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4Deontology: Doing One’s DutySuperstock
Learning ObjectivesAfter reading this chapter, you should be able to:• Explain the core features of a deontological moral theory.• Identify the two main formulations of Kant’s Categorical Imperative and describe the core features of each.• Apply each formulation of the Categorical Imperative to concrete moral problems.• Discuss criticisms of the Categorical Imperative.
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Section 4.1
Introduction to Deontology
I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
4.1 Introduction to Deontology
Do the ends always justify the means? Or are some actions moral or immoral in and of themselves in ways that take priority over the goodness or badness of the ends? The quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s (1963) famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail” expresses the idea that some actions are immoral in themselves and should never be undertaken, even when they might have good outcomes. In other words, using “immoral means to attain moral ends” (King, 1963, p. 19) would violate certain moral duties or obligations that apply to us unconditionally. (You can read the entire letter here: http://web.stanford.edu/group/King
/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf.)
Do we humans have such unconditional commitments or obligations? For example, suppose a parent says to her child, “I will be there for you no matter what.” Does that commitment depend on whether the good consequences of devoting herself to the child outweigh the bad ones? Or would this kind of commitment be one that a parent upholds no matter what?
The idea that we have unconditional or absolute obligations or duties is the basis of deontological ethics.
In Chapter 1 we distinguished the major moral theories in terms of which of the three aspects of human action each considers most fundamental when it comes to moral reasoning and moral value. The three aspects of human action are as follows:
1.
The nature and character of the person performing the action
2.
The nature of the action itself
3.
The consequences of the action
The three moral theories can be distinguished in this way:
1.
Virtue ethics focuses on the nature and character of the person performing the action.
2.
Deontological ethics focuses on the action itself.
3.
Consequentialism focuses on the consequences of the action.
In Chapter 3 we discussed consequentialist theories, which maintain that moral reasoning should be primarily concerned with the consequences of our actions, and we focused on the
This Strange Word Defined
In classical Greek (the language of the early philosophers), the word deon means “duty” or “that which is necessary.” The ending -ology means “the science or study of something.” Therefore, deontology is the science or study of duty and obligation.
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Section 4.1
Introduction to Deontology
most prominent and familiar form of consequentialist reasoning, utilitarianism. According to this view, what makes something morally right is whether it brings about the greatest overall good for the greatest number relative to alternative choices.
While that approach had many attractive aspects, one concern was that anything could, at least in theory, be morally justified so long as the ends justified the means. This includes actions like killing innocent people, subjugating minorities to discrimination, coercing people, and so on; any action is fair game if it brings about a greater good or alleviates more suffering than not doing it. These concerns reflect an intuition that certain kinds of actions are simply right or wrong in themselves, regardless of the circumstances or outcome. If that is the case, these actions would be “moral duties,” and the underlying basis of these duties would be “moral laws.”
It is important to clarify that the deontologist does not claim that consequentialist reasoning is bad or that we should never think about consequences when making decisions. Obviously, it would be nearly impossible to make good decisions if we did not consider the outcomes of our choices. Rather, the deontologist holds that the moral value of our decisions—whether a choice is morally right or wrong—lies in something other than good and bad consequences. This means that when a certain consequence conflicts with a certain duty, it is more important to respect the duty. To put it another way, deontological views will maintain, in King’s (1963) words, that “it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends” (p. 19). However, as long as we respect those duties, it is perfectly appropriate to reason in terms of better and worse outcomes.
Rules, Laws, and Duties: Moral and Nonmoral
There are, of course, many kinds of laws and duties besides moral ones. There are civil laws—the local, national, and international laws that govern our common political life. There are laws (or rules) that students must adhere to, that employees must respect, or that govern how a game is to be played. We sometimes speak of unwritten rules, like customs or standards of etiquette. These rules carry certain duties, such as a soldier’s duty to obey his or her orders, our duty as citizens to pay taxes, or the duties of a host or hostess when guests are over.
Duties established by a legal code, one’s role or occupation, or as rules of etiquette or custom are not necessarily the same as one’s moral duty. Not only can moral duties conflict with these other kinds of duties (which raises challenging questions about what one should do), they also have different grounds. However, noting certain characteristics of legal, social, or military duties can help us see what is distinctive about moral duties according to deontological ethics. In particular, duties are independent of interests and desires; they are unconditional; and they are exceptionless.
The first characteristic is that duties are independent of interests and desires; that is, they obligate us to do or avoid certain things regardless of whether we want to. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but that’s irrelevant when it is one’s duty to do so; similarly, if one has a moral duty not to lie, it doesn’t matter whether one would prefer to lie or whether doing so would suit one’s purposes.
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Introduction to Deontology Section 4.1
Second, a duty applies even when violating it might have better consequences than respecting it; that is, duties are unconditional. For instance, when it comes to paying taxes, an individual could make the case that by not paying taxes, he or she could do more good than whatever the government would do with the money. However, even if that were true, it doesn’t eliminate the person’s legal duty to pay taxes; this law applies to all, regardless of circumstance. Similarly, moral duties don’t depend on whether respecting them would have better or worse outcomes than not.
Finally, a duty is exceptionless with respect to all who fall under its scope. Some laws have built-in exceptions, such as when the tax law requires all U.S. citizens to pay taxes except those who meet certain conditions. But generally, if a person falls under the scope of a rule or law, he or she must follow it, just like anyone else. This is why we are often outraged when it seems that those with money or prestige get away with things that everyone else cannot or when athletes are able to win by cheating—as if the laws and rules apply differently to them than to others.
Now, when we consider civil laws, a soldier’s orders, and other familiar laws and duties, we may think of examples in which breaking the law or disobeying an order might appear to be the right thing to do. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders deliberately disobeyed certain laws in their pursuit of justice, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice stipulates that soldiers can and should disobey orders in certain circumstances. But this is often because we recognize that there are higher duties than the ones prescribed by civil laws or military commanders, which is what we mean when we refer to moral duties or duties of justice. The features of laws and duties—their independence from desires, their unconditionality, and their exceptionless character—are the same whether we are referring to the sphere of morality and justice or to the spheres of government, institutions, customs, and the like; however, their content (what they actually say) might be different, which is why it is important to avoid confusing these different spheres of duty.
How Can I Recognize a Deontological Moral Argument?
In Chapter 3’s discussion of utilitarianism, we considered a scenario in which several people are desperately in need of an organ transplant, and a doctor determines that Sally, who came to the hospital with a broken arm, has a set of organs that could be harvested to save the five lives at the cost of her own. If your response is something like, “It’s just plain wrong to intentionally kill an innocent person,” you’re thinking like a deontologist. If you say, “It’s unfair to the victim, since she had no say in that” or “We shouldn’t simply use people in this way” or “What would happen if everyone did that?,” then you’re getting closer to Immanuel Kant’s ideas, which we will look at later in this chapter.
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Deontological arguments are often raised when debating the moralities of war and military operations.
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Introduction to Deontology Section 4.1
Examples of Deontological Thinking
The following are examples of familiar statements that reflect deontological thinking:
•
“Racial profiling by law enforcement officers is wrong, regardless of whether it may make a community safer.”
The thought is presumably that racial profiling violates the basic dignity of profiling victims.
•
“Everyone has a fundamental right to an education and a basic minimum of health care.”
The term fundamental is key here since it implies that people have these rights regardless of whether providing them makes the majority of people better off.
•
“Abortion should be allowed because a woman has a basic right to determine for herself whether to have a child.”
•
“Abortion is wrong because every person has a basic right to life from the moment of conception.”
As we see from these two statements, deontological claims about rights and duties often conflict, raising questions about whether there actually are rights or duties associated with certain individuals and which ones should have priority. Someone may agree that a woman has a basic right to determine for herself whether to have a child but deny that she has a right to an abortion on the grounds that the fetus’s right to life is more fundamental. Others may believe that the fetus has a right to life but that a woman’s right to choose is stronger. Still others may agree that every person has a fundamental right to life but deny that the unborn fetus is a person with such a right. Either way, a deontological argument for or against abortion should be distinguished from one that focuses on the impact of abortion on society, the woman, or the fetus.
•
“While it may be morally justified to conduct a military operation that kills innocent civilian bystanders, civilians should never be intentionally targeted.”
Deontological arguments are frequently invoked when determining what may or may not be done to achieve military aims, regardless of how beneficial certain actions might be.
•
“No one should be subject to medical experimentation without giving informed consent.”
Medical experimentation promises great benefits for humankind as a whole, and those benefits can tempt us to use people against their will for the sake of “the greater good.” Deontological principles are often invoked to prevent this.
•
“I cannot tell a lie.”
According to legend, George Washington, the first president of the United States, chopped down a cherry tree when he was a young boy and uttered these words after being confronted by his father. If he had lied, he probably could have avoided punishment while not causing any greater harm, but he refused to engage in such justification and instead adhered to a basic rule against lying.
•
“When we help African countries feed their people and care for the sick it’s the right thing to do, and it prevents the next pandemic from reaching our shores” (White House, 2016).
This is a quote from President Barack Obama’s 2016 State of the Union speech (Obama frequently used the phrase “it’s the right thing to do” in his speeches). Note that the remark about the beneficial consequences is an addition to the claim about helping these countries being the “right thing to do,” not the primary reason for it being right. This suggests Obama believes that we have a duty to help these African countries independent of whether it brings about the greatest overall good.
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Introduction to Deontology Section 4.1
To take another familiar example, it is often the case that invoking the language of rights, especially universal rights, can signal the presence of a deontological argument. This is especially so if the claim to such rights is independent of their potential benefit to society. To claim that a person has a right to something is to claim that others either have a duty to provide it or not to interfere with his or her pursuit of it, so long as doing so doesn’t violate someone else’s rights. For example, if a person has a right to an education, communities or governments would either have a duty to provide the opportunity for education or at least not interfere with a person’s pursuit of it. The broader social benefits of education might be important, but deontologists would claim that a person would have such a right regardless of the social benefits (for more on this, see the Going Deeper feature Kant and Contemporary Moral Values at the end of the chapter).
Finally, we can also get a good sense of the deontological approach by thinking about how we teach children about right and wrong. Suppose a child doesn’t want to share a toy with his brother. What do we say? We might say something like, “It will make your brother (and me) happy, and so more people would be happy than if you kept it to yourself.” That’s an appeal to the better results—the greater happiness—that will result from the action. However, we may instead say something like, “How would you like it if he didn’t share his toy with you?” Here we are ignoring the consequences (or considering them less relevant) and instead focusing on what’s fair—what we should always be doing (i.e., always share your toys, even if you would rather keep them to yourself). That’s a deontological way of reasoning.
What Justifies a Deontological Principle?
Now that we have a basic sense of deontological moral reasoning and how it differs from utilitarian and other consequentialist reasoning, we turn to the much more difficult question of how this type of reasoning is justified. It is one thing to claim that something is absolutely wrong or absolutely right. It is another to explain why it is wrong or right. Why suppose there are any such moral rules, laws, or duties?
As we saw in the previous section, there are many sources of rules and laws that impose duties on us, and most are part of a code of conduct associated with an organization, community, or tradition (such as the military, a family or nation, or a religion). The justification for such rules and laws may lie in the way that they are necessary for social order and stability, such as the laws of a community. They may be integral to a particular activity, the way that the rules of baseball partly define the very game of baseball itself, and are justified by the fact that without these rules, there would be no game. Or they may be justified as essential for achieving certain goods and aims, the way that a military code of conduct is essential to a well-functioning army, the way parental rules enable children to successfully grow and develop, or how the rules associated with a religious tradition are ways for the faithful to show due respect to the Divine and to fulfill the divine purpose for their lives.
Two points are worth noting here. First, in most cases, there is some sort of authority that establishes these rules and sanctions them (i.e., gives people reason to respect them). Political authorities like legislatures or rulers establish laws and sanction them by establishing punishments for breaking them, similar to governing bodies in sports. In a typical family, children are under the authority of their parents; in the military, subordinates are under the authority of their commanding officers; in religious traditions, priests, bishops, elders, imams, lamas,
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Introduction to Deontology Section 4.1
rabbis, and other religious leaders have authority that is usually understood as representing the Divine.
Second, in most cases, the laws and duties are understood as being limited to those within a certain scope, such as citizens of a country, members of a family, Major League Baseball players, or members of the U.S. Navy. Many of the most difficult moral problems arise when these duties conflict, either within our own individual lives or between, say, different communities or between a community and a religious tradition. The question then becomes whether there are universal laws and duties with characteristics identified earlier—independent of wants and desires, unconditional, and exceptionless. Some religious traditions regard their laws as applying to everyone, even nonbelievers, on the grounds that their traditions represent the will of an absolute, divine authority. However, there are also versions of universal law that are not dependent on religious assumptions, such as those expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN General Assembly, 1948). Can we identify and justify such universal laws, and is there a kind of authority that would sanction them for everyone?
Historically, there have been two main ways of trying to answer this question. One is called the natural law theory, since it grounds the notion of moral law in an account of human nature. The other derives from the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who sought to show how certain moral principles can be true and authoritative for any rational person, regardless of background, culture, or creed, since they are based in human reason itself. We will focus our attention on Kant’s views, but for a brief overview of natural law theory, see the Ethics FYI: Natural Law Theory box.
Ethics FYI
Natural Law Theory
Natural law theory received its strongest development and defense from the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas, who was heavily influenced by both the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Judeo-Christian tradition of which he was a part. This theory of ethics begins with the notion that humans have a specific nature, and there are certain goods that are part of realizing or fulfilling that nature. The natural law specifies actions that we must do or not do in order to achieve those goods and thus live well in accordance with our natures.
For example, given our nature as social beings, we can identify certain goods like friendship and community as essential to fulfilling that nature. The natural law might specify actions like showing respect and trust, caring for those in need, sharing in responsibilities, refraining from harming or taking advantage of others, and other actions necessary for maintaining strong friendships and communiites. Other goods that are often identified as essential to our human nature include life, procreation, knowledge, rational conduct, integrity, authenticity, spirituality and religion, health, aesthetic appreciation, play, pleasure and avoidance of pain, the natural world, justice and fairness, marriage, excellence in work and play, inner peace, and joy. Can some of these be defended as universal human goods that follow from human nature itself? If so, can we specify actions that should be considered morally required or prohibited in light of human nature?
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Immanuel Kant Section 4.2
4.2 Immanuel Kant
Think of a goal, preference, or commitment that you have that not everyone else shares. Perhaps you like certain foods that others find disgusting. Maybe you have chosen to return to college to advance in your career, when your boss thinks that you should focus on your current job. Perhaps you live in a community in which most people are part of a certain religion, but you belong to a different one (or to no religion at all).
What do you expect of people who may not share your sense of what is meaningful, in terms of how they treat you and that which you care about? Naturally, we don’t expect others to share our attitude, but we do generally expect them to show respect—respect for us and the fact that we find meaning and value in something, as well as respect for whatever it is that we find meaningful and valuable. There are limits to this expectation, of course, but for the most part we would say that others ought to respect us and the things we care about.
This would only make sense if we are committed to the idea that, as a general rule, people ought to show respect to other people and toward the objects of other people’s value and interest. In other words, it is by making reference to such a rule that I can legitimately claim that I am owed respect, even if a person doesn’t agree with me about certain matters. Notice, however, what this statement further commits us to saying: If I can legitimately demand that others ought to show this respect toward me based on this general principle, then this principle applies to me as well. By saying that others ought to be respecting me, I am also saying that I ought to be respecting them.
Notice that we have just identified a moral demand or duty: One ought to respect others. But notice further where that demand comes from. It wasn’t imposed on me by God, society, parents, or any other outside source. Who imposed it upon me? I did! I can’t reasonably demand that others respect me unless I recognize a corresponding duty for me to respect others. To put it differently, the rationality of the expectation I place on others to respect me depends on some implicit idea that doing so is the right thing to do in general, but that means that it is not only right for them but also for me.
This duty, we might say, is imposed by reason. This is the core of Immanuel Kant’s account of moral duty: Duties are demands, obligations, or laws that are ultimately grounded not in any external authority like God, nature, or society but simply in that key characteristic that all humans share—our capacity to think about the reasons
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Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher who wrote about humanity’s moral duties to act consistently and to treat everyone with respect.
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Immanuel Kant Section 4.2
we have for acting in a specific way and to act accordingly. According to Kant, we have a duty to respect this capacity for rational action by ensuring that all of our reasons for action are consistent with others acting in the same way and to always treat this capacity as having inherent value. He calls this duty the “supreme principle of morality” (Kant, 2008, p. 4) or, more specifically, the Categorical Imperative.
As we will see in more detail, the Categorical Imperative can be expressed in two ways. The first is the duty to act consistently. In other words, we should only do an action if it is the sort of thing we could will anyone to do in similar circumstances. The second is the duty to treat everyone with respect. Specifically, our actions must respect the dignity each person has as someone capable of making his or her own choices.
The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Kant spelled out these kinds of ideas in his most famous text on ethics, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, portions of which we will now examine. Start by reading from the beginning of Chapter 1, found here: http://earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785chapter1
.pdf. Read from the beginning of the chapter (page 5) through the first paragraph on page 6, and from the last paragraph on page 10 through the left column on page 12.
Acting Consistently
Kant begins Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by proposing that the only thing that is good without qualification is a good will. “The good will,” he says, “sparkles like a jewel all by itself, as something that had its full worth in itself” (Kant, 1785/2008, p. 6).
Think of times when someone did something that seemed admirable or noble at first glance but was actually based on ulterior, self-serving motives. For instance, consider a business owner who chooses not to cheat a customer only out of fear of getting caught or a person who is kind to someone simply because he wants help from her well-connected father. Does that lessen our esteem for their choices? On the other hand, suppose that someone tries to do something remarkably courageous, like save someone in danger at great risk to her own life, but fails despite her best efforts. Does that lessen our admiration for the person? If we said yes to the first case but no to the second, that gets to the heart of Kant’s idea—that it is the goodness and purity of the will that we value most, not the actual results.
Going Deeper: The Roots of the Categorical Imperative
To fully understand Kant’s ideas, it is helpful to get a brief sense of the social, political, and intellectual challenges for morality that Kant’s moral philosophy tried to resolve. It is also useful to see how the Categorical Imperative emerged from a consideration of both the idea of duty and the idea of autonomy. See Going Deeper: The Roots of the Categorical Imperative at the end of the chapter for more.
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