  The most common indirect consequentialism is rule consequentialism, which makes the moral rightness of an act depend on the consequences of a rule (Singer 1961). Since a rule is an abstract entity, a rule by itself strictly has no consequences. Still, obedience rule consequentialists can ask what would happen if everybody obeyed a rule or what would happen if everybody violated a rule. They might argue, for example, that theft is morally wrong because it would be disastrous if everybody broke a rule against theft. Often, however, it does not seem morally wrong to break a rule even though it would cause disaster if everybody broke it. For example, if everybody broke the rule “Have some children”, then our species would die out, but that hardly shows it is morally wrong not to have any children. Luckily, our species will not die out if everyone is permitted not to have children, since enough people want to have children. Thus, instead of asking, “What would happen if everybody did that?”, rule consequentialists should ask, “What would happen if everybody were permitted to do that?” People are permitted to do what violates no accepted rule, so asking what would happen if everybody were permitted to do an act is just the flip side of asking what would happen if people accepted a rule that forbids that act. Such acceptance rule consequentialists then claim that an act is morally wrong if and only if it violates a rule whose acceptance has better consequences than the acceptance of any incompatible rule. In some accounts, a rule is accepted when it is built into individual consciences (Brandt 1992). Other rule utilitarians, however, require that moral rules be publicly known (Gert 2005; cf. Sinnott-Armstrong 2003b) or built into public institutions (Rawls 1955). Then they hold what can be called public acceptance rule consequentialism: an act is morally wrong if and only if it violates a rule whose public acceptance maximizes the good.