Rohith Gopal

Doug Thiel

Philosophy R

November 28thDeontology Term Paper

Immanuel Kants deontological moral theory is the best theory to model our societal moral values after. In a world where people are naturally self-interested, it is difficult to deter people from only making decisions and choices that will benefit them directly. Acting based on moral duties, formatted in a way to be universal and indiscriminate towards anyone, yourself included, is a way to ensure that every action you make is of good intent. This encourages taking on positive duties and deters individuals from breaking their negative duties. I believe that selflessness is the key to progression of an individual and a society, and following these moral duties is a way to accomplish this.

We live in a world where there are options and opportunities we can seize, and there are things we are prohibited from doing, either lawfully prohibited or ethically shamed. This is consistent with having positive and negative duties. If we apply ourselves into seizing positive duties with good intentions, and abiding by our negative duties, then we are living morally righteous lives. Living with this theory would mean that we do not treat anyone as a means to an end, unless they have consent, which is one of the major problems of consequentialism. The categorical imperative ensures that your moral duty and intentions are universal, which eliminates the subjectivity associated with virtue ethics and makes sure the principles you follow are aligned with the principles others will follow. This will prevent individuals from conducting themselves in a way that only makes sense to them, because they are held accountable to conduct themselves in a manner that others could accept and follow.

What is right and wrong varies immensely from individual to individual. Accepting the divine command theory, and any religious text telling you how you must conduct your life would be disregarding your own personal intuition to reason and do the right thing based on what your duty is in respect to others. If virtue ethics was implemented in our society, it would be very difficult to make it work, because trying to keep order maintaining the belief that everyone will do the right thing would quickly lead to chaos. We all have a different moral code and a different set of ethics that we believe are correct, and others will think are wrong. However, if we can come to a consensus on what moral duties we have, that is something tangible and measurable, there is a universal set of duties. With positive duties, there is imperfection; there is no rule for what positive duties you decide to take on, and with what extent you decide to execute them. This is a good thing because people can exercise their free will and come to make more developed decisions with each circumstance they are put in when they have a choice to execute a positive duty. It is what creates variety in individuals while still maintaining a strong ethical code.

With utilitarianism, an argument could be made that positive and negative duties can lead to a bad outcome. If you knew your friend (A) wanted to hurt your other friend (B) for an argument they had gotten into, and you were hanging out with friend B while you receive a phone call from friend A asking if you knew where friend (B) is. It is your positive duty to help your friend B and try to prevent him from getting hurt. That would just the right thing to do, according to Kant. However it is your negative duty to not lie, and in order to help your friend B, you would need to lie to friend A about his location. Negative duties are perfect, meaning you do not modify them due to circumstances. What would you do in this instance? Because you can modify positive duties, and you cannot modify your negative duty to lie, your only course consistent with deontology would be to tell friend A that you are with friend B. However the reason this would be the best course, not only to this specific situation, but all situations of this nature is the uncertainty involved. You do not know what friend B has done to provoke friend A, and it is not your place to interfere with things that arent your business. As history has taught us, interfering with nature does not always do what we intend it will do. There are to many variables in a situation like this, or any situation that involves breaking a negative duty to do something that a utilitarian would consider for the greatest good. This amount of uncertainty is the reason why we should just let it be, and make sure we stay consistent with our negative and positive duties. If we do this, and others do this, it will lead to the best outcome that could have happened. It is not our responsibility to interfere with others affairs and try to manipulate a better outcome, there is too much grey area with this to ensure a 100% success rate.

Utilitarianism does not work in the sense that Dr. Consequentialist is not very empathetic. Empathy is very important in any moral situation, and utilitarianism is too objective to include empathy. In the instance that you witnessed a robber stealing money from a bank and donated it to an orphanage, there are hundreds of kids that now have much better lives, clean and new clothes, toys, and a healthier environment. A utilitarian would argue that this is the best outcome for the money, however there are a ton of people affected by the banks robbery, and someone down the road is taking the toll for the robbery. There is a divide here, a discrepancy on who has it worse and if this is the best outcome for society. There could be an argument saying the children could use the money more-so than the bank and that you should report the robber to the police, or vice versa. With deontology, it would be clear that it was the robbers duty not to steal, and the money that children are using was stolen, and that is not right. It would be your duty to report the thief because he broke a negative duty. Deontology has a consistency unmatched by virtue ethics and utilitarianism. Consistency is very important with ethics because it maintains universality.

There is a point to where logic can go against humanities best interests. Which is the main reason I feel why utilitarianism will not work in our society. It is good in theory, but when applied, mankinds self interest comes in and utility becomes selfish. Relying on human natures ability to do the right thing is also futile, because the right thing quickly becomes a game of telephone when transferred from person to person. There must be a sense of duty, duties that are both crafted from logic and duties that can come close to universally doing the right thing, all persons considered. This is a difficult task to accomplish, but deontology captures the beauty of logic from utilitarianism and the faith in humanity to do the right thing from virtue ethics, which is why it is the most effective moral theory. It can be applied to all situations and remain firm in stance, even when put in question, as outlined in the examples above. Deontology does not cop-out and adapt to counterarguments, nor does it merely state that the right thing will be done.