  In fact, there is an interesting comparison here with utilitarianism. As we have seen, it is common to contrast balanced exceptionism or threshold deontology with utilitarianism and to establish dirty hands as a form of deontology (or intrinsicalism) that yields to the utilitarianism of extremity. But there may be room for a utilitarian version of the threshold story, even possibly the dirty hands story.  Surely a sophisticated version of utilitarianism, such as rule or indirect utilitarianism, can have room for the idea that duties, virtues etc. cannot be overridden by ordinary calculations of utility since to allow this would be to risk too much overall disutility. It is only in situations of dire or “supreme” emergency that the disutility of abiding by the prohibitions or rules would be great enough to override the utilitarian value of keeping to the  rule.[8] So, depending upon the empirical facts and calculations, a utilitarian can admit a role for thresholds, supreme emergencies, and even dirty hands. But while this might give us a utilitarian version of threshold deontology, it will not do as a version of dirty hands, since the utilitarian overriding at the supreme emergency stage will involve a decision that is simply right, and not in any sense right but still wrong. The only sense in which it remains wrong is that weak sense, akin to that attributed to Ross in endnote 35, in which it would have been wrong but for the supreme emergency. For the utilitarian, (as indeed for Ross) there is no real moral remainder, though there may be some room for psychological discomfort.