Rule-consequentialists in fact have an excellent reply to the objection that their theory collapses into practical equivalence with act-consequentialism. This reply relies on the point that the best kind of rule-consequentialism ranks systems of rules not in terms of the expected good of complying with them, but in terms of the expected good of their acceptance. Now if a rule forbidding stealing, for example, has exception clause after exception clause after exception clause tacked on to it, the rule with all these exception clauses will provide too much opportunity for temptation to convince agents that one of the exception clauses applies, when in fact stealing would be advantageous to the agent. And this point about temptation will also undermine other people’s confidence that their property won’t be stolen. The same is true of most other moral rules: incorporating too many exception clauses could undermine people’s assurance that others will behave in certain ways (such as keeping promises and avoiding stealing).