PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Deontological (duty-based) ethics are concerned with what people do, not with the consequences of their actions.
Untitled Slide
- Do the right thing.
- Do it because it's the right thing to do.
- Don't do wrong things.
- Avoid them because they are wrong.
Under this form of ethics you can't justify an action by showing that it produced good consequences, which is why it's sometimes called 'non-Consequentialist'.
The word 'deontological' comes from the Greek word deon, which means 'duty'.
Duty-based ethics are usually what people are talking about when they refer to 'the principle of the thing'.
Duty-based ethics teaches that some acts are right or wrong because of the sorts of things they are, and people have a duty to act accordingly, regardless of the good or bad consequences that may be produced.
Some kinds of action are wrong or right in themselves, regardless of the consequences.
Deontologists live in a universe of moral rules, such as:
It is wrong to kill innocent people
It is wrong to steal
It is wrong to tell lies
It is right to keep promises
Someone who follows Duty-based ethics should do the right thing, even if that produces more harm (or less good) than doing the wrong thing:
People have a duty to do the right thing, even if it produces a bad result.
So, for example, the philosopher Kant thought that it would be wrong to tell a lie in order to save a friend from a murderer.
If we compare Deontologists with Consequentialists we can see that Consequentialists begin by considering what things are good, and identify 'right' actions as the ones that produce the maximum of those good things.
Deontologists appear to do it the other way around; they first consider what actions are 'right' and proceed from there. (Actually this is what they do in practice, but it isn't really the starting point of deontological thinking.)
So a person is doing something good if they are doing a morally right action.
GOOD POINTS OF DUTY-BASED ETHICS
1) Emphasizes the value of every human being
-Duty-based ethical systems tend to focus on giving equal respect to all human beings.
-This provides a basis for human rights - it forces due regard to be given to the interests of a single person even when those are at odds with the interests of a larger group.
-Kantian duty-based ethics says that some things should never be done, no matter what good consequences they produce. This seems to reflect the way some human beings think.
-Rossian duty-based ethics modified this to allow various duties to be balanced, which, it could be argued, is an even better fit to the way we think.
-Consequentialist ethical theories bring a degree of uncertainty to ethical decision-making, in that no-one can be certain about what consequences will result from a particular action, because the future is unpredictable.
-Duty-based ethics don't suffer from this problem because they are concerned with the action itself - if an action is a right action, then a person should do it, if it's a wrong action they shouldn't do it - and providing there is a clear set of moral rules to follow then a person faced with a moral choice should be able to take decisions with reasonable certainty.
-Of course things aren't that clear cut. Sometimes consequentialist theories can provide a fair degree of certainty, if the consequences are easily predictable.
-Furthermore, rule-based consequentialism provides people with a set of rules that enable them to take moral decisions based on the sort of act they are contemplating.
2) allows acts that make the world a less good place
-Consequentialist theories don't pay direct attention to whether an act is carried out with good or bad intentions; most people think these are highly relevant to moral judgements.
-Duty-based ethics can include intention in at least 2 ways...
-If a person didn't intend to do a particular wrong act - it was an accident perhaps - then from a deontological point of view we might think that they hadn't done anything deserving of criticism. This seems to fit with ordinary thinking about ethical issues.
-Ethical rules can be framed narrowly so as to include intention.
Bad points of duty-based ethics
Duty-based ethics sets absolute rules. The only way of dealing with cases that don't seem to fit is to build a list of exceptions to the rule.
2) allows acts that make the world a less good place
Because duty-based ethics is not interested in the results it can lead to courses of action that produce a reduction in the overall happiness of the world.
3) hard to reconcile conflicting duties
Duty-based ethics doesn't deal well with the cases where duties are in conflict.
