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In ethics, deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: Deon meaning obligation or duty) is a theory holding that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering one's duties and the rights of others.
One of the most important implications of deontology is that a person's behavior can be wrong even if it results in the best possible consequences. In contrast to consequentialism, a philosophy infamous for its claim that the ends justify the means, deontology insists that how people accomplish their goals is usually (or always) more important than what people accomplish.
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Proponents of deontological ethics
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The most famous deontological theory was advanced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In his theory, Kant claimed that various actions are morally wrong because they are inconsistent with the status of a person as a free and rational being, and that, conversely, acts that further the status of people as free and rational beings are morally right. Therefore, Kant claimed, we all have a duty to avoid the first type of act and perform the second type of act.
Kant believed that this duty was absolute. He drew a distinction between contingent duties, which only need to be carried out under certain empirical circumstances, and categorical duties, which always need to be carried out, because they are based on a priori reasoning about the general nature of things, and thus apply no matter what the circumstances are. Kant thought of the duty to promote human freedom and rationality as the only truly categorical duty. He called this duty the categorical imperative, and described it at great length in his writings. Of the five formulations of the categorical imperative Kant developed, the three most well-known and significant are:
Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
Act as though you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.
Other examples of deontological theorists include the English philosopher John Locke and the modern-day philosopher John Rawls. Locke held that individual persons have rights that are part of the natural law of the world, and that actions (including the death penalty, which he advocated) can be judged as right or wrong based on whether they respect these rights. John Rawls held that individual persons have a duty to act according to the laws that they would propose if they were unaware of their present socioeconomic status. Because most people are risk-averse, Rawls argues, most people in this situation would propose laws that disproportionately benefit the poor and the oppressed. Because John Rawls is particularly concerned with the utility of the least well off, he is sometimes associated with utilitarian and/or consequentialist schools of thought. What John Rawls has in common with thinkers like Kant and Locke is his use of the distinction between the concept of the right and the concept of the good. Whereas consequentialist theories argue or assume that an act is right (and should therefore be carried out) if it maximizes the good, deontological theories assert that an act can maximize the good yet still be wrong (and therefore should not be carried out) if it violates some deontological principle such as a right or a duty or the categorical imperative.
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Criticism of deontology
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Many utilitarian philosophers offer critiques of deontology. Jeremy Bentham, an early utilitarian philosopher, criticized deontology on the grounds that it was essentially a dressed-up version of popular morality, and that the unchanging principles that deontologists attribute to natural law or universal reason are really a matter of subjective opinion. John Stuart Mill, who lived in 19th century Britain, argued that deontologists usually fail to specify which principles should take priority when rights and duties conflict, so that deontology cannot offer complete moral guidance.
Shelly Kagan, a current professor of philosophy at Yale University, notes in support of Mill and Bentham that under deontology, individuals are bound by constraints (such as the requirement not to murder), but are also given options (such as the right not to give money to charity, if they do not wish to). His line of attack on deontology is first to show that constraints are invariably immoral, and then to show that options are immoral without constraints.
Another, unrelated critique of deontological ethics comes from aretaic theories, which often maintain that neither consequences nor duties but "character" should be the focal point of ethical theory. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, sought to describe what characteristics a virtuous person would have, and then argued that people should act in accordance with these characteristics.
Finally, Ayn Rand, founder of the philosophical school of objectivism, harshly criticized deontology on many occasions. Ragnar Danneskjold, one of the heroic characters in her book Atlas Shrugged, states, "I've chosen a special mission of my own. I'm after a man whom I want to destroy. He died 167 years ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in. (What man?) Immanuel Kant." Rand accuses Kant of being the most evil philosopher of all time, calling his morality "sadistic" and insisting that Kant wants people to destroy their own minds since Kant "severed the connection between morality and man's life here on earth". According to Rand, Kant's morality is perverse because it condemns those who pursue their own happiness and encourages people to submit to a set of deontological principles that lead to "eternal suffering".
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