UNIT 1

Compilation

Contextualization of Deontology

Professional Deontology, concept, classes and characteristics.

Importance of the study of Deontology.
Difference between Professional Ethics, Deontology and moral experience.
Axiology and its relationship with Deontology.

Deontology

Concept

Deontology refers to a group of moral views that focus on rules or prohibitions

for action. Deontologists hold that these rules have moral importance that is
independent of their effect on the good (consequentialism) or our character
(virtue ethics). Different deontological theories focus on different concepts,
but many focus on the intrinsic moral value of principles like justice, rights,
and duties.

In contrast with deontologists, consequentialists hold that principles like

justice, rights, and duties are only instrumentally valuable, that is to say these
are only morally important considerations if acting in accordance with them will
lead to the best outcome. Thus the difference between deontology and
consequentialism is most strongly felt in cases where we can violate a
deontological rule, like “do not murder”, in order to bring about great benefits
to other people. For example, would it be morally permissible for a doctor to
painlessly, secretly kill a patient, in order to use their organs to save five other
patients, who would otherwise die without the procedure? Most deontologists
would argue that it is impermissible to kill the one to save the five, even if this
would lead to a better outcome, because the doctor would be violating the moral
prohibition against killing innocent people.

Note that consequentialists may follow rules or guidelines instrumentally, in

order to promote the good.
Deontology

Deontology (or Deontological Ethics) is an approach to Ethics that focuses on

the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness
or wrongness of the consequences of those actions (Consequentialism) or to the
character and habits of the actor (Virtue Ethics).

Thus, to a Deontologist, whether a situation is good or bad depends on whether

the action that brought it about was right or wrong. What makes a choice "right"
is its conformity with a moral norm: Right takes priority over Good. For example,
if someone proposed to kill everyone currently living on land that could not
support agriculture in order to bring about a world without starvation, a
Deontologist would argue that this world without starvation was a bad state of
affairs because of the way in which it was brought about. A Consequentialist
would (or could) argue that the final state of affairs justified the drastic action.
A Virtue Ethicist would concern himself with neither, but would look at whether
the perpetrator acted in accordance with worthy virtues.

Deontology may sometimes be consistent with Moral Absolutism (the belief that
some actions are wrong no matter what consequences follow from them), but not
necessarily. For instance, Immanuel Kant famously argued that it is always wrong
to lie, even if a murderer is asking for the location of a potential victim. But
others, such as W.D. Ross (1877 - 1971), hold that the consequences of an action
such as lying may sometimes make lying the right thing to do (Moral Relativism).

It is sometimes described as "duty-based" or "obligation-based" ethics, because

Deontologists believe that ethical rules bind people to their duty. The term
"deontology" derives from the Greek "deon" meaning "obligation" or "duty", and
"logos" meaning "speaking" or "study", and was first used in this way in 1930, in
the book "Five Types of Ethical Theory" by C. D. Broad (1887 - 1971).

Kant's Categorical Imperative

Modern deontological ethics was introduced by Immanuel Kant in the late 18th
Century, with his theory of the Categorical Imperative.

Immanuel Kant defined an imperative as any proposition that declares a certain

action (or inaction) to be necessary. A hypothetical imperative would compel
action in a given circumstance (e.g. if I wish to satisfy my thirst, then I must
drink something). A categorical imperative would denote an absolute,
unconditional requirement that exerts its authority in all circumstances, both
required and justified as an end in itself.

He argued that the "highest good" must be both intrinsically good (good "in
itself"), and good without qualification (when the addition of that thing never
makes a situation ethically worse). He concluded that there is only one thing that
is truly good: a good will chosen out of a feeling of moral duty. From this concept
of duty, Kant derived what he called a categorical imperative, a principle that is
intrinsically valid (good in and of itself), and that must be obeyed in all situations
and circumstances if our behavior is to observe moral laws. He considered it an
unconditional obligation, regardless of our will or desires, and regardless of any
consequences which might arise from the action. He also believed that if an
action is not done with the motive of duty, then it is without moral value and
therefore meaningless.

Kant developed his moral philosophy in three works: "Groundwork of the

Metaphysic of Morals" (1785), "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) and
"Metaphysics of Morals" (1797), and he formulated it in three different ways :

 Act only in such a way that you would want your actions to become a
universal law, applicable to everyone in a similar situation.
 Act in such a way that you always treat humanity (whether oneself or
other), as both the means of an action, but also as an end.
 Act as though you were a law-making member (and also the king) of a
hypothetical "kingdom of ends", and therefore only in such a way that
would harmonize with such a kingdom if those laws were binding on all
others.

Criticisms of Deontology

Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002) famously points out what has become known as the
Paradox of Deontology, that Deontology forbids some acts that maximize
welfare overall. The example usually used is that of a trolley hurtling towards
five innocent and immobile people at the end of a track, where the only way to
stop the trolley and save the five is to throw one innocent bystander in front of
the trolley. The Principle of Permissible Harm in Deontology rules out
deliberately throwing a person in front of the trolley, but the consequence of
that is that five innocent bystanders die (which also contravenes the Principle
of Permissible Harm).

Utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham have criticized Deontology on the grounds that
it is essentially a dressed-up version of popular morality, and that the objective
and unchanging principles that deontologists attribute to natural law or universal
reason are really just a matter of subjective opinion.

John Stuart Mill, another 19th Century Utilitarian, argued that deontologists
usually fail to specify which principles should take priority when rights and duties
conflict, so that Deontology cannot offer complete moral guidance. Mill also
criticized Kant's claims for his Categorical Imperative, arguing that it is really
just another way of saying that the ends justify the means, which is essentially
a consequentialist argument.

Some critics have attempted to show that constraints (e.g. the requirement not
to murder, for example) are invariably immoral, but then to show that options
(e.g. the right not to give money to charity) without constraints are also immoral.

Other Types of Deontology

 Divine Command Theory: a form of deontological theory which states

that an action is right if God has decreed that it is right, and that an act
is obligatory if and only if (and because) it is commanded by God. Thus,
moral obligations arise from God's commands, and the rightness of any
action depends upon that action being performed because it is a duty,
not because of any good consequences arising from that action.
Therefore, if God commands people not to work on the Sabbath, for
example, then people act rightly if they do not work on the Sabbath (but
solely because God has commanded it). If they do not work on the
Sabbath because they are lazy, then their action is not truly speaking
"right", even though the actual physical action performed is the same.
William of Ockham, René Descartes and the 18th Century Calvinists all
accepted versions of this moral theory. William of Ockham went so far
as to argue that if God had commanded murder, then murder would
indeed have been morally obligatory, and indeed that God could change
the moral order at any time on a whim.
However, Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma asks: "Is an action morally good
because God commands it, or does God command it because it is morally
 good?" It has also been argued that it implies that morality is arbitrary
and based merely upon God's whim. It is also possible to question
whether the revealed scriptures really state the will of God.
 Natural Rights Theory: the theory which holds that humans have
absolute natural rights (in the sense of universal rights that are
inherent in the nature of ethics, and not contingent on human actions or
beliefs). The theory, espoused by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke among
others, originates with the concept of natural justice or natural right of
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The development of this tradition of
natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics.
After the incorporation of the pagan concept of natural law into
Christianity by St. Thomas Aquinas, it was Hugo Grotius (1583 - 1645),
with his philosophy of international law, who finally freed it from
dependence on theology, and allowed its development into what we now
refer to as human rights.
 Contractarian Ethics (or the Moral Theory of Contractarianism) claims
that moral norms derive their normative force from the idea of contract
or mutual agreement. It holds that moral acts are those that we would
all agree to if we were unbiased, and that moral rules themselves are a
sort of a contract, and therefore only people who understand and agree
to the terms of the contract are bound by it. The theory stems initially
from political Contractarianism and the principle of social contract
developed by Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke,
which essentially holds that people give up some rights to a government
and/or other authority in order to receive, or jointly preserve, social
order.
Contractualism is a variation on Contractarianism, although based more
on the Kantian ideas that ethics is an essentially interpersonal matter,
and that right and wrong are a matter of whether we can justify the
action to other people.
 Pluralistic Deontology is a description of the deontological ethics
propounded by W.D. Ross (1877 - 1971). He argues that there are seven
prima facie duties which need to be taken into consideration when
deciding which duty should be acted upon:
o Duty of beneficence (to help other people to increase their
pleasure, improve their character, etc).
o Duty of non-maleficence (to avoid harming other people).
o Duty of justice (to ensure people get what they deserve).
 o Duty of self-improvement (to improve ourselves).
o Duty of reparation (to recompense someone if you have acted
wrongly towards them).
o Duty of gratitude (to benefit people who have benefited us).
o Duty of promise-keeping (to act according to explicit and implicit
promises, including the implicit promise to tell the truth).

In some circumstances, there may be clashes or conflicts between these

duties and a decision must be made whereby one duty may "trump"
another, although there are no hard and fast rules and no fixed order of
significance.

Web sources:

https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/deontology/

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_deontology.html