Encyclopedic Notes on Deontological Ethics and Kantian Theory

Core Slogans of Deontological Ethics

Deontological ethics is often summarized by several key principles and aphorisms that distinguish it from other ethical frameworks:

• The Golden Rule: ‐‐Do unto your neighbour as you would have done onto yourself.‐‐
• Persons as Ends: ‐‐Persons are ends in themselves.‐‐ This implies that individuals have intrinsic value and should not be treated merely as tools to achieve a goal.
• The Universal Law: ‐‐Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.‐‐ This emphasizes the consistency and broad applicability of moral rules.
• Irrelevance of Consequences: ‐‐Consequences are not ethically significant.‐‐ In deontology, the morality of an action is determined by the nature of the act itself or the intent behind it, rather than the resulting outcome.

Deontology vs. Utilitarianism: Foundational Differences

The primary distinction between Deontology and Utilitarianism lies in their focus on outcomes versus duties:

• Utilitarianism (Consequentialism): This is a consequentialist theory. What is considered "right" is determined solely by the consequences of an action. The goal is to perform actions that generate more net happiness than any other available alternative.
• Deontology (Non-Consequentialism): According to deontology, an action can be inherently right or wrong regardless of its positive or negative consequences. It is defined by adherence to rules, duties, and obligations.

The Lifeboat Case Study

To illustrate the stark contrast between these two schools of thought, consider a hypothetical scenario: You are on a lifeboat that is sinking because it is overcrowded. The only way for everyone else on the boat to survive is to throw $1$ person overboard to their death.

• Deontological Perspective: It is immoral to throw the person overboard. Since every person is an "end in herself" and not a means to serve the interests of others, sacrifice for the sake of the collective is prohibited.
• Utilitarian Perspective: It would be morally wrong $not$ to throw the person overboard. Refusal to act would result in less overall net happiness (as more people would die), and therefore the utilitarian calculation demands the sacrifice of the individual for the many.

The Trolley Problem and Ethical Dilemmas

The Trolley Thought Experiment serves as a platform to test deontological and utilitarian intuitions:

• The Scenario: A trolley is headed toward $5$ workers. You can flick a switch to divert it to a track where it will kill only $1$ person. Alternatively, in a variation, you could push a large person off a bridge to stop the trolley and save the $5$ workers.
• Deontological Friction: Some deontologists might argue for flicking the switch but against pushing the large person. The reasoning involves the distinction between "means" and "ends":
  • Pushing the person is directly using them as a means to an end. It is impossible to have good intentions when you are intending to harm someone for the sake of others.
  • Flicking the switch is seen by some as intending to save $5$ people, where the harm to the $1$ person is a known but unintended byproduct.
• Counter-Arguments: If the actor has the knowledge that flicking the switch will kill, is their intention truly different from pushing the person? Some argue there is no meaningful difference that deontologists can use to justify flicking the switch while condemning pushing.
• Extreme Scenarios: Would the duty not to kill a person remain if the stakes were higher? For instance, what if a child was on the track, or if the train was heading toward a bomb that would kill $1,000,000$ people? In such cases, the question arises: Is there a moral duty to push the person off the bridge to prevent mass catastrophe?

The Primacy of Intentions in Moral Assessments

In deontology, the ethical weight of an action resides in the actor's intentions:

• Immoral Acts with Good Results: If an actor brings about excellent consequences but does so through non-genuine or selfish motivations, the act is still considered immoral.
  • Example: Someone gives to charity purely to improve their public image.
• Moral Acts with Bad Results: If an actor has good intentions but brings about bad consequences, the act can still be morally acceptable.
  • Example: Someone gives to a charity with genuine good intentions, but that charity turns out to be a well-disguised criminal organization.
• Critical Inquiry: A major point of debate is whether it is acceptable to look only at intentions rather than consequences. Furthermore, if "good intentions" simply means the intention to bring about the best consequences for others, deontology might risk reducing back into a form of consequentialism.

Determining Duties: Intuitionism vs. Kantian Scrutiny

If deontology relies on acting according to duty, one must define how those duties are determined.

• Moral Intuitionism: This approach suggests humans have a special faculty—akin to the sense of smell or sight—that allows them to sense whether acts are morally reprehensible, praiseworthy, or neutral.
• Kantian Scrutiny: Immanuel Kant rejected intuitionism. He believed duties could be discovered through close scrutiny of the concept of "obligation" or "duty" itself.

Hypothetical vs. Categorical Imperatives

Kant divided requirements (duties) into two categories based on their "force":

• Hypothetical Imperatives (Contingent Duties): These are escapable requirements that depend on personal goals or specific authorities.
  • Example 1 (Personal Goal): If you want to learn calculus, you are required to learn basic arithmetic. If you lose the desire to learn calculus, you can escape the duty to learn arithmetic.
  • Example 2 (Legal Authority): To receive a J$1$ student or researcher visa to study at a US University, you must pay a SEVIS fee for a DS-$2019$ form. This duty only applies if you have the desire to study in the USA.
• Categorical Imperatives (Moral Duties): Kant argued that moral obligations are inescapable and universal. They cannot be avoided by changing interests, personal aims, or jurisdictions. They are binding under all circumstances.

The Inescapable Authority of Reason

Kant identifies the ultimate authority for moral requirements as ‐‐reason itself.‐‐

• The Argument from Contradiction: If one asks for a reason to act rationally, they are implicitly acknowledging the authority of reason to provide that justification. Doubting the authority of reason involves a contradiction because the act of questioning requires the very thing being questioned.
• The Unescapable Requirement: According to Kant, the fundamental, unescapable moral requirement is to provide reasons for our actions.

Maxims and the Categorical Imperative

To determine if an action is right or wrong, reason must be used to evaluate the "maxim" or rule underlying the action.

• The Maxim: Every action can be understood as following a rule. For example, giving to charity follows the maxim: "Help others that could benefit from your help."
• The Test of Universality: A moral law is a maxim that can be applied to everyone universally without resulting in a contradiction. Kant proposes two questions:
  1. Can you intend that the maxim of your action be a universal moral law?
  2. Can the rule you are following be one that you apply to every single person?
• The Law of Reason: If the rule underlying your action results in a contradiction when universalized, it violates the law of reason and is therefore immoral, as the actor is being inconsistent and selfish.

Case Study: The Obligation to Keep Promises

Kant uses the example of making a promise to pay back money without intending to do so to illustrate the categorical imperative:

• The Maxim: "Anyone who believes himself to be in need could promise what he pleased with the intention of not fulfilling it."
• The Contradiction: Universalizing this rule would make the social practice of promise-making impossible. If everyone made false promises, no one would believe any promise, and the concept of a "promise" would lose all meaning. It would result in "vain pretense."
• Conclusion: Breaking a promise is wrong because the maxim cannot be universalized without destroying the social practice it relies upon.

Philosophical Challenges: The Problem of Multiple Maxims

A significant difficulty in Kant's view is that a single action can often be described by multiple different maxims, leading to conflicting moral statuses:

• Scenario: Breaking a promise in a life-or-death situation.
• Maxim A: "Make a promise even though you don't intend to keep it." This is not universalizable (results in contradiction).
• Maxim B: "Don't make a promise unless you intend to keep it, unless you are in life or death situations." This is perfectly universalizable and consistent.
• The Moral Ambiguity: If an action can follow a rule that is grounded in reason and follows from a universal law, it is justified. However, if the action simultaneously follows a non-universalizable rule, its moral status becomes unclear. It remains difficult to determine exactly which specific maxim or rule an action truly follows from.

Questions & Discussion

• The Trolley Dilemma: What are your thoughts on flicking the switch versus pushing the large person? Would you do both, neither, or just one?
• Intuitionism: What do you think of the intuitionist approach, which claims we have a "moral sense" similar to our five physical senses?
• Intentions vs. Consequences: Is it truly acceptable to look only at intentions when assessing the morality of an action, or must we account for the actual results produced in the world?