The identify “deontological” ethics comes from Greek “to deon” = “that which have to be achieved”. So it’s about actions that have to be carried out (or should not be carried out) as a result of the actions themselves are intrinsically good or unhealthy. That is in opposition to consequentialism, which judges actions in response to whether or not their penalties are good.
So, for instance, stealing may be at all times unhealthy for a deontologist, as a result of there’s something inherent within the act of stealing that makes it (at all times) unhealthy. For the consequentialist, stealing may typically be good and typically unhealthy. For instance, stealing a terrorist’s bomb earlier than he can use it, can be thought-about a “good” sort of stealing, as a result of the results of the terrorist not having his bomb are good (no individuals killed, no injury induced).
Deontological ethics has a couple of issues. For one, it doesn’t appear proper to imagine that some actions (like mendacity or stealing) are at all times morally unhealthy. We are able to simply think about conditions, through which a “white lie” appears to be completely proper. Even killing somebody may typically appear proper (for instance, killing Hitler earlier than the start of the Second World Warfare may be argued to have been morally permissible, contemplating the injury achieved and the deaths brought on by the warfare).
Second, rooting ethical instructions in rationality (which is identical for all people) appears to make any type of allowance for cultural variations inconceivable. We want to assume that different societies ought to be permitted to have their very own ethical values and that these variations ought to be revered. However a deontological framework makes it very onerous to combine different ethical techniques, since what’s rational at one place ought to be rational in every single place.
Typically, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is taken into account essentially the most outstanding deontological ethics proponent. For him, some actions are rational (and due to this fact good), whereas others are usually not rational (and these occur to be the morally unhealthy ones). Morality, due to this fact, for Kant, relies on the rationality of actions, and this rationality is a property of the motion itself, not of its penalties. Due to this fact, Kant would say that stealing, for instance, should at all times be unhealthy, it doesn’t matter what penalties a selected act of stealing brings about. Click here for a more detailed however nonetheless very brief introduction to Kant’s ethics.
Kant’s moral system relies on the worth of 1’s motivation fairly than on the outcomes or penalties of our actions. In addition to a praiseworthy motivation, a morally proper motion should additionally conform to plenty of guidelines, which Kant calls types of the “Categorical Crucial”: to solely carry out actions that may be equally carried out by all and to deal with all human beings as ends.
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