pdf version of the entry
Deontological Ethics
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/ethics-deontological/
from the Winter 2016 Edition of the
Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy
Edward N. Zalta
Principal Editor
Uri Nodelman
Senior Editor
Colin Allen
Associate Editor
R. Lanier Anderson
Faculty Sponsor
Editorial Board
http://plato.stanford.edu/board.html
Library of Congress Catalog Data
ISSN: 1095-5054
Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to members of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP
content contributors. It is solely for their fair use. Unauthorized
distribution is prohibited. To learn how to join the Friends of the
SEP Society and obtain authorized PDF versions of SEP entries,
please visit https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/ .
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Copyright c 2016 by the publisher
The Metaphysics Research Lab
Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Deontological Ethics
Copyright c 2016 by the authors
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
All rights reserved.
Copyright policy: https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/info/copyright/
Deontological Ethics
First published Wed Nov 21, 2007; substantive revision Mon Oct 17, 2016
The word deontology derives from the Greek words for duty (deon) and
science (or study) of (logos). In contemporary moral philosophy,
deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which
choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted. In other words,
deontology falls within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess
our choices of what we ought to do (deontic theories), in contrast to those
that guide and assess what kind of person we are and should be (aretaic
[virtue] theories). And within the domain of moral theories that assess our
choices, deontologists—those who subscribe to deontological theories of
morality—stand in opposition to consequentialists.
1. Deontology's Foil: Consequentialism
2. Deontological Theories
2.1 Agent-Centered Deontological Theories
2.2 Patient-Centered Deontological Theories
2.3 Contractarian Deontological Theories
2.4 Deontological Theories and Kant
3. The Advantages of Deontological Theories
4. The Weaknesses of Deontological Theories
5. Deontology's Relation(s) to Consequentialism Reconsidered
5.1 Making no concessions to consequentialism: a purely
deontological rationality?
5.2 Making no concessions to deontology: a purely
consequentialist rationality?
6. Deontological Theories and Metaethics
Bibliography
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
1
Deontological Ethics
Related Entries
1. Deontology's Foil: Consequentialism
Because deontological theories are best understood in contrast to
consequentialist ones, a brief look at consequentialism and a survey of the
problems with it that motivate its deontological opponents, provides a
helpful prelude to taking up deontological theories themselves.
Consequentialists hold that choices—acts and/or intentions—are to be
morally assessed solely by the states of affairs they bring about.
Consequentialists thus must specify initially the states of affairs that are
intrinsically valuable—often called, collectively, “the Good.” They then
are in a position to assert that whatever choices increase the Good, that is,
bring about more of it, are the choices that it is morally right to make and
to execute. (The Good in that sense is said to be prior to “the Right.”)
Consequentialists can and do differ widely in terms of specifying the
Good. Some consequentialists are monists about the Good. Utilitarians, for
example, identify the Good with pleasure, happiness, desire satisfaction,
or “welfare” in some other sense. Other consequentialists are pluralists
regarding the Good. Some of such pluralists believe that how the Good is
distributed among persons (or all sentient beings) is itself partly
constitutive of the Good, whereas conventional utilitarians merely add or
average each person's share of the Good to achieve the Good's
maximization.
Moreover, there are some consequentialists who hold that the doing or
refraining from doing, of certain kinds of acts are themselves intrinsically
valuable states of affairs constitutive of the Good. An example of this is
the positing of rights not being violated, or duties being kept, as part of the
2
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Good to be maximized—the so-called “utilitarianism of rights” (Nozick
1974).
None of these pluralist positions erase the difference between
consequentialism and deontology. For the essence of consequentialism is
still present in such positions: an action would be right only insofar as it
maximizes these Good-making states of affairs being caused to exist.
However much consequentialists differ about what the Good consists in,
they all agree that the morally right choices are those that increase (either
directly or indirectly) the Good. Moreover, consequentialists generally
agree that the Good is “agent-neutral” (Parfit 1984; Nagel 1986). That is,
valuable states of affairs are states of affairs that all agents have reason to
achieve without regard to whether such states of affairs are achieved
through the exercise of one's own agency or not.
Consequentialism is frequently criticized on a number of grounds. Two of
these are particularly apt for revealing the temptations motivating the
alternative approach to deontic ethics that is deontology. The two
criticisms pertinent here are that consequentialism is, on the one hand,
overly demanding, and, on the other hand, that it is not demanding
enough. The criticism regarding extreme demandingness runs like this: for
consequentialists, there is no realm of moral permissions, no realm of
going beyond one's moral duty (supererogation), no realm of moral
indifference. All acts are seemingly either required or forbidden. And
there also seems to be no space for the consequentialist in which to show
partiality to one's own projects or to one's family, friends, and countrymen,
leading some critics of consequentialism to deem it a profoundly
alienating and perhaps self-effacing moral theory (Williams 1973).
On the other hand, consequentialism is also criticized for what it
seemingly permits. It seemingly demands (and thus, of course, permits)
Winter 2016 Edition
3
Deontological Ethics
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
that in certain circumstances innocents be killed, beaten, lied to, or
deprived of material goods to produce greater benefits for others.
Consequences—and only consequences—can conceivably justify any kind
of act, for it does not matter how harmful it is to some so long as it is more
beneficial to others.
good consequences (Bentham 1789 (1948); Quinton 2007). We thus have
a consequentialist duty not to kill the one in Transplant or in Fat Man; and
there is no counterbalancing duty to save five that overrides this. Yet as
with the satisficing move, it is unclear how a consistent consequentialist
can motivate this restriction on all-out optimization of the Good.
A well-worn example of this over-permissiveness of consequentialism is
that of a case standardly called, Transplant. A surgeon has five patients
dying of organ failure and one healthy patient whose organs can save the
five. In the right circumstances, surgeon will be permitted (and indeed
required) by consequentialism to kill the healthy patient to obtain his
organs, assuming there are no relevant consequences other than the saving
of the five and the death of the one. Likewise, consequentialism will
permit (in a case that we shall call, Fat Man) that a fat man be pushed in
front of a runaway trolley if his being crushed by the trolley will halt its
advance towards five workers trapped on the track. We shall return to
these examples later on.
Yet another idea popular with consequentialists is to move from
consequentialism as a theory that directly assesses acts to
consequentialism as a theory that directly assesses rules—or charactertrait inculcation—and assesses acts only indirectly by reference to such
rules (or character-traits) (Alexander 1985). Its proponents contend that
indirect consequentialism can avoid the criticisms of direct (act)
consequentialism because it will not legitimate egregious violations of
ordinary moral standards—e.g., the killing of the innocent to bring about
some better state of affairs—nor will it be overly demanding and thus
alienating each of us from our own projects.
Consequentialists are of course not bereft of replies to these two
criticisms. Some retreat from maximizing the Good to “satisficing”—that
is, making the achievement of only a certain level of the Good mandatory
(Slote 1984). This move opens up some space for personal projects and
relationships, as well as a realm of the morally permissible. It is not clear,
however, that satisficing is adequately motivated, except to avoid the
problems of maximizing. Nor is it clear that the level of mandatory
satisficing can be nonarbitrarily specified, or that satisficing will not
require deontological constraints to protect satisficers from maximizers.
Another move is to introduce a positive/negative duty distinction within
consequentialism. On this view, our (negative) duty is not to make the
world worse by actions having bad consequences; lacking is a
corresponding (positive) duty to make the world better by actions having
4
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The relevance here of these defensive maneuvers by consequentialists is
their common attempt to mimic the intuitively plausible aspects of a nonconsequentialist, deontological approach to ethics. For as we shall now
explore, the strengths of deontological approaches lie: (1) in their
categorical prohibition of actions like the killing of innocents, even when
good consequences are in the offing; and (2) in their permission to each of
us to pursue our own projects free of any constant demand that we shape
those projects so as to make everyone else well off.
2. Deontological Theories
Having now briefly taken a look at deontologists' foil, consequentialist
theories of right action, we turn now to examine deontological theories. In
contrast to consequentialist theories, deontological theories judge the
morality of choices by criteria different from the states of affairs those
Winter 2016 Edition
5
Deontological Ethics
choices bring about. The most familiar forms of deontology, and also the
forms presenting the greatest contrast to consequentialism, hold that some
choices cannot be justified by their effects—that no matter how morally
good their consequences, some choices are morally forbidden. On such
familiar deontological accounts of morality, agents cannot make certain
wrongful choices even if by doing so the number of those exact kinds of
wrongful choices will be minimized (because other agents will be
prevented from engaging in similar wrongful choices). For such
deontologists, what makes a choice right is its conformity with a moral
norm. Such norms are to be simply obeyed by each moral agent; such
norm-keepings are not to be maximized by each agent. In this sense, for
such deontologists, the Right is said to have priority over the Good. If an
act is not in accord with the Right, it may not be undertaken, no matter the
Good that it might produce (including even a Good consisting of acts in
accordance with the Right).
Analogously, deontologists typically supplement non-consequentialist
obligations with non-consequentialist permissions (Scheffler 1982). That
is, certain actions can be right even though not maximizing of good
consequences, for the rightness of such actions consists in their
instantiating certain norms (here, of permission and not of obligation).
Such actions are permitted, not just in the weak sense that there is no
obligation not to do them, but also in the strong sense that one is permitted
to do them even though they are productive of less good consequences
than their alternatives (Moore 2008). Such strongly permitted actions
include actions one is obligated to do, but (importantly) also included are
actions one is not obligated to do. It is this last feature of such actions that
warrants their separate mention for deontologists.
2.1 Agent-Centered Deontological Theories
6
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
The most traditional mode of taxonomizing deontological theories is to
divide them between agent-centered versus victim-centered (or “patientcentered”) theories (Scheffler 1988; Kamm 2007). Consider first agentcentered deontological theories. According to agent-centered theories, we
each have both permissions and obligations that give us agent-relative
reasons for action. An agent-relative reason is an objective reason, just as
are agent neutral reasons; neither is to be confused with the subjective
reasons that form the nerve of psychological explanations of human action
(Nagel 1986). An agent-relative reason is so-called because it is a reason
relative to the agent whose reason it is; it need not (although it may)
constitute a reason for anyone else. Thus, an agent-relative obligation is an
obligation for a particular agent to take or refrain from taking some action;
and because it is agent-relative, the obligation does not necessarily give
anyone else a reason to support that action. Each parent, for example, is
commonly thought to have such special obligations to his/her child,
obligations not shared by anyone else. Likewise, an agent-relative
permission is a permission for some agent to do some act even though
others may not be permitted to aid that agent in the doing of his permitted
action. Each parent, to revert to the same example, is commonly thought
to be permitted (at the least) to save his own child even at the cost of not
saving two other children to whom he has no special relation. Agentcentered theories and the agent-relative reasons on which they are based
not only enjoin each of us to do or not to do certain things; they also
instruct me to treat my friends, my family, my promisees in certain ways
because they are mine, even if by neglecting them I could do more for
others' friends, families, and promisees.
At the heart of agent-centered theories (with their agent-relative reasons)
is the idea of agency. The moral plausibility of agent-centered theories is
rooted here. The idea is that morality is intensely personal, in the sense
that we are each enjoined to keep our own moral house in order. Our
categorical obligations are not to focus on how our actions cause or enable
Winter 2016 Edition
7
Deontological Ethics
other agents to do evil; the focus of our categorical obligations is to keep
our own agency free of moral taint.
Each agent's distinctive moral concern with his/her own agency puts some
pressure on agent-centered theories to clarify how and when our agency is
or is not involved in various situations. Agent-centered theories famously
divide between those that emphasize the role of intention or other mental
states in constituting the morally important kind of agency, and those that
emphasize the actions of agents as playing such a role. There are also
agent-centered theories that emphasize both intentions and actions equally
in constituting the morally relevant agency of persons.
On the first of these three agent-relative views, it is most commonly
asserted that it is our intended ends and intended means that most crucially
define our agency. Such intentions mark out what it is we set out to
achieve through our actions. If we intend something bad as an end, or even
as a means to some more beneficent end, we are said to have “set
ourselves at evil,” something we are categorically forbidden to do
(Aquinas Summa Theologica).
Three items usefully contrasted with such intentions are belief, risk, and
cause. If we predict that an act of ours will result in evil, such prediction is
a cognitive state (of belief); it is not a conative state of intention to bring
about such a result, either as an end in itself or as a means to some other
end. In this case, our agency is involved only to the extent that we have
shown ourselves as being willing to tolerate evil results flowing from our
acts; but we have not set out to achieve such evil by our acts. Likewise, a
risking and/or causing of some evil result is distinct from any intention to
achieve it. We can intend such a result, and we can even execute such an
intention so that it becomes a trying, without in fact either causing or even
risking it. (It is, however, true that we must believe we are risking the
result to some extent, however minimal, for the result to be what we
8
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
intend to bring about by our act.) Also, we can cause or risk such results
without intending them. For example, we can intend to kill and even try to
kill someone without killing him; and we can kill him without intending or
trying to kill him, as when we kill accidentally. Intending thus does not
collapse into risking, causing, or predicting; and on the version of agentcentered deontology here considered, it is intending (or perhaps trying)
alone that marks the involvement of our agency in a way so as to bring
agent-centered obligations and permissions into play.
Deontologists of this stripe are committed to something like the doctrine
of double effect, a long-established doctrine of Catholic theology
(Woodward 2001). The Doctrine in its most familiar form asserts that we
are categorically forbidden to intend evils such as killing the innocent or
torturing others, even though doing such acts would minimize the doing of
like acts by others (or even ourselves) in the future. By contrast, if we only
risk, cause, or predict that our acts will have consequences making them
acts of killing or of torture, then we might be able to justify the doing of
such acts by the killing/torture-minimizing consequences of such actions.
Whether such distinctions are plausible is standardly taken to measure the
plausibility of an intention-focused version of the agent-centered version
of deontology.
There are other versions of mental-state focused agent relativity that do
not focus on intentions (Hurd 1994). Some of these versions focus on
predictive belief as much as on intention (at least when the belief is of a
high degree of certainty). Other versions focus on intended ends
(“motives”) alone. Still others focus on the deliberative processes that
precede the formation of intentions, so that even to contemplate the doing
of an evil act impermissibly invokes our agency (Anscombe 1958; Geach
1969; Nagel 1979). But intention-focused versions are the most familiar
versions of so-called “inner wickedness” versions of agent-centered
deontology.
Winter 2016 Edition
9
Deontological Ethics
The second kind of agent-centered deontology is one focused on actions,
not mental states. Such a view can concede that all human actions must
originate with some kind of mental state, often styled a volition or a
willing; such a view can even concede that volitions or willings are an
intention of a certain kind (Moore 1993, Ch. 6). Indeed, such source of
human actions in willing is what plausibly connects actions to the agency
that is of moral concern on the agent-centered version of deontology. Yet
to will the movement of a finger on a trigger is distinct from an intention
to kill a person by that finger movement. The act view of agency is thus
distinct from the intentions (or other mental state) view of agency.
On this view, our agent-relative obligations and permissions have as their
content certain kinds of actions: we are obligated not to kill innocents for
example. The killing of an innocent of course requires that there be a death
of such innocent, but there is no agency involved in mere events such as
deaths. Needed for there to be a killing are two other items. One we
remarked on before: the action of the putative agent must have its source
in a willing. But the other maker of agency here is more interesting for
present purposes: the willing must cause the death of the innocent for an
act to be a killing of such innocent. Much (on this view) is loaded into the
requirement of causation.
First, causings of evils like deaths of innocents are commonly
distinguished from omissions to prevent such deaths. Holding a baby's
head under water until it drowns is a killing; seeing a baby lying face
down in a puddle and doing nothing to save it when one could do so easily
is a failure to prevent its death. Our categorical obligations are usually
negative in content: we are not to kill the baby. We may have an obligation
to save it, but this will not be an agent-relative obligation, on the view here
considered, unless we have some special relationship to the baby.
10
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Second, causings are distinguished from allowings. In a narrow sense of
the word we will here stipulate, one allows a death to occur when: (1)
one's action merely removes a defense the victim otherwise would have
had against death; and (2) such removal returns the victim to some morally
appropriate baseline (Kamm 1994, 1996; MacMahan 2003). Thus, mercykillings, or euthanasia, are outside of our deontological obligations (and
thus eligible for justification by good consequences) so long as one's act:
(1) only removes a defense against death that the agent herself had earlier
provided, such as disconnecting medical equipment that is keeping the
patient alive when that disconnecting is done by the medical personnel
that attached the patient to the equipment originally; and (2) the equipment
could justifiably have been hooked up to another patient, where it could do
some good, had the doctors known at the time of connection what they
know at the time of disconnection.
Third, one is said not to cause an evil such as a death when one's acts
merely enable (or aid) some other agent to cause such evil (Hart and
Honore 1985). Thus, one is not categorically forbidden to drive the
terrorists to where they can kill the policeman (if the alternative is death of
one's family), even though one would be categorically forbidden to kill the
policeman oneself (even where the alternative is death of one's family)
(Moore 2008). Nor is one categorically forbidden to select which of a
group of villagers shall be unjustly executed by another who is pursuing
his own purposes (Williams 1973).
Fourth, one is said not to cause an evil such as a death when one merely
redirects a presently existing threat to many so that it now threatens only
one (or a few) (Thomson 1985). In the time-honored example of the runaway trolley (Trolley), one may turn a trolley so that it runs over one
trapped workman so as to save five workmen trapped on the other track,
even though it is not permissible for an agent to have initiated the
Winter 2016 Edition
11
Deontological Ethics
movement of the trolley towards the one to save five (Foot 1967; Thomson
1985).
Fifth, our agency is said not to be involved in mere accelerations of evils
about to happen anyway, as opposed to causing such evils by doing acts
necessary for such evils to occur (G. Williams 1961; Brody 1996). Thus,
when a victim is about to fall to his death anyway, dragging a rescuer with
him too, the rescuer may cut the rope connecting them. Rescuer is
accelerating, but not causing, the death that was about to occur anyway.
All of these last five distinctions have been suggested to be part and parcel
of another centuries-old Catholic doctrine, that of the doctrine of doing
and allowing (see the entry on doing vs. allowing harm) (Moore 2008;
Kamm 1994; Foot 1967; Quinn 1989). According to this doctrine, one
may not cause death, for that would be a killing, a “doing;” but one may
fail to prevent death, allow (in the narrow sense) death to occur, enable
another to cause death, redirect a life-threatening item from many to one,
or accelerate a death about to happen anyway, if good enough
consequences are in the offing. As with the Doctrine of Double Effect,
how plausible one finds these applications of the doctrine of doing and
allowing will determine how plausible one finds this cause-based view of
human agency.
A third kind of agent-centered deontology can be obtained by simply
conjoining the other two agent-centered views (Hurd 1994). This view
would be that agency in the relevant sense requires both intending and
causing (i.e., acting) (Moore 2008). On this view, our agent-relative
obligations do not focus on causings or intentions separately; rather, the
content of such obligations is focused on intended causings. For example,
our deontological obligation with respect to human life is neither an
obligation not to kill nor an obligation not to intend to kill; rather, it is an
obligation not to murder, that is, to kill in execution of an intention to kill.
12
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
By requiring both intention and causings to constitute human agency, this
third view avoids the seeming overbreadth of our obligations if either
intention or action alone marked such agency. Suppose our agent-relative
obligation were not to do some action such as kill an innocent –is that
obligation breached by a merely negligent killing, so that we deserve the
serious blame of having breached such a categorical norm (Hurd 1994)?
(Of course, one might be somewhat blameworthy on consequentialist
grounds (Hurd 1995), or perhaps not blameworthy at all (Moore and Hurd
2011).) Alternatively, suppose our agent-relative obligation were not to
intend to kill—does that mean we could not justify forming such an
intention when good consequences would be the result, and when we are
sure we cannot act so as to fulfill such intention (Hurd 1994)? If our agentrelative obligation is neither of these alone, but is rather, that we are not to
kill in execution of an intention to kill, both such instances of seeming
overbreadth in the reach of our obligations, are avoided.
Whichever of these three agent-centered theories one finds most plausible,
they each suffer from some common problems. A fundamental worry is
the moral unattractiveness of the focus on self that is the nerve of any
agent-centered deontology. The importance of each person's agency to
himself/herself has a narcissistic flavor to it that seems unattractive to
many. It seemingly justifies each of us keeping our own moral house in
order even at the expense of the world becoming much worse. The worry
is not that agent-centered deontology is just another form of egoism,
according to which the content of one's duties exclusively concern oneself;
even so, the character of agent-relative duties is such that they betoken an
emphasis on self that is unattractive in the same way that such emphasis
makes egoism unattractive. Secondly, many find the distinctions invited by
the Doctrine of Double Effect and the (five versions of the) Doctrine of
Doing and Allowing to be either morally unattractive or conceptually
incoherent. Such critics find the differences between intending/foreseeing,
causing/omitting, causing/allowing, causing/enabling, causing/redirecting,
Winter 2016 Edition
13
Deontological Ethics
causing/accelerating to be morally insignificant. (On act/omission
(Rachels 1975); on doing/allowing (Kagan 1989); on intending/foreseeing
(Bennett 1981; Davis 1984).) They urge, for example, that failing to
prevent a death one could easily prevent is as blameworthy as causing a
death, so that a morality that radically distinguishes the two is implausible.
Alternatively, such critics urge on conceptual grounds that no clear
distinctions can be drawn in these matters, that foreseeing with certainty is
indistinguishable from intending (Bennett 1981), that omitting is one kind
of causing (Schaffer 2012), and so forth.
Thirdly, there is the worry about “avoision.” By casting our categorical
obligations in such agent-centered terms, one invites a kind of
manipulation that is legalistic and Jesuitical, what Leo Katz dubs
“avoision” (Katz 1996). Some think, for example, that one can transform a
prohibited intention into a permissible predictive belief (and thus escape
intention-focused forms of agent-relative duty) by the simple expedient of
finding some other end with which to motivate the action in question.
Such criticisms of the agent-centered view of deontology drive most who
accept their force away from deontology entirely and to some form of
consequentialism. Alternatively, some of such critics are driven to patientcentered deontology, which we discuss immediately below. Yet still other
of such critics attempt to articulate yet a fourth form of agent-centered
deontology. This might be called the “control theory of agency.” On this
view, our agency is invoked whenever our choices could have made a
difference. This cuts across the intention/foresight, act/omission, and
doing/allowing distinctions, because in all cases we controlled what
happened through our choices (Frey 1995). Yet as an account of
deontology, this seems worrisomely broad. It disallows consequentialist
justifications whenever: we foresee the death of an innocent; we omit to
save, where our saving would have made a difference and we knew it;
where we remove a life-saving device, knowing the patient will die. If
14
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
deontological norms are so broad in content as to cover all these
foreseeings, omittings, and allowings, then good consequences (such as a
net saving of innocent lives) are ineligible to justify them. This makes for
a wildly counterintuitive deontology: surely I can, for example, justify not
throwing the rope to one (and thus omit to save him) in order to save two
others equally in need. This breadth of obligation also makes for a
conflict-ridden deontology: by refusing to cabin our categorical
obligations by the distinctions of the Doctrine of Double Effect and the
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, situations of conflict between our
stringent obligations proliferate in a troublesome way (Anscombe 1962).
2.2 Patient-Centered Deontological Theories
A second group of deontological moral theories can be classified, as
patient-centered, as distinguished from the agent-centered version of
deontology just considered. These theories are rights-based rather than
duty-based; and some versions purport to be quite agent-neutral in the
reasons they give moral agents.
All patient-centered deontological theories are properly characterized as
theories premised on people's rights. An illustrative version posits, as its
core right, the right against being used only as means for producing good
consequences without one's consent. Such a core right is not to be
confused with more discrete rights, such as the right against being killed,
or being killed intentionally. It is a right against being used by another for
the user's or others' benefit. More specifically, this version of patientcentered deontological theories proscribes the using of another's body,
labor, and talent without the latter's consent. One finds this notion
expressed, albeit in different ways, in the work of the so-called Right
Libertarians (e.g., Robert Nozick, Eric Mack), but also in the works of the
Left-Libertarians as well (e.g., Michael Otsuka, Hillel Steiner, Peter
Vallentyne) (Nozick 1974; Mack 2000; Steiner 1994; Vallentyne and
Winter 2016 Edition
15
Deontological Ethics
Steiner 2000; Vallentyne, Steiner, and Otsuka 2005). On this view, the
scope of strong moral duties—those that are the correlatives of others'
rights—is jurisdictionally limited and does not extend to resources for
producing the Good that would not exist in the absence of those intruded
upon—that is, their bodies, labors, and talents. In addition to the
Libertarians, others whose views include this prohibition on using others
include Quinn, Kamm, Alexander, Ferzan, Gauthier, and Walen (Quinn
1989; Kamm 1996; Alexander 2016; Alexander and Ferzan 2009, 2012;
Gauthier 1986; Walen 2014, 2016).
Just as do agent-centered theories, so too do patient-centered theories
(such as that forbidding the using of another) seek to explain common
intuitions about such classic hypothetical cases as Trolley and Transplant
(or Fat Man) (Thomson 1985). In Trolley, a runaway trolley will kill five
workers unless diverted to a siding where it will kill one worker. Most
people regard it as permissible and perhaps mandatory to switch the
trolley to the siding. By contrast, in Transplant, where a surgeon can kill
one healthy patient and transplant his organs to five dying patients, thereby
saving their lives, the universal reaction is condemnation. (The same is byand-large true in Fat Man, where the runaway trolley cannot be switched
off the main track but can be stopped before reaching the five workers by
pushing a fat man into its path, resulting in his death.)
The injunction against using arguably accounts for these contrasting
reactions. After all, in each example, one life is sacrificed to save five. Yet
there appears to be a difference in the means through which the net four
lives are saved. In Transplant (and Fat Man), the doomed person is used to
benefit the others. They could not be saved in the absence of his body. In
Trolley, on the other hand, the doomed victim is not used. The workers
would be saved whether or not he is present on the second track.
16
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Notice, too, that this patient-centered libertarian version of deontology
handles Trolley, Transplant et al. differently from how they are handled by
agent-centered versions. The latter focus on the agent's mental state or on
whether the agent acted or caused the victim's harm. The patient-centered
theory focuses instead on whether the victim's body, labor, or talents were
the means by which the justifying results were produced. So one who
realizes that by switching the trolley he can save five trapped workers and
place only one in mortal danger—and that the danger to the latter is not
the means by which the former will be saved—acts permissibly on the
patient-centered view if he switches the trolley even if he does so with the
intention of killing the one worker. Switching the trolley is causally
sufficient to bring about the consequences that justify the act—the saving
of net four workers—and it is so even in the absence of the one worker's
body, labor, or talents. (The five would be saved if the one escaped, was
never on the track, or did not exist.) By contrast, on the intent and
intended action versions of agent-centered theories, the one who switches
the trolley does not act permissibly if he acts with the intention to harm the
one worker. (This could be the case, for example, when the one who
switches the trolley does so to kill the one whom he hates, only knowing
that he will thereby save the other five workmen.) On the patient-centered
version, if an act is otherwise morally justifiable by virtue of its balance of
good and bad consequences, and the good consequences are achieved
without the necessity of using anyone's body, labor, or talents without that
person's consent as the means by which they are achieved, then it is
morally immaterial (to the permissibility of the act but not to the
culpability of the actor) whether someone undertakes that act with the
intention to achieve its bad consequences. (This is true, of course, only so
long as the concept of using does not implicitly refer to the intention of the
user) (Alexander 2016). And in assessing the culpability of risky conduct,
any good consequences must be discounted, not only by the perceived risk
that they will not occur, but also by the perceived risk that they will be
Winter 2016 Edition
17
Deontological Ethics
brought about by a using; for any such consequences, however good they
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
otherwise are, cannot be considered in determining the permissibility and,
derivatively, the culpability of acts (Alexander 2016).
Patient-centered deontologists handle differently other stock examples of
the agent-centered deontologist. Take the acceleration cases as an
example. When all will die in a lifeboat unless one is killed and eaten;
when Siamese twins are conjoined such that both will die unless the
organs of one are given to the other via an operation that kills the first;
when all of a group of soldiers will die unless the body of one is used to
hold down the enemy barbed wire, allowing the rest to save themselves;
when a group of villagers will all be shot by a blood-thirsty tyrant unless
they select one of their numbers to slake the tyrants lust for death—in all
such cases, the causing/accelerating-distinguishing agent-centered
deontologists would permit the killing but the usings-focused patientcentered deontologist would not. (For the latter, all killings are merely
accelerations of death.)
The restriction of deontological duties to usings of another raises a sticky
problem for those patient-centered deontological theories that are based on
the core right against using: how can they account for the prima facie
wrongs of killing, injuring, and so forth when done not to use others as
means, but for some other purpose or for no purpose at all? The answer is
that such patient-centered deontological constraints must be supplemented
by consequentialist-derived moral norms to give an adequate account of
morality. Killing, injuring, and so forth will usually be unjustifiable on a
consequentialist calculus, especially if everyone's interests are given equal
regard. It is when killing and injuring are otherwise justifiable that the
deontological constraint against using has its normative bite over and
against what is already prohibited by consequentialism. (This narrowness
of patient-centered deontology makes it counterintuitive to agent-centered
deontologists, who regard prohibitions on killing of the innocent, etc., as
paradigmatically deontological.)
18
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Winter 2016 Edition
19
Deontological Ethics
The patient-centered version of deontology is aptly labeled libertarian in
that it is not plausible to conceive of not being aided as being used by the
one not aiding. Using is an action, not a failure to act. More generally, it is
counterintuitive to many to think that any of us have a right to be aided.
For if there were a strong (that is, enforceable or coercible) duty to aid
others, such that, for example, A had a duty to aid X, Y, and Z; and if A
could more effectively aid X, Y, and Z by coercing B and C to aid them (as
is their duty), then A would have a duty to “use” B and C in this way. For
these reasons, any positive duties will not be rights-based ones on the view
here considered; they will be consequentially-justified duties that can be
trumped by the right not to be coerced to perform them.
Patient-centered deontological theories are often conceived in agentneutral reason-giving terms. John has a right to the exclusive use of his
body, labor, and talents, and such a right gives everyone equal reason to do
actions respecting it. But this aspect of patient-centered deontological
theories gives rise to a particularly virulent form of the so-called paradox
of deontology (Scheffler 1988)—that if respecting Mary's and Susan's
rights is as important morally as is protecting John's rights, then why isn't
violating John's rights permissible (or even obligatory) when doing so is
necessary to protect Mary's and Susan's rights from being violated by
others? Patient-centered deontological theories might arguably do better if
they abandoned their pretense of being agent-neutral. They could conceive
of rights as giving agent-relative reasons to each actor to refrain from
doing actions violative of such rights. Take the core right against being
used without one's consent hypothesized earlier. The correlative duty is
not to use another without his consent. If such duty is agent-relative, then
the rights-based deontologist (no less than the agent-centered deontologist)
has the conceptual resources to answer the paradox of deontology. That is,
each of us may not use John, even when such using of John would
minimize usings of John by others in the future. Such duties are personal
to each of us in that we may not justify our violating such a duty now by
20
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
preventing others' similar violations in the future. Such personal duties are
agent-centered in the sense that the agency of each person is central to the
duties of each person, so that your using of another now cannot be traded
off against other possible usings at other times by other people.
Patient-centered deontologies are thus arguably better construed to be
agent-relative in the reasons they give. Even so construed, such
deontologies join agent-centered deontologies in facing the moral (rather
than the conceptual) versions of the paradox of deontology. For a critic of
either form of deontology might respond to the categorical prohibition
about using others as follows: If usings are bad, then are not more usings
worse than fewer? And if so, then is it not odd to condemn acts that
produce better states of affairs than would occur in their absence?
Deontologists of either stripe can just deny that wrong acts on their
account of wrongness can be translated into bad states of affairs. Two
wrong acts are not “worse” than one. Such wrongs cannot be summed into
anything of normative significance. After all, the victim of a rightsviolating using may suffer less harm than others might have suffered had
his rights not been violated; yet one cannot, without begging the question
against deontological constraints, argue that therefore no constraint should
block minimizing harm. That is, the deontologist might reject the
comparability of states of affairs that involve violations and those that do
not. Similarly, the deontologist may reject the comparability of states of
affairs that involve more or fewer rights-violations (Brook 2007). The
deontologist might attempt to back this assertion by relying upon the
separateness of persons. Wrongs are only wrongs to persons. A wrong to Y
and a wrong to Z cannot be added to make some greater wrong because
there is no person who suffers this greater wrong (cf. Taurek 1977).
This solution to the paradox of deontology, may seem attractive, but it
comes at a high cost. In Trolley, for example, where there is neither
agency nor using in the relevant senses and thus no bar to switching, one
Winter 2016 Edition
21
Deontological Ethics
cannot claim that it is better to switch and save the five. For if the deaths
of the five cannot be summed, their deaths are not worse than the death of
the one worker on the siding. Although there is no deontological bar to
switching, neither is the saving of a net four lives a reason to switch.
Worse yet, were the trolley heading for the one worker rather than the five,
there would be no reason not to switch the trolley, so a net loss of four
lives is no reason not to switch the trolley. If the numbers don't count, they
seemingly don't count either way.
The problem of how to account for the significance of numbers without
giving up deontology and adopting consequentialism, and without
resurrecting the paradox of deontology, is one that a number of
deontologists are now working to solve (e.g., Kamm 1996; Scanlon 2003;
Otsuka 2006, Hsieh et al. 2006). Until it is solved, it will remain a huge
thorn in the deontologist's side.
2.3 Contractarian Deontological Theories
Somewhat orthogonal to the distinction between agent-centered versus
patient-centered deontological theories are contractualist deontological
theories. Morally wrong acts are, on such accounts, those acts that would
be forbidden by principles that people in a suitably described social
contract would accept (e.g., Rawls 1971; Gauthier 1986), or that would be
forbidden only by principles that such people could not “reasonably
reject” (e.g., Scanlon 2003).
In deontology, as elsewhere in ethics, is not entirely clear whether a
contractualist account is really normative as opposed to metaethical. If
such account is a first order normative account, it is probably best
construed as a patient-centered deontology; for the central obligation
would be to do onto others only that to which they have consented. But so
construed, modern contractualist accounts would share the problems that
22
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
have long bedeviled historical social contract theories: how plausible is it
that the “moral magic” of consent is the first principle of morality? And
how much of what is commonly regarded as permissible to do to people
can (in any realistic sense of the word) be said to be actually consented to
by them, expressly or even implicitly?
In fact modern contractualisms look meta-ethical, and not normative.
Thomas Scanlon's contractualism, for example, which posits at its core
those norms of action that we can justify to each other, is best construed as
an ontological and epistemological account of moral notions. The same
may be said of David Gauthier's contractualism. Yet so construed,
metaethical contractualism as a method for deriving moral norms does not
necessarily lead to deontology as a first order ethics. John Harsanyi, for
example, argues that parties to the social contract would choose
utilitarianism over the principles John Rawls argues would be chosen
(Harsanyi 1973). Nor is it clear that meta-ethical contractualism, when it
does generate a deontological ethic, favors either an agent centered or a
patient centered version of such an ethic.
2.4 Deontological Theories and Kant
If any philosopher is regarded as central to deontological moral theories, it
is surely Immanuel Kant. Indeed, each of the branches of deontological
ethics—the agent-centered, the patient-centered, and the contractualist—
can lay claim to being Kantian.
The agent-centered deontologist can cite Kant's locating the moral quality
of acts in the principles or maxims on which the agent acts and not
primarily in those acts' effects on others. For Kant, the only thing
unqualifiedly good is a good will (Kant 1785). The patient-centered
deontologist can, of course, cite Kant's injunction against using others as
mere means to one's end (Kant 1785). And the contractualist can cite, as
Winter 2016 Edition
23
Deontological Ethics
Kant's contractualist element, Kant's insistence that the maxims on which
one acts be capable of being willed as a universal law—willed by all
rational agents (Kant 1785). (See generally the entry on Kant.)
3. The Advantages of Deontological Theories
Having canvassed the two main types of deontological theories (together
with a contractualist variation of each), it is time to assess deontological
morality more generally. On the one hand, deontological morality, in
contrast to consequentialism, leaves space for agents to give special
concern to their families, friends, and projects. At least that is so if the
deontological morality contains no strong duty of general beneficence, or,
if it does, it places a cap on that duty's demands. Deontological morality,
therefore, avoids the overly demanding and alienating aspects of
consequentialism and accords more with conventional notions of our
moral duties.
Likewise, deontological moralities, unlike most views of
consequentialism, leave space for the supererogatory. A deontologist can
do more that is morally praiseworthy than morality demands. A
consequentialist cannot, assuming none of the consequentialists' defensive
maneuvers earlier referenced work. For such a pure or simple
consequentialist, if one's act is not morally demanded, it is morally wrong
and forbidden. Whereas for the deontologist, there are acts that are neither
morally wrong nor demanded, some—but only some—of which are
morally praiseworthy.
As we have seen, deontological theories all possess the strong advantage
of being able to account for strong, widely shared moral intuitions about
our duties better than can consequentialism. The contrasting reactions to
Trolley, Fat Man, Transplant, and other examples earlier given, are
illustrative of this.
24
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Finally, deontological theories, unlike consequentialist ones, have the
potential for explaining why certain people have moral standing to
complain about and hold to account those who breach moral duties. For
the moral duties typically thought to be deontological in character—
unlike, say, duties regarding the environment—are duties to particular
people, not duties to bring about states of affairs that no particular person
has an individual right to have realized.
4. The Weaknesses of Deontological Theories
On the other hand, deontological theories have their own weak spots. The
most glaring one is the seeming irrationality of our having duties or
permissions to make the world morally worse. Deontologists need their
own, non-consequentialist model of rationality, one that is a viable
alternative to the intuitively plausible, “act-to-produce-the-bestconsequences” model of rationality that motivates consequentialist
theories. Until this is done, deontology will always be paradoxical.
Patient-centered versions of deontology cannot easily escape this problem,
as we have shown. It is not even clear that they have the conceptual
resources to make agency important enough to escape this moral paradox.
Yet even agent-centered versions face this paradox; having the conceptual
resources (of agency and agent-relative reasons) is not the same as making
it plausible just how a secular, objective morality can allow each person's
agency to be so uniquely crucial to that person.
Second, it is crucial for deontologists to deal with the conflicts that seem
to exist between certain duties, and between certain rights. For more
information, please see the entry on moral dilemmas. Kant's bold
proclamation that “a conflict of duties is inconceivable” (Kant 1780, p. 25)
is the conclusion wanted, but reasons for believing it are difficult to
produce. The intending/foreseeing, doing/allowing, causing/aiding, and
related distinctions certainly reduce potential conflicts for the agent-
Winter 2016 Edition
25
Deontological Ethics
centered versions of deontology; whether they can totally eliminate such
conflicts is a yet unresolved question.
One well known approach to deal with the possibility of conflict between
deontological duties is to reduce the categorical force of such duties to that
of only “prima facie” duties (Ross 1930, 1939). This idea is that conflict
between merely prima facie duties is unproblematic so long as it does not
infect what one is categorically obligated to do, which is what overall,
concrete duties mandate. Like other softenings of the categorical force of
deontological obligation we mention briefly below (threshold deontology,
mixed views), the prima facie duty view is in some danger of collapsing
into a kind of consequentialism. This depends on whether “prima facie” is
read epistemically or not, and on (1) whether any good consequences are
eligible to justify breach of prima facie duties; (2) whether only such
consequences over some threshold can do so; or (3) whether only
threatened breach of other deontological duties can do so.
Thirdly, there is the manipulability worry mentioned before with respect to
agent-centered versions of deontology. To the extent potential conflict is
eliminated by resort to the Doctrine of Double Effect, the Doctrine of
Doing and Allowing, and so forth (and it is not clear to what extent
patient-centered versions rely on these doctrines and distinctions to
mitigate potential conflict), then a potential for “avoision” is opened up.
Such avoision is the manipulation of means (using omissions, foresight,
risk, allowings, aidings, acceleratings, redirectings, etc.) to achieve
permissibly what otherwise deontological morality would forbid (see Katz
1996). Avoision is an undesirable feature of any ethical system that allows
such strategic manipulation of its doctrines.
Fourth, there is what might be called the paradox of relative stringency.
There is an aura of paradox in asserting that all deontological duties are
categorical—to be done no matter the consequences—and yet asserting
26
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
that some of such duties are more stringent than others. A common
thought is that “there cannot be degrees of wrongness with intrinsically
wrong acts… (Frey 1995, p. 78 n. 3). Yet relative stringency—“degrees of
wrongness”—seems forced upon the deontologist by two considerations.
First, duties of differential stringency can be weighed against one another
if there is conflict between them, so that a conflict-resolving, overall duty
becomes possible if duties can be more or less stringent. Second, when we
punish for the wrongs consisting in our violation of deontological duties,
we (rightly) do not punish all violations equally. The greater the wrong,
the greater the punishment deserved; and relative stringency of duty
violated (or importance of rights) seems the best way of making sense of
greater versus lesser wrongs.
Fifth, there are situations—unfortunately not all of them thought
experiments—where compliance with deontological norms will bring
about disastrous consequences. To take a stock example of much current
discussion, suppose that unless A violates the deontological duty not to
torture an innocent person (B), ten, or a thousand, or a million other
innocent people will die because of a hidden nuclear device. If A is
forbidden by deontological morality from torturing B, many would regard
that as a reductio ad absurdum of deontology.
Deontologists have six possible ways of dealing with such “moral
catastrophes” (although only two of these are very plausible). First, they
can just bite the bullet and declare that sometimes doing what is morally
right will have tragic results but that allowing such tragic results to occur
is still the right thing to do. Complying with moral norms will surely be
difficult on those occasions, but the moral norms apply nonetheless with
full force, overriding all other considerations. We might call this the
Kantian response, after Kant's famous hyperbole: “Better the whole people
should perish,” than that injustice be done (Kant 1780, p. 100). One might
also call this the absolutist conception of deontology, because such a view
Winter 2016 Edition
27
Deontological Ethics
maintains that conformity to norms has absolute force and not merely
great weight.
This first response to “moral catastrophes,” which is to ignore them, might
be further justified by denying that moral catastrophes, such as a million
deaths, are really a million times more catastrophic than one death. This is
the so-called “aggregation” problem, which we alluded to in section 2.2 in
discussing the paradox of deontological constraints. John Taurek famously
argued that it is a mistake to assume harms to two persons are twice as bad
as a comparable harm to one person. For each of the two suffers only his
own harm and not the harm of the other (Taurek 1977). Taurek's argument
can be employed to deny the existence of moral catastrophes and thus the
worry about them that deontologists would otherwise have. Robert Nozick
also stresses the separateness of persons and therefore urges that there is
no entity that suffers double the harm when each of two persons is harmed
(Nozick 1974). (Of course, Nozick, perhaps inconsistently, also
acknowledges the existence of moral catastrophes.) Most deontologists
reject Taurek's radical conclusion that we need not be morally more
obligated to avert harm to the many than to avert harm to the few; but they
do accept the notion that harms should not be aggregated. Deontologists'
approaches to the nonaggregation problem when the choice is between
saving the many and saving the few are: (1) save the many so as to
acknowledge the importance of each of the extra persons; (2) conduct a
weighted coin flip; (3) flip a coin; or (4) save anyone you want (a denial of
moral catastrophes) (Broome 1998; Doggett 2013; Doucet 2013;
Dougherty 2013; Halstead 2016: Henning 2015; Hirose 2007, 2015; Hsieh
et al. 2006; Huseby 2011; Kamm 1993; Rasmussen 2012; Saunders 2009;
Scanlon 2003; Suikkanen 2004; Timmerman 2004; Wasserman and
Strudler 2003).
The second plausible response is for the deontologist to abandon Kantian
absolutism for what is usually called “threshold deontology.” A threshold
28
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
deontologist holds that deontological norms govern up to a point despite
adverse consequences; but when the consequences become so dire that
they cross the stipulated threshold, consequentialism takes over (Moore
1997, ch. 17). A may not torture B to save the lives of two others, but he
may do so to save a thousand lives if the “threshold” is higher than two
lives but lower than a thousand.
There are two varieties of threshold deontology that are worth
distinguishing. On the simple version, there is some fixed threshold of
awfulness beyond which morality's categorical norms no longer have their
overriding force. Such a threshold is fixed in the sense that it does not vary
with the stringency of the categorical duty being violated. The alternative
is what might be called “sliding scale threshold deontology.” On this
version, the threshold varies in proportion to the degree of wrong being
done—the wrongness of stepping on a snail has a lower threshold (over
which the wrong can be justified) than does the wrong of stepping on a
baby.
Threshold deontology (of either stripe) is an attempt to save deontological
morality from the charge of fanaticism. It is similar to the “prima facie
duty” version of deontology developed to deal with the problem of
conflicting duties, yet threshold deontology is usually interpreted with
such a high threshold that it more closely mimics the outcomes reached by
a “pure,” absolutist kind of deontology. Threshold deontology faces
several theoretical difficulties. Foremost among them is giving a
theoretically tenable account of the location of such a threshold, either
absolutely or on a sliding scale (Alexander 2000; Ellis 1992). Why is the
threshold for torture of the innocent at one thousand lives, say, as opposed
to nine hundred or two thousand? Another problem is that whatever the
threshold, as the dire consequences approach it, counter-intuitive results
appear to follow. For example, it may be permissible, if we are one-life-atrisk short of the threshold, to pull one more person into danger who will
Winter 2016 Edition
29
Deontological Ethics
then be saved, along with the others at risk, by killing an innocent person
(Alexander 2000). Thirdly, there is some uncertainty about how one is to
reason after the threshold has been reached: are we to calculate at the
margin on straight consequentialist grounds, use an agent-weighted mode
of summing, or do something else? A fourth problem is that threshold
deontology threatens to collapse into a kind of consequentialism. Indeed, it
can be shown that the sliding scale version of threshold deontology is
extensionally equivalent to an agency-weighted form of consequentialism
(Sen 1982).
The remaining four strategies for dealing with the problem of dire
consequence cases all have the flavor of evasion by the deontologist.
Consider first the famous view of Elizabeth Anscombe: such cases (real or
imagined) can never present themselves to the consciousness of a truly
moral agent because such agent will realize it is immoral to even think
about violating moral norms in order to avert disaster (Anscombe 1958;
Geach 1969; Nagel 1979). Such rhetorical excesses should be seen for
what they are, a peculiar way of stating Kantian absolutism motivated by
an impatience with the question.
Another response by deontologists, this one most famously associated
with Bernard Williams, shares some of the “don't think about it” features
of the Anscombean response. According to Williams (1973), situations of
moral horror are simply “beyond morality,” and even beyond reason. (This
view is reminiscent of the ancient view of natural necessity, revived by Sir
Francis Bacon, that such cases are beyond human law and can only be
judged by the natural law of instinct.) Williams tells us that in such cases
we just act. Interestingly, Williams contemplates that such “existentialist”
decision-making will result in our doing what we have to do in such cases
—for example, we torture the innocent to prevent nuclear holocaust.
30
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Surely this is an unhappy view of the power and reach of human law,
morality, or reason. Indeed, Williams (like Bacon and Cicero before him)
thinks there is an answer to what should be done, albeit an answer very
different than Anscombe's. But both views share the weakness of thinking
that morality and even reason runs out on us when the going gets tough.
Yet another strategy is to divorce completely the moral appraisals of acts
from the blameworthiness or praiseworthiness of the agents who
undertake them, even when those agents are fully cognizant of the moral
appraisals. So, for example, if A tortures innocent B to save a thousand
others, one can hold that A's act is morally wrong but also that A is
morally praiseworthy for having done it.
Deontology does have to grapple with how to mesh deontic judgments of
wrongness with “hypological” (Zimmerman 2002) judgments of
blameworthiness (Alexander 2004). Yet it would be an oddly cohering
morality that condemned an act as wrong yet praised the doer of it.
Deontic and hypological judgments ought to have more to do with each
other than that. Moreover, it is unclear what action-guiding potential such
an oddly cohered morality would have: should an agent facing such a
choice avoid doing wrong, or should he go for the praise?
The last possible strategy for the deontologist in order to deal with dire
consequences, other than by denying their existence, as per Taurek, is to
distinguish moral reasons from all-things-considered reasons and to argue
that whereas moral reasons dictate obedience to deontological norms even
at the cost of catastrophic consequences, all-things-considered reasons
dictate otherwise. (This is one reading of Bernard William's famous
discussion of moral luck, where non-moral reasons seemingly can trump
moral reasons (Williams 1975, 1981); this is also a strategy some
consequentialists (e.g., Portmore 2003) seize as well in order to handle the
demandingness and alienation problems endemic to consequentialism.)
Winter 2016 Edition
31
Deontological Ethics
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
But like the preceding strategy, this one seems desperate. Why should one
even care that moral reasons align with deontology if the important
reasons, the all-things-considered reasons that actually govern decisions,
align with consequentialism?
sway (Moore 2008). Remembering that for the threshold deontologist,
consequentialist reasons may still determine right action even in areas
governed by agent-relative obligations or permissions, once the level of
bad consequences crosses the relevant threshold (Moore 2012).
5. Deontology's Relation(s) to Consequentialism
Reconsidered
5.1 Making no concessions to consequentialism: a purely
deontological rationality?
The perceived weaknesses of deontological theories have led some to
consider how to eliminate or at least reduce those weaknesses while
preserving deontology's advantages. One way to do this is to embrace both
consequentialism and deontology, combining them into some kind of a
mixed theory. Given the differing notions of rationality underlying each
kind of theory, this is easier said than done. After all, one cannot simply
weigh agent-relative reasons against agent-neutral reasons, without
stripping the former sorts of reasons of their distinctive character.
A time-honored way of reconciling opposing theories is to allocate them to
different jurisdictions. Tom Nagel's reconciliation of the two theories is a
version of this, inasmuch as he allocates the agent-neutral reasons of
consequentialism to our “objective” viewpoint, whereas the agent-relative
reasons of deontology are seen as part of our inherent subjectivity (Nagel
1986). Yet Nagel's allocations are non-exclusive; the same situation can be
seen from either subjective or objective viewpoints, meaning that it is
mysterious how we are to combine them into some overall view.
A less mysterious way of combining deontology with consequentialism is
to assign to each a jurisdiction that is exclusive of the other. One
possibility here is to regard the agent-neutral reasons of consequentialism
as a kind of default rationality/morality in the sense that when an agentrelative permission or obligation applies, it governs, but in the
considerable logical space where neither applies, consequentialism holds
32
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In contrast to mixed theories, deontologists who seek to keep their
deontology pure hope to expand agent-relative reasons to cover all of
morality and yet to mimic the advantages of consequentialism. Doing this
holds out the promise of denying sense to the otherwise damning question,
how could it be moral to make (or allow) the world to be worse (for they
deny that there is any states-of-affairs “worseness” in terms of which to
frame such a question) (Foot 1985). To make this plausible, one needs to
expand the coverage of agent-relative reasons to cover what is now
plausibly a matter of consequentialist reasons, such as positive duties to
strangers. Moreover, deontologists taking this route need a content to the
permissive and obligating norms of deontology that allows them to mimic
the outcomes making consequentialism attractive. This requires a picture
of morality's norms that is extremely detailed in content, so that what
looks like a consequentialist balance can be generated by a complex series
of norms with extremely detailed priority rules and exception clauses
(Richardson 1990). Few consequentialists will believe that this is a viable
enterprise.
5.2 Making no concessions to deontology: a purely
consequentialist rationality?
The mirror image of the pure deontologist just described is the indirect or
two-level consequentialist. For this view too seeks to appropriate the
strengths of both deontology and consequentialism, not by embracing
Winter 2016 Edition
33
Deontological Ethics
both, but by showing that an appropriately defined version of one can do
for both. The indirect consequentialist, of course, seeks to do this from the
side of consequentialism alone.
Yet as many have argued (Lyons 1965; Alexander 1985), indirect
consequentialism collapses either into: blind and irrational rule-worship
(“why follow the rules when not doing so produces better
consequences?”); direct consequentialism (“acts in conformity to the rules
rather miraculously produce better consequences in the long run”); or
nonpublicizability (“ordinary folks should be instructed to follow the rules
but should not be told of the ultimate consequentialist basis for doing so,
lest they depart from the rules mistakenly believing better consequences
will result”). For more information, please see the entry on rule
consequentialism. Nor can the indirect consequentialist adequately explain
why those who violate the indirect consequentialist's rules have
“wronged” those who might be harmed as a result, that is, why the latter
have a personal complaint against the former. (This is true irrespective of
whether the rule-violation produces good consequences; but it is
especially so when good consequences result from the rule-violation.) The
bottom line is that if deontology has intuitive advantages over
consequentialism, it is far from obvious whether those advantages can be
captured by moving to indirect consequentialism, even if there is a version
of indirect consequentialism that could avoid dire consequences problem
that bedevils deontological theories.
6. Deontological Theories and Metaethics
Deontological theories are normative theories. They do not presuppose
any particular position on moral ontology or on moral epistemology.
Presumably, a deontologist can be a moral realist of either the natural
(moral properties are identical to natural properties) or nonnatural (moral
properties are not themselves natural properties even if they are
34
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
nonreductively related to natural properties) variety. Or a deontologist can
be an expressivist, a constructivist, a transcendentalist, a conventionalist,
or a Divine command theorist regarding the nature of morality. Likewise,
a deontologist can claim that we know the content of deontological
morality by direct intuition, by Kantian reflection on our normative
situation, or by reaching reflective equilibrium between our particular
moral judgments and the theories we construct to explain them (theories of
intuitions).
Nonetheless, although deontological theories can be agnostic regarding
metaethics, some metaethical accounts seem less hospitable than others to
deontology. For example, the stock furniture of deontological normative
ethics—rights, duties, permissions—fits uneasily in the realist-naturalist's
corner of the metaethical universe. (Which is why many naturalists, if they
are moral realists in their meta-ethics, are consequentialists in their ethics.)
Nonnatural realism, conventionalism, transcendentalism, and Divine
command seem more hospitable metaethical homes for deontology. (For
example, the paradox of deontology above discussed may seem more
tractable if morality is a matter of personal directives of a Supreme
Commander to each of his human subordinates.) If these rough
connections hold, then weaknesses with those metaethical accounts most
hospitable to deontology will weaken deontology as a normative theory of
action. Some deontologists have thus argued that these connections need
not hold and that a naturalist-realist meta-ethics can ground a
deontological ethics (Moore 2004).
Bibliography
Alexander, L., 1985, “Pursuing the Good—Indirectly,” Ethics, 95(2): 315–
332.
–––, 2000, “Deontology at the Threshold,” San Diego Law Review, 37(4):
893–912.
Winter 2016 Edition
35
Deontological Ethics
–––, 2004, “The Jurisdiction of Justice: Two Conceptions of Political
Morality,” San Diego Law Review, 41(3): 949–966.
–––, 2016, “The Means Principle,” in K.K. Ferzan and S.J. Morse (eds.),
Legal, Moral, and Metaphysical Truths: The Philosophy of Michael
S. Moore, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 251–264.
Alexander, L. and K.K. Ferzan, 2009, Crime and Culpability: A Theory of
Criminal Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2012, “ ‘Moore or Less’ Causation and Responsibility: Reviewing
Michael S. Moore, Causation and Responsibility: An Essay in Law,
Morals and Metaphysics,” Criminal Law and Philosophy, 6(1): 81–
92.
Anscombe, G.E.M., 1958, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy,
33(124): 1–19, at 10.
–––, 1962, “War and Murder,” in Nuclear Weapons: A Catholic Response,
W. Stein, (ed.) New York: Sheed and Ward.
Aquinas, T., 1952, Summa Theologica, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Bennett, J., 1981, “Morality and Consequences,” in The Tanner Lectures
on Human Values Vol. 2, S. McMurrin, (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bentham, J., 1789 (1948), An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
of Legislation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Brody, B., 1996, “Withdrawing of Treatment Versus Killing of Patients,”
in Intending Death, T. Beauchamp, (ed.), Upper Saddle River:
Prentice-Hall.
Brook, R., 2007, “Deontology, Paradox, and Moral Evil,” Social Theory
and Practice, 33(3): 431–40.
Broome, J., 1998, “Review: Kamm on Fairness,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 58 (4): 955–61.
Doggett, T., 2013, “Saving the Few,” Noûs, 33: 302–315.
Doucet, M., 2013, “Playing Dice with Morality: Weighted Lotteries and
the Number Problem,” Utilitas, 25: 161–181.
36
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Dougherty, T., 2013, “Rational Numbers: A Non-Consequentialist
Explanation of Why You Should Save the Many and Not the Few,”
Philosophical Quarterly, 63: 413–427.
Davis, N., 1984, “The Doctrine of Double Effect: Problems of
Interpretation,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 65: 107–123.
Ellis, A., 1992, “Deontology, Incommensurability and the Arbitrary,”
Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 52(4): 855–875.
Foot, P., 1967, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double
Effect,” Oxford Review, 5: 5–15.
–––, 1985, “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” Mind, 94: 107–123.
Frey, R.G., 1995, “Intention, Foresight, and Killing,” in Intending Death,
T. Beauchamp (ed.), Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.
Gauthier, D., 1986, Morals By Agreement, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Geach, P., 1969, God and the Soul, New York: Shocken Books.
Halstead, J., 2016, “The Numbers Always Count,” Ethics, 126: 789–802.
Harsanyi, J., 1973, Can the Maximin Principle Serve as a Basis for
Morality?: A Critique of John Rawls's Theory, Berkeley: Center for
Research in Management Science.
Hart, H.L.A. and T. Honore, 1985, Causation in the Law. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2nd edition.
Henning, T., 2015, “From Choice to Chance? Saving People, Fairness, and
Lotteries,” Philosophical Review, 124: 169–206.
Hirose, I., 2007, “Weighted Lotteries in Life and Death Cases,” Ratio,
20(1): 45–56.
–––, 2015, Moral Aggregation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hsieh, N., A. Strudler, and D. Wasserman, 2006, “The Numbers Problem,”
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 34(4): 352–372.
Hurd, H.M., 1994, “What in the World is Wrong?” Journal of
Contemporary Legal Issues, 5: 157–216.
–––, 1995, “The Deontology of Negligence,” Boston University Law
Review, 76: 249–272.
Winter 2016 Edition
37
Deontological Ethics
Huseby, R., 2011, “Spinning the Wheel or Tossing a Coin?” Utilitas,
23(2): 127–39
Kagan, S., 1989, The Limits of Morality, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.
101–102.
Kamm, F. M., 1993, Morality, Morality: Volume I: Death and Whom to
Save From It, New York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 1994, “Action, Omission, and the Stringency of Duties,” University
of Pennsylvania Law Review, 142(5): 1493–1512.
–––, 1996, Morality, Mortality: Volume II: Rights, Duties and Status, New
York: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2007, Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible
Harms, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I., 1785, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, H.J. Paton,
trans., New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
–––, 1780 (1965), The Metaphysical Elements of Justice: Part I of the
Metaphysics of Morals, J. Ladd (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.
Co.
Katz, L., 1996, Ill-Gotten Gains: Evasion, Blackmail, Fraud and Kindred
Puzzles of the Law, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lyons, D., 1965, The Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Mack, E., 2000, “In Defense of the Jurisdiction Theory of Rights,”
Journal of Ethics, 4: 71–98.
MacMahan, J., 2003, The Ethics of Killing, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Moore, M., 1993, Act and Crime: The Implications of the Philosophy of
Action for the Criminal Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
–––, 1997, Placing Blame: A General Theory of the Criminal Law,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
–––, 2004, Objectivity in Ethics and Law, Aldershot: Ashgate.
–––, 2008, “Patrolling the Borders of Consequentialist Justifications: The
38
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
Scope of Agent-Relative Obligations,” Law and Philosophy, 27(1):
35–96.
–––, 2012, “Ethics in Extremis: Targeted Killings and the Morality of
Targeted Killings,” in Targeted Killing: Law and Morality in an
Asymmetrical World, C. Finkelstein, J. Ohlin, and Al Altman, (eds.),
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, M., and Hurd, H.M. 2011, “Blaming the Stupid, Clumsy, Selfish,
and Weak: The Culpability of Negligence,” Criminal Law and
Philosophy, 5(2): 147–198.
Nagel, T., 1979, “War and Massacre,” in Mortal Questions, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
–––, 1986, The View from Nowhere, New York: Oxford University Press.
Nozick, R., 1974, Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York: Basic Books.
Otsuka, M., 2006, “Saving Lives, Moral Theories and the Claims of
Individuals,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 34(2): 109–135.
Partfit, D., 1984, Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Portmore, D.W., 2003, “Position-Relative Consequentialism, AgentCentered Options, and Supererogation,” Ethics, 113(2): 303–332.
Quinn, W.S., 1989, “Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine
of Doing and Allowing,” The Philosophical Review, 98(3): 287–312.
Quinton, A., 2007, Utilitarian Ethics, 2nd edition, London: Duckworth,
pp. 2–3.
Rachels, J., 1975, “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” New England Journal
Of Medicine, 292(2): 78–80.
Rasmussen, K.B., 2012, “Should the Probabilities Count?,” Philosophical
Studies, 159: 205–218.
Rawls, J., 1971, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press.
Richardson, H.S., 1990, “Specifying Norms as a Way to Resolve Concrete
Ethical Problems,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 19(4): 279–310.
Ross, W.D., 1930, The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University
Winter 2016 Edition
39
Deontological Ethics
Press.
–––, 1939, The Foundations of Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Saunders, B., 2009, “A Defence of Weighted Lotteries in Life Saving
Cases,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 12(3): 279–90.
Scanlon, T.M., 2003, The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political
Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schaffer, J., 2012, “Disconnection and Responsibility,” Legal Theory, 18:
399–435.
Scheffler, S., 1982, The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
––– (ed.), 1988, “Introduction,” in Consequentialism and Its Critics,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A.K., 1982, “Rights and Agency,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
11(1): 3–39.
Slote, M.A., 1984, Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism,
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Steiner, H., 1994, An Essay on Rights, Oxford: Blackwell.
Suikkanen, J., 2004, “What We Owe to Many,” Social Theory and
Practice, 30(4): 485–506.
Taurek, J.M., 1977, “Should the Numbers Count?” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, 6(4): 293–316.
Thomson, J.J., 1985, “The Trolley Problem,” Yale Law Journal, 94: 1395–
1415.
Timmerman, J., 2004, “The Individualist Lottery: How People Count, but
Not Their Numbers,” Analysis, 64(2): 106–12
Vallentyne, P. and H. Steiner (eds.), 2000, Left-Libertarianism and Its
Critics, Houndmills: Palgrave.
Vallentyne, P., H. Steiner, and M. Otsuka, 2005, “Why Left-Libertarianism
Is Not Incoherent, Indeterminate, or Irrelevant: A Reply to Fried,”
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33(2): 201–215.
Walen, A., 2014, “Transcending the Means Principle,” Law & Philosophy,
40
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
33: 427–464.
–––, 2016, “The Restricting Claims Principle Revisited: Grounding the
Means Principle on the Agent-Patient Divide,” Law & Philosophy,
35: 211–247.
Wasserman, D. and A. Strudler, 2003, “Can a Nonconsequentialist Count
Lives?” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 31(1): 71–94.
Williams, B., 1973, “A Critique of Utilitarianism” in Utilitarianism: For
and Against, J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press: 77–150.
–––, 1975, “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
50(supp.): 115–135. Revised and reprinted in Williams 1981.
–––, 1981, Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, G.L., 1961, Criminal Law: The General Part, London: Stevens
and Sons, 2nd edition, p. 739.
Woodward, P.A. (ed.), 2001, The Doctrine of Double Effect, Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press.
Zimmerman, M., 2002, “Taking Moral Luck Seriously,” Journal of
Philosophy, 99(11): 553–576.
Academic Tools
How to cite this entry.
Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP
Society.
Look up this entry topic at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology
Project (InPhO).
Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with links
to its database.
Other Internet Resources
Winter 2016 Edition
41
Deontological Ethics
[Please contact the author with suggestions.]
Related Entries
consequentialism: rule | doing vs. allowing harm | double effect, doctrine
of | ethics: virtue | Kant, Immanuel: moral philosophy | Moore, George
Edward: moral philosophy | moral dilemmas
Copyright © 2016 by the authors
Larry Alexander and Michael Moore
42
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Purchase answer to see full
attachment