Rule Consequentialism (and Kantian Contractualism) at Top Rates

According to one form of rule consequentialism, RC, everyone ought to follow the rules whose universal acceptance would make things go best. According to one form of Kantian contractualism, KC, everyone ought to follow the rules whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will. RC and KC are almost universally rejected on the basis of their appealing to universal acceptance rate. I argue that given the inclusion, into our value theory, of what Philip Pettit calls ‘robustly demanding goods’, RC and KC probably survive the most important objections of the relevant kind: the New Ideal World Objection and the Objection from Reprobates and Amoralists. If RC and KC can survive these objections, this is good news for those sympathetic to rule consequentialism and Kantian contractualism, as the alternative formulations of these views, which appeal to lower or variable acceptance rates, are widely agreed to face severe problems of their own.