John Jamieson Carswell Smart AC FAHA (16 September 1920 – 6 October 2012)[2] was a British-Australian philosopher who was appointed as an Emeritus Professor by the Australian National University.

Their father, William Marshall Smart, was John Couch Adams Astronomer at Cambridge University and later Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow.

He then worked as a Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for two years.

Smart served in the Second World War with the British Army where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals on 9 October 1941 and given the service number 212091.

After twenty-two years in Adelaide, he moved to La Trobe University where he was Reader in Philosophy from 1972 to 1976.

He then moved to the Australian National University where he was Professor of Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences from 1976 until his retirement in 1985, and where the annual Jack Smart Lecture is held in his honour.

The distinction between these two types of ethical theory is explained in his essay Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism.

Smart's arguments against rule utilitarianism have been very influential, contributing to a steady decline in its popularity among ethicists during the late 20th century.

Worldwide, his defence of act utilitarianism and preference theory has been less prominent but has influenced philosophers who have worked or been educated in Australia, such as Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit, and Peter Singer.