Deontological ethics recognizes a number of distinct duties, such
as those proscribing the killing of innocent people (murder) and
prohibitions on lying and promise breaking. Deontology maintains that
the wrongness of (some) actions is intrinsic, or resides in the kind of
action that it is, rather than the consequences it brings about. So, for
example, an act of killing an innocent man is wrong because it is the
killing of an innocent man, rather than because it deprives someone of
future happiness and causes grief to a family. In this, deontological
ethics is opposed to consequentialism, which defines the moral rightness
of an action in terms of the consequences it brings about.
It seems fair to say the ordinary ethical thinking, at least that of the
Judeo-Christian religious tradition, is deontological in character. The
Ten Commandments, for example, constitute a set of deontological
constraints on action. The main problem for deontology is to explain
just why people are prohibited from certain types of actions even when
disobeying the rule is known to bring about much better consequences.
Deontology and wrongdoing
Deontologists think that moral action is essentially about following a
set of rules that forbid or require certain actions. These rule specify
actions that are known to be right or wrong in relation to the rule in
question. Since deontologists equate right or wrong action with
obedience or disobedience to moral laws, they see rightness or wrongness
as intrinsic to certain types of actions. Someone is considered as
having done moral wrong, for example, when his or her act intentionally
deceives (i.e., a lie) or intentionally harms someone. The wrongness of
such an act does not depend on the consequences of the action. This
feature of deontology—rightness or wrongness is an intrinsic feature of
certain types of acts—is to be contrasted with another ethical theory
which denies it, namely, consequentialism. According to act
consequentialism, an action is right if and only if it produces the best
overall consequences. This means that according to act consequentialism
the wrongness of telling a lie or intentionally harming someone depends
on whether these actions produce good or bad results. A lie that
prevents suffering might, by the consequentialist’s lights, be the right
thing to do. This is because consequentialists claim that the rightness
of an action depends entirely on the value of the consequences brought
about. In contrast, according to the deontologist, one should not tell a
lie even if the consequences of telling the lie are better. Rather,
telling lies is wrong simply because it is wrong to tell lies.
Deontologists usually concentrate on moral rules formulated negatively
as prohibitions. Prohibitions are rules that forbid us to do certain
things. "Thou shall not murder" is a typical example of a deontological
prohibition. Deontologists also recognize positive duties to alleviate
suffering and to tell the truth, but do not generally hold the positive
requirements to be quite as important as the prohibitions. Deontologists
see the distinction between negative duties (prohibitions) and positive
duties as dependent on the distinction between acting and refraining
from acting. For example, a prohibition on murder requires one to
refrain from killing innocent persons, whereas a duty of beneficence
requires one to actively go about trying to do good for others. One
might, for example, fulfill a positive duty of beneficence by working in
charity organisations on the weekends. Negative duties place limits on
what one is permitted to do, and in this respect require one to refrain
from acting in certain ways. By contrast, positive duties require
action, active effort, in order to fulfill them.
Deontological theories generally regard negative duties (prohibitions)
as inviolable, whereas positive duties have a much less rigid range of
applicability. Kant characterizes this in terms of the difference
between perfect and imperfect duties. He argues that a duty to refrain
from lying (negative) is a perfect duty whereas a duty of beneficence
(positive) is an imperfect duty. Perfect duties obligate us strictly:
People are always required to refrain from lying; imperfect duties are
open: People are sometimes required to do good for others, but not
always.
Another way of putting this point is in terms of the concept of moral
closure (Davis 1993, p. 209). If a moral theory achieves moral closure,
it prescribes that every action is ether right or wrong. Act
Consequentialist theories achieve moral closure. For example, since the
classical Utilitarians appraise every single action according to the
amount of net pleasure brought about, a seemingly innocuous action such
as going for a walk may be regarded as a wrong action if there were
other available courses with greater utility. Deontological theories do
not achieve moral closure; they require one to refrain from wrongdoing,
but once those duties have been met, allow considerable room for
personal projects. It is, for example, permissible to work in one’s
garden on the weekend, even though charity work would bring about
greater impartial benefit. Deontologists, therefore, believe that
morality allows a person much leeway in order to engage in his or her
own activities and projects. Once one has met the prohibitions,
conditions that limit one’s behavior, one is permitted to engage in
other activities, which do not maximize the good.
Epistemology of deontological rules
Classical Utilitarianism, a consequentialist moral theory, has a simple
explanation for why actions are right or wrong. An action is right if is
maximizes pleasure, wrong if it does not. Deontologists, by contrast,
regard rightness and wrongness as intrinsic to certain types of actions,
those specified by commonly acknowledged moral rules (such as, thou
shall not murder). (It is important to note that a deontologist need not
deny that increasing happiness is the right thing to do.)
Some deontologists, such as Kant, argue that all commonly recognized
general duties may be derived from a more basic principle. For Kant, the
supreme principle of morality is known as the Categorical Imperative,
and all higher-order principles, such as prohibitions on lying, may be
derived from this fundamental law. Kant provides several variations on
the Categorical Imperative, but employing the formula of humanity—"treat
humanity…never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an
end" (Kant, [1785] 1903: 429)—he would argue that deontological
constraints can all be understood as deriving from the respect which we
owe to rational agents in virtue of their rationality.
Other deontologists such as W.D. Ross, while recognizing a variety of
moral duties, deny that there is any overarching explanation for why
these are our duties. Ross appeals to the variegated nature of common
moral thinking, and present his theory as mapping closely on to moral
common sense (Ross's ethical theory is one version of Intuitionism).
Deontology and moral absolutism
It is important to distinguish deontological moral theories from
absolutist moral theories. Moral absolutism is the view according to
which some actions are wrong whatever the consequences. Moral absolutism
about lying, for example, would say that the lying is always wrong,
whatever the consequences. Moral absolutism differs from deontology in
the following way. Absolutism endorses two claims: (1) some actions are
intrinsically right or wrong; (2) the consequences of an action of this
sort (e.g. lying) can never override its intrinsic rightness or
wrongness. A deontological ethical theory is committed to (1) but not to
(2). All absolutist theories are therefore deontological, but not all
deontological theories are absolutist.
Although deontological ethical theories are not necessarily absolutist,
some important deontologists have been. Kant’s infamous discussion of
the inquiring murderer suggests that he held that the deontological
constraint on lying is absolute. An important contemporary deontologist,
Charles Fried, endorses absolutism in the following passage: "Ordinary
moral understanding, as well as many major traditions of Western moral
theory, recognize that there are some things which a moral man will not
do, no matter what…It is part of the idea that lying or murder are
wrong, not just bad, that these are things you must not do—no matter
what. They are not mere negatives that enter into a calculus to be
outweighed by the good you might do or the greater harm you might avoid.
Thus the norms which express deontological judgments—for example, Do
not commit murder—may be said to be absolute. They do not say: ‘Avoid
lying, other things being equal’, but ‘Do not lie, period’" (Davis 1993,
p. 205).
Other deontologists, such as W.D. Ross hold that one may in exceptional
circumstances break deontological constraints. Ross distinguishes
between prima facie duties and what he calls duties proper. The concept
of a prima facie duty is the concept of a duty, which though it is a
significant reason for not doing something, is not absolute, but must be
weighed up against other duties. A duty proper refers to the action
that must be done when all the prima facie duties have been considered
and weighed. To illustrate, Ross thinks that people have duties to keep
their promises, and duties of benevolence: These are, then, prima facie
duties. Insofar as these prima facie duties come into conflict (and one
cannot keep a promise and act with benevolence), one must decide on the
basis of contextual details, which of these duties is most pressing. The
action which is judged to be, all things considered, the right thing to
do, is the duty proper. Ross’s theory is an example of a moderate
deontology, that is, deontology without absolutism.
Deontological ethics and duty
What sorts of duties do deontological theorists endorse? Deontologists
normally recognize two classes of duties: (1) general obligations and
(2) special obligations. General prohibitions include many of the
commandments endorsed by Judeo-Christian religious thinking, including
prohibitions on lying, cheating, promise breaking, murdering, and
torturing. One might say that they are general because they are owed to
all human beings. By contrast, special obligations are those obligations
which derive from one’s having made a promise, signed a contract, or as
a result of occupying a social role such as being a teacher or doctor
or a parent. It is easy to see that these obligations do not bind
everyone in the same way. If one has made a promise to do something,
say, to wash the dishes, then this gives you a reason to do it, a reason
which does not bind someone who has not promised. Similarly, a teacher
is required to perform actions not required of everyone simply in virtue
of being a teacher. This entails that the identity of the agent often
seems relevant to ascertaining what he or she is obligated to do.
Deontology and agent relativity
Another significant feature of deontological ethical theories is that
they are agent relative moralities. Agent relativity may be contrasted
with agent neutrality. An agent neutral theory says that the identity
and perspective of the agent does not affect the rightness or wrongness
of an action in a particular situation. Classical Utilitarianism is an
example of an agent neutral theory. The Principle of Utility prescribes
that an action is right or wrong according to the overall value (or
disvalue) of the consequences. The presumption here is that it is
possible to determine how much pain an action brings about, and this
calculation does not depend on any particular vantage point. Classical
Utilitarianism is an agent neutral moral theory because overall
happiness is the only factor that needs to be weighed in determining
what one ought to do. The identity and interests of the actor is
disregarded is determining the rightness of the action.
In contrast to an agent-neutral morality, an agent relative morality
says that the identity of the agent does make an essential difference to
the rightness of the act. Deontological moral theories may be seen to
be agent-relative in two ways. One way is that they recognize the
existence of special obligations, and here, the identity of an agent
makes a crucial difference as respects to what he or she is required to
do. One may be required to do the dishes because he has promised, or
grade a stack of term essays because she is a teacher. A deontologist
will argue that special obligations are relevant to deciding what one
ought to do. These obligations are bound up with the identity of the
agent, and in this respect a deontological theory is agent relative.
This point may seem obvious, but has some significance. Since, according
to a Classical Utilitarian, the right action is one that brings about
the best consequences, it follows that fact that one has promised to do
something is binding only insofar as it is the action that maximizes
utility. A deontologist will find this counter-intuitive and argue that
the fact that one has promised to do something makes a difference to
whether an action is right or wrong, quite independently of the value of
the consequences brought about by fulfilling the promise. This is
because (some) duties are relative to the agent, and depend on facts
about the agent’s context and history.
The agent-relativity of deontological moralities emerges in another way
too. As already noted, deontological ethical theories prescribe that
certain actions are wrong simply in virtue of the actions they are. One
should not kill an innocent person even if the consequences of not doing
so are very grave. This is a constraint on what a particular subject is
permitted to do: Deontological constraints say, for example, that "thou
shall not murder;" they are addressed to the individual moral agent.
This entails that the agent ought to be most concerned with refraining
from murdering, rather than, say, the overall number of murders
committed by other agents. This make deontology agent relative since
what is ruled out is your murdering rather than murders per se. Your
killing of an innocent person is held to matter more than an innocent
person’s being killed (say, by someone else). There is here an important
connection with the distinction between acting and refraining to act
(see section 1) since a deontologist thinks that it is much worse that
someone, the agent, commit a murder, than someone, the agent, allow a
murder to be committed. The deontological requirement against murder
prohibits one from murdering; there is no straightforward counterpart
requiring one to go about preventing murders.
To illustrate this, consider an example where someone is faced with a
terrible moral choice between, either, killing one innocent person, or
allowing ten other innocents to be killed by someone else. (This case is
a close variation on Bernard Williams’ classic "Jim and the Indians"
example.) A consequentialist ethical theory will look to the
consequences of the alternatives, and here it seems that one is faced
with a relatively easy decision to kill the one innocent person in order
to prevent the others being killed. The point of the example is that
from an impartial perspective, that of an agent neutral morality, the
discrepancy in value is substantial, and the right action rather
obvious.
A deontologist will say that this ignores the crucial detail that a
particular agent must intentionally kill an innocent person, that is,
commit a murder; and here the deontologist will insist that it matters
morally, just who it is that is doing the killing. In this sort of case,
people are going to be killed in both outcomes. However, the point is
that the deontological constraint says that one should not kill an
innocent person (even to save other innocents); and this implies that
what matters most morally is one’s not killing an innocent rather than
innocents being killed. Since deontological prohibitions regulate
killing, deontology is agent-relative. The impartial fact that there
will be more killings if the subject does not kill the one innocent is
overridden by the importance of honoring the absolute prohibition on
murder.
This fact that the agent of certain types of acts seems to matter quite
independently of the objective consequences of the action is called
moral integrity. There are some things that we cannot be expected to do,
if we are to preserve ourselves as moral agents, and refrain from
committing intrinsically wrongful actions. Opponents of deontological
ethics do not cast this property of deontological theories in such a
positive light, and call it "keeping one’s hands clean." Nancy Davis
sums up this point as follows: “Deontologists … not only assign more
weight to our own avoidance of wrongdoing—where wrongdoing is understood
as violating the rule—than to the interests of others, they also
require that we assign more weight to our own avoidance of wrongdoing
than we do to the avoidance of wrongdoing tout court, or the prevention
of wrongdoing of others” (1993, p. 207).