 One problem for the rule utilitarian theory of promissory obligations is that it seems that utilitarian society couldn’t establish a practice of promising, because prior to the establishment of the rule, people could have no expectations that promises would be kept. As such, those receiving the first promises would not be able to form the expectations necessary to make the rule actually productive of the best consequences. This is so because the consequential value of the rule of promise keeping depends on the expectations of promisees. Such expectations are the grounds of trust, and trust is how promising generates its benefits (see Robins 1984: 142–3). In response, Brandt argues for what he calls ideal rule utilitarianism, which makes the frame of reference for rule consideration not the actual rules available, but the ideal rule, i.e., the rule that would be optimific (productive of the best possible consequences), were it employed. There is substantial criticism of this move (see Diggs 1970). Again, an excellent (although now dated) survey of the rule-utilitarian approach to promising is found in Atiyah (1981: 79–86).