Deontology

As we saw at the very beginning of our study of ethics, there are three ways in which we can approach the question “What makes an action good or bad?” First, we could maintain that there are no objective ethical facts and that ethics are simply a special kind of opinion. This would make us relativists. Cultural relativism is the kind of relativism we examined. Second, we could focus on the consequences of an action. This would make us consequentialists. Utilitarianism is the kind of consequentialism we studied. Third, we could assess the ethical status of an action according to the extent to which it conforms to or violates what we perceive to be the moral law. This would make us deontologists. (The term “deontology,” remember, comes from the Greek word “deon,” meaning “obligation.” The general idea is that we have an obligation to do certain things, and not do others.)

Deontology probably isn’t the most initially attractive ethical theory around. Consequentialism, particularly utilitarianism, seems relatively rational, and that rationality promises to help us agree about the ethical worth of an action, or to at least narrow our disagreement. The connection between doing the right thing and making people happy makes intuitive sense, and once we accept it, we should be able to determine the ethical worth of an action by assessing the extent to which it maximizes happiness. Deontology, on the other hand, can appear cold, rigid, and arbitrary. It doesn’t care about making people happy. It requires us to adhere to an abstract moral law. And – perhaps worst of all – it isn’t at all clear how we are to determine what the moral law is. Is it the will of God, perhaps? As we saw in the last chapter, it’s hard to decide whether or not God even exists, to say nothing about discovering what he or she wants us to do! Couldn’t two deontologists opt for radically different religious traditions with radically different understandings of the will of God? And if the debate between these religious traditions is rationally undecidable, how can deontology help us to work toward agreement about ethical issues?

Given the problems with utilitarianism, however, it’s worth our while to give deontology a closer look. Is there a way to be a deontologist without equating the moral law with the will of God? Can we rationally argue in favor of one particular understanding of the moral law, which can then be invoked to determine the ethical status of our actions? Immanuel Kant thought that we could. Let’s see how.