Let us now examine whether or not Sidgwick’s covert utilitarianism is able to pass Kant’s publicity test. As we have seen, this doctrine states that we should keep secret the very idea that some principles and actions should remain secret. This means that, even at a very high level of generality, there is no way we could submit any maxim for assessment to the ideal public, unless such a maxim makes no direct reference to the problem of publicity. But what about the following maxim: “any means should be deemed appropriate if they serve the utilitarian ideal”? Utilitarians claim that an ideal public should at least consider utilitarianism a plausible doctrine. And it is therefore unlikely that the Kantian test will lead to a “necessary and unanimous” rejection of this proposed higher-order formulation of the maxim. Hence the test may be passed successfully, without any discussion on the issue of publicity. Of course, one may find such a maxim totally unjust for other reasons. But Kant himself does not seem to claim that his test should be seen as a sufficient test for justice anyway.