Deontological EthicsWord文件下载.docx

1、s Foil: Consequentialism 2. Deontological Theorieso 2.1 Agent-Centered Deontological Theorieso 2.2 Patient-Centered Deontological Theorieso 2.3 Contractarian Deontological Theorieso 2.4 Deontological Theories and Kant 3. The Advantages of Deontological Theories 4. The Weaknesses of Deontological The

2、ories 5. Deontologys Relation（s） to Consequentialism Reconsideredo 5.1 Making no concessions to consequentialism: a purely deontological rationality?o 5.2 Making no concessions to deontology: a purely consequentialist rationality? 6. Deontological Theories and Metaethics Bibliography1. DeontologyBec

3、ause 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 tha

4、t choicesacts and/or intentionsare 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 valuableoften called, collectively, “the Good.” They then are in a position to assert that whatever c

5、hoices 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

6、 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）

7、is itself partly constitutive of the Good, whereas conventional utilitarians merely add or average each persons share of the Good to achieve the Goods maximization.Moreover, there are some consequentialists who hold that the doing or refraining from doing, of certain kinds of acts are themselves int

8、rinsically 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 Good to be maximizedthe so-called “utilitarianism of rights” （Nozick 1974）.None of these pluralist positions erase the difference betw

9、een 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

10、 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 ach

11、ieve without regard to whether such states of affairs are achieved through the exercise of ones 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 th

12、at 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, n

13、o realm of going beyond ones 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 ones own projects or to ones family, friends, and countrymen, lea

14、ding 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） that in certain circumstances inno

15、cents be killed, beaten, lied to, or deprived of material goods to produce greater benefits for others. Consequencesand only consequencescan conceivably justifyanykind of act, for it does not matter how harmful it is to some so long as it is more beneficial to others.A well-worn example of this over

16、-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

17、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

18、the trolley will halt its advance towards five workers trapped on the track. We shall return to these examples later on.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 certa

19、in 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

20、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

21、 make the world worse by actions having bad consequences; lacking is a corresponding （positive） duty to make the world better by actions having 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

22、 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.Yet another idea popular with consequentialists is to move from consequentialism as a theory th

23、at directly assessesactsto consequentialism as a theory that directly assessesrulesor character-trait inculcationand 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 dire

24、ct （act） consequentialism because it will not legitimate egregious violations of ordinary moral standardse.g., the killing of the innocent to bring about some better state of affairsnor will it be overly demanding and thus alienating each of us from our own projects.The relevance here of these defen

25、sive maneuvers by consequentialists is their common attempt to mimic the intuitively plausible aspects of a non-consequentialist, deontological approach to ethics. For as we shall now explore, the strengths of deontological approaches lies: （1） in their categorical prohibition of actions like the ki

26、lling 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 TheoriesHaving now briefly taken a look at deontologi

27、sts 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 choices bring about. The most familiar forms of de

28、ontology, and also the forms presenting the greatest contrast to consequentialism, hold that some choices cannot be justified by their effectsthat no matter how morally good their consequences, some choices are morally forbidden. On such familiar deontological accounts of morality, agents cannot mak

29、e 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 a

30、re 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 acco