Programs for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), i.e., SAT solvers, are nowadays used as core decision procedures for a wide range of combinatorial problems.
Under the influence of the statisticians Neyman and Pearson, tests were often regarded as rational decision procedures that minimize the relative frequency of wrong decisions in a hypothetical series of repetitions of a test.
Hence, most consequentialists do not mind giving up consequentialism as a direct decision procedure as long as consequences remain the criterion of rightness (but see Chappell 2001).
Critics assume that the principle of utility is supposed to be used as a decision procedure or guide, that is, as a method that agents consciously apply to acts in advance to help them make decisions.
If the principle of utility is used as a criterion of the right rather than as a decision procedure, then classical utilitarianism does not require that anyone know the total consequences of anything before making a decision.
In response, utilitarians can remind critics that the principle of utility is intended as only a criterion of right and not as a decision procedure, so utilitarianism does not imply that people ought to calculate utilities before acting (Railton 1984).
However, to have a normative approach, the phenomenological hermeneutical method was combined with the moral philosophical method of WRE as a decision procedure in the construction of the interview guide as described in Ebbesen & Pedersen [ 6].
Furthermore, a utilitarian criterion of right implies that it would not be morally right to use the principle of utility as a decision procedure in cases where it would not maximize utility to try to calculate utilities before acting.
In Ebbesen & Pedersen [ 6] we argue that the phenomenological hermeneutical method can be combined with the moral philosophical method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE) as a decision procedure for the formulation of normative principles, because WRE is a method or process of deciding what we should think, not merely one of describing what we do think [ 7].
