The Paradox of Deontology 1997 Consider a case in which, if some person A1 injures, lies to, kills or in some other way violates another person P1, she will set in motion a chain of events that will prevent two other persons, A2 and A3, from similarly violating two other persons P2 and P3. Intuitively, it is wrong in such a case for A1 to violate P1: A1 has an obligation not to violate others just as A2 and A3 do, and prevention of their violations of P2 and P3 does not justify A1 in violating her obligation to P1. Rights, for example, are commonly understood as generating such obligations not to violate even in certain cases in which such a violation can prevent more such violations from happening.(see RIGHTS) Many moral theories, including deontological theories (see DEONTOLOGY), attempt to provide rationales for such intuitive moral restrictions. Yet even defenders of such restrictions typically allow that A1’s violation is not a worse thing to happen, even by A1’s own lights, than A2’s or A3’s, and that two such violations are a worse thing to happen than one. Such ‘deontological’ restrictions are thus prohibitions against performing actions that will prevent worse overall states of affairs from happening. Because such restrictions prohibit the promotion of states of affairs evaluated as best from a standpoint that is ‘neutral’ among agents, they are also characterized as ‘agent-relative’ restrictions (see AGENT-RELATIVE VS AGENT-NEUTRAL). The claim that deontology is paradoxical is the claim that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, their initial intuitive appeal notwithstanding. If lying, for example, is bad, shouldn’t a plausible moral theory at least permit someone to lie when doing so will prevent more such equally damaging lies from being told? In general, how can it be wrong to do something bad if this prevents something worse from happening? Without a plausible response to such challenges, deontological restrictions come to be surrounded by an air of paradox. A classic presentation of the paradoxicality challenge is offered by Robert Nozick: How can a concern for…nonviolation…lead to the refusal to violate…even when this would prevent other more extensive violations? What is the rationale for placing…nonviolation…as a …constraint upon action instead of including it solely as a goal of one’s actions? (Nozick 1974: 30) Nozick’s presentation of the charge of paradox showcases two common features. First, it points out that maximizing good outcomes and minimizing bad outcomes are goals that provide reasons for action, and it demands a rationale for any allegedly decisive moral reasons not to pursue such goals. Second, it suggests that any value, including rights, can plausibly be incorporated into such goals. If rights are intrinsically valuable, isn’t it a better outcome upon which fewer rights are violated? How, then, can it be morally wrong for one who values rights to minimize their violation? Nozick believes that a rationale for such restrictions, hence for dissipating the air of paradox that surrounds them, is provided by the Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not means only. But Samuel Scheffler suggests that Nozick has inadvertently undermined any such rationale. Nozick appeals to the inviolability of persons, but Scheffler points out that in the cases in question “someone…is going to be violated”: Either A1 will harm P1 or five other agents will identically harm P2…P6. Either way,…some inviolable person is violated. Why isn’t it at least permissible to prevent the violation of five people by violating one? (Scheffler 1982: 88) Scheffler suggests that Nozick’s defense of deontological restrictions appeals to “the disvalue of certain features of violations of constraints,” but argues that in the cases in question “a greater number of equally weighty violations…will ensue” if the agent does not commit the violation. (Scheffler 1982: 88) The rationale for avoiding such violations in standard cases, e.g. the disvalue of rights violations happening, would appear to be a rationale for violating in cases of deontological restrictions. The obvious value-based reason not to violate (e.g. to lie) in standard cases is a reason to violate in these cases, but the deontologist persists in prohibiting such violations. To avoid the charge that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, they must be provided with a plausible rationale. But what reasons are there not to violate that can decisively outweigh the reasons to violate that are grounded in appeal to the value of resulting states of affairs? The charge that deontology is paradoxical is thus a charge against any theory that includes fundamental restrictions upon promoting the best thing that can happen, whether deontological or not. Standard consequentialist moral theories (see CONSEQUENTIALISM) avoid this charge of paradox because they deny that there are such restrictions. Consequentialists hold that agents are always morally required to perform the action that promotes the best overall state of affairs, hence they require the agent to lie, all other things being equal, when this will prevent more equally damaging lies from being told. But one need not endorse consequentialism to generate such a paradox: anyone who adopts what T. M. Scanlon has characterized as a teleological theory of value, upon which “the primary bearers of value are states of affairs,” (Scanlon 1998: 79) will find such restrictions paradoxical. Advocates of such a teleological theory can (and often do) deny the consequentialist claim that all morally relevant considerations are based in the overall value of states of affairs, maintaining that the evaluation of states of affairs as better or worse for me can also be a source of reasons. It can be better for me if the typhoon misses my boat and heads towards the populated island, but it is better overall if it veers towards me instead. Considerations of what is better or worse for me certainly seem to provide me with reasons. If these reasons are morally relevant, then it seems plausible that in cases in which they have sufficient weight we will not be morally required to bring about the best overall state of affairs. But deontological restrictions will still be paradoxical on such approaches, at least at the foundational level, because they are restrictions both upon doing what is best for me and upon doing what is best overall, e.g. against lying to benefit myself as well as against lying to prevent other lies from being told. Deontological restrictions purport to be based upon impartial considerations, but their impartiality cannot be based in the impartial evaluation of states of affairs – they are impartial restrictions upon acting to promote states of affairs that are (partially) best for me, and (impartially) best overall. Typical arguments for the paradoxicality of deontological restrictions demonstrate that no plausible rationale for such restrictions can be provided through appeal to the value of states of affairs, and conclude that no plausible rationale can be provided. Yet if the case for paradox is a product of accepting and deploying such a teleological theory of value, rejection of such a theory of value may well dissolve the paradox. Recent defenses of deontological restrictions thus often proceed by rejecting the teleological theory’s assumption that the impartial evaluation of actions as right or wrong is based entirely in the evaluation of states of affairs as better or worse. Such defenders maintain that although evaluations of states of affairs, e.g. as better or worse for me or better or worse overall, may well play a role in the evaluation of actions, the reasons articulated through appeal to such evaluations are merely some morally relevant impartial reasons among others. In cases in which these other non-teleological reasons are decisive, defenders follow Thomas Nagel in maintaining that “although in some sense things will be better, what happens will be better…I will have done something worse.” (Nagel 1986: 180) Such defenders of deontological restrictions readily grant that they come to seem paradoxical within the context of a teleological theory of value. But they argue that this appearance of paradoxicality reflects negatively not upon restrictions themselves, but upon the teleological theory of value. They need not deny that it is always right to do what’s best; they can maintain that it is always right to do what it is best to do, the action supported by decisively good reasons. But they deny that what it is best to do is always what promotes the best overall thing that can happen. Thus, the defender of restrictions may recognize that we have both impartial moral reasons to keep promises and impartial moral reasons to prevent promises from being broken. But in cases in which the moral reasons to keep promises are decisive, the best thing to do will be to keep my promise even though others will then break their own. No paradox results if, as our initial intuitions suggest, only some of the reasons that are relevant to the determination of what it is best to do are provided by appeal to overall evaluations of states of affairs. For such a defender of deontological restrictions, the appearance of paradox results from interpreting the platitude that it is always right to do what’s best through appeal to an implausible theory of value upon which ‘best’ is interpreted as the best overall state of affairs rather than the best overall action, the action supported by the decisively good reasons. A complete response to the charge of paradox requires an alternative to the teleological theory of value, a theory of value upon which not all fundamental reasons are based in the value of states of affairs. Barbara Herman and others have argued that Kant (see KANT, IMMANUEL) is properly read as providing just such an alternative theory of value. (Herman 1993) Scanlon has offered his “buck passing” account as an alternative to the teleological theory of value, (Scanlon 1998: 95-107) and Stephen Darwall has articulated yet another such alternative theory of value through developing an account of second-personal reasons. (Darwall 2006) Though some such account is a necessary component of any complete response to the charge of paradox, it is noteworthy that the case for the paradoxicality of restrictions sometimes inadvertently appears to presuppose the legitimacy of just such an alternative theory of value. Such a case, recall, maintains that if rights are intrinsically valuable, we should minimize the number of rights that are violated overall. But to recognize rights as intrinsically valuable is to recognize that agents have non-teleological moral reasons not to violate other agents, reasons that conflict with whatever reasons an agent might have to promote the best overall state of affairs. It becomes unclear why an air of paradox does not cling to such a critic of restrictions, who recognizes rights as intrinsically valuable restrictions upon promoting the best overall state of affairs, but insists at the same time upon treating the moral relevance of such rights as exhausted by the appeal to the best overall state of affairs. The key to dissipating the air of paradox surrounding non-derivative deontological restrictions is the rejection of a teleological theory of value, yet there are many considerations that appear to support such a theory of value. For example, the standard account of desires, as attitudes towards contents that are properly captured by ‘that-clauses’ (e.g. “I desire that I have an apple”), appears to fit better with the teleological theory than with restriction friendly alternatives.(see DESIRE) If the objects of desires are states of affairs captured by that-clauses, then it seems natural to expect reasons to desire to be provided by appeal to the value of the states of affairs that are the objects of such desires. Moreover, even though the teleological theory cannot support deontological restrictions at the foundational level, strategies have been offered for deriving some form of deontological restriction from teleological foundations. It nonetheless seems clear that it is within the context of the teleological theory that deontological restrictions come to be surrounded by an air of paradox, their original intuitive appeal notwithstanding. It also seems clear that to provide grounds for rejecting such a teleological theory would at the same time be to dissipate the air of paradox surrounding deontological restrictions. SEE ALSO: RIGHTS; DEONTOLOGY; AGENT-RELATIVE VS AGENT-NEUTRAL; CONSEQUENTIALISM; KANT, IMMANUEL; DESIRE. References Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Herman, Barbara 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suggested Readings Brand-Ballard 2004. “Contractualism and Deontic Restrictions.” Ethics, 114: pp. 269-300 Foot, Philippa 1988. “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” in Samuel Scheffler (ed.), Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 224-242. Hurley, Paul 2009. Beyond Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. LeBar, Mark 2009. “Virtue Ethics and Deontic Constraints.” Ethics, 119: pp. 642-671 McMahon, Christopher 1991. “The Paradox of Deontology.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20: pp. 350-377. Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Schroeder, Mark 2007. “Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and ‘Good’,” Ethics, 117: pp. 265-95.