitarianism. On the other hand, he refers to his own utilitarianism as refined utilitarianism. In this paper, the former is explored as act utilitarianism, and the latter as quasi-rule utilitarianism. The transition from act utilitarianism to rule utilitarianism is partly evident in Harrod\u27s argument. He argues about the generalization of moral judgments by citing Immanuel Kant\u27s categorical imperative. However，he altered Kant\u27s concept of universality into generality without annotations and clearly identified universality with the generality of moral judgments. In this paper, the difference between Kant\u27s perception that universality and generality are distinct and Harrod\u27s perception that they are the same is explored. Findings of this study shows that Harrod\u27s generality was the "generality of the action" to be considered, so it is applicable only to the part of the "maxim of the action" in Kant\u27s categorical imperative. As in many conventional interpretations, the part of "universal law" is applicable to the "universalization" as a generalization of the concept of the subject