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What is Deontology?, Part Two: Reasons to Act
Gerald F. Gaus a
Part One of this essay considered familiar ways of characterizing deontology, which focus on the notions of the good and the right. Here we will take up alternative approaches, which stress the type of reasons for actions that are generated by deontological theories. Although some of these alternative conceptualizations of deontology also employ a distinction between the good and the right, all mark the basic contrast between deontology and teleology in terms of reasons to act.
1. Deontology as a Distinctive Ethical Response Teleology, it will be recalled, is commonly defined as a theory in which the only right-making properties are good-promoting properties, while deontology is characterized by any other theory. We saw in Part One, however, that it is difficult to distinguish good-promoting rightness from other right-making properties. This problem stems from the common characterization of all worthy, desirable, or normatively favorable properties as good. If we cannot adequately distinguish them, perhaps the most familiar method of characterizing deontology is unhelpful. One way to solve this problem is to develop a specific characterization of goodness or value, so that we have conceptual room to speak of what is right but not good-promoting.
a (^) Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 35 (2001): 179-193.
Another way, suggested by H.A. Prichard, is to distinguish between the good and the right in terms of the directives they yield: the good attracts our desires while the right tells us what we must do. A different proposal for solving this problem has recently been advanced by Phillip Pettit and others. It retains a very broad conception of value of goodness, covering the full range of the normative, and then characterizes teleology and deontology as different ways of responding to value. According to Pettit, a consequentialist believes that “the proper way to respond to any values recognized is to promote them: that is, in every choice set to select the option with prognoses that mean it is the best gamble with those values.” 1 In contrast: The deontological approach takes a certain universal value — say, the respecting of such and such rights — as given and argues that institutions should be shaped in a way that bears witness to this value, honoring it punctiliously in the treatment they give to different human beings. In particular, institutions should be shaped to honour the value even if this means, as a result of various side-effects, that there is less of the value overall: even if it means that in general other agents respect people’s rights less well than they might have been brought to.^2 In a similar vein, S.I. Benn distinguished responding to value by maximizing or promoting it from respecting it. As Benn argued, someone who professes to value, say, a great art work, but saw no reason to refrain from ridiculing it or using it to weigh down garbage, would not be respecting the value.^3 If to respect something is to give “appropriate consideration or recognition to some feature” of it in our deliberations about what to do, it seems inappropriate to treat a valued work thus, and so is disrespectful. 4
valued objects. However, while values are normally best promoted, persons are to be respected. “Person-centered reasons have to do with principles, such as freedom, justice, equal respect for a person’s rights, and fidelity to truth inasmuch as we are committed to these principles in our dealings with any other person, simply in virtue of that person being a person....The notion of a natural person is fundamental to such principles.” 6 Our reasons for action differ, argued Benn, because they are based on different sorts of moral objects. It seems, then, that deontologists distinguish different responses to ethical properties because, at the heart of their view, fundamental differences between types of ethical properties mandate different responses from us. A unifying element of most contemporary deontological theories, and one sense in which they are all Kantian, is a commitment to respect for persons: our ethical response to persons is held to be qualitatively different than our ethical response to things.^7 Confronting valuable things, the proper response is to promote them, and maximize the goodness in the world that results from them. When confronting persons the proper response is respect and restraint; to act on principles or rules that indicate, in our dealings with such creatures, we are not free to pursue good-promoting projects without restraint. Thus the idea that we are to treat persons not simply as means to the production of value but as ends. Given the wide acceptance of this idea in recent ethics, it can be argued that most moral theories qualify as deontological. Will Kymlicka provides a case that plausible versions of utilitarianism are grounded on a notion of equal consideration of interests or equal concern and respect. Kymicka thus believes that not only Kant’s and Rawls’s moral theory, but those of utilitarians such as such as R..M. Hare, Peter Singer, John Harsanyi, Sidgwick and even Bentham are “deontological in that they spell out an ideal of fairness or equality for distinct individuals.” 8
The idea of autonomy has a complex relation to respect for persons and deontological ethics.^9 For Kant, autonomy was necessary to account for what he calls the “realm of ends” and the requirement that every rational being “should treat himself and all others never merely as means but in every case as an end in himself.”^10 Our autonomy is part of our rational nature; it is both what allows us to be guided by duty and that which grounds our dignity. Autonomy thus understood is the supposition of our status as moral agents, and grounds the idea that we are to be respected rather than valued. For rational autonomous agents are capable of setting ends for themselves, and it is the mutual recognition of each other as rational self-legislators that constitutes respect. Respect, then, is the upshot of a mutual recognition of autonomous agents. Autonomous agents do not inevitably value each others’ autonomy as a good to be promoted; they recognize autonomy as a rational status to be acknowledged. However, in recent ethical theory autonomy is typically seen as a valued state, a condition to be cherished or promoted. Understood thus autonomy is no longer the basis of respect, but generates instead reason to promote and cherish. Consequentialist thinkers may embrace this contemporary idea of autonomy.
3. Deontology and Rules For Benn and for Kant, treating persons with respect requires acting according to maxims or principles of a certain sort. Benn maintains that person-centered reasons are inherently principled reasons, while for Kant respect demands acting according to maxims that can be universalized. “There is, therefore, only one categorical imperative. It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”^11
4. Acts and Rules It is widely held that deontology directs us to act rather than instruct us what must happen.^18 A deontological ethic does not provide reasons to bring about good consequences or results, but reasons to act in certain ways. According to Ross, for example: Our duty, then, is not to do certain things which will have certain results. Our acts, at any rate our acts of special obligation, are not right acts because they will produce certain results — which is common to all forms of utilitarianism.... An act is not right because it, being one thing, produces good results different from itself; it is right because it is itself the production of a certain state of affairs. Such production is itself right, apart from any consequence. 19 This characterization of deontology, however, is somewhat misleading. Although it distinguishes deontology from consequentialism insofar as the aim of a deontological ethic is not to produce good consequences, it does not allow us to distinguish deontology from teleology. H.A. Prichard distinguished two varieties of teleological theories: those that would have us identify rightness with causing goodness and those that would have us identify the rightness of an act with the goodness of performing that act.^20 The first variety is a type of pure consequentialist theory: the goodness of the consequences of an act, and not the goodness of the act itself, determines its rightness. An alternative, however, is to say that the rightness of doing something derives from the goodness of the act itself. So although the rightness of an act is not derivative of the goodness of its consequences, its rightness is still derivative of its goodness, thus making the criterion of rightness teleological. Thus if the basis of the reason to do
something is to bring about the good state of affairs in which the act occurred, Prichard would still see this as teleological, though non-consequentialist. As Prichard saw it, Kant, Butler, and Price all provide examples of non-consequentialist teleological theorists. Although today Kant is inevitably seen as the exemplar of a deontologist, Prichard pointed to a continuing problem with a simple deontological reading of Kant. According to a plausible reading of Kant: Kant’s main mistake ... lies in representing moral goodness as the basis of duty. The truth is, Kant is guilty of an inversion. Whereas, in fact, to arrive at the idea that certain acts are morally good, we must already, and so independently, have the idea that there are acts which are duties, Kant is maintaining that to arrive at the latter idea we must already, and so independently, have the former.^21 If it is not simply my duty to act, but to act from a sense of duty, because such action is the only thing that is good in itself, it seems that the notion of duty presupposes the concept of goodness.^22 If an act is right just because it manifests the goodness of conscientiousness, the good is prior to the right insofar as the right is that which expresses the good. Leaving aside the difficult problem of interpreting Kant, Prichard is correct that a theory is not deontological simply because it is not consequentialist. A theory is not deontological just because the theory maintains that the moral rightness of an act is not implied by the goodness of the state of affairs it causes. If the rightness of doing something derives simply from producing the good state of affairs that the action occurred, the theory would still be teleological. Putting the basic claim of deontologists in a way that avoids Prichard’s point, we can say that for a deontologist, a person’s reason to perform an act is independent of the goodness or desirability of the state of affairs that occurs because the person performed the action. It is this sort of claim
descriptions. If so, then the supposedly problematic feature of deontology, that our reasons to act do not derive from the goodness of the states of affairs brought about, is a feature of rule following itself: the correctness of our action under a rule is not implied by the goodness or desirability of the resulting state of affairs. This is not to say that consequences do not matter and cannot override rules; it indicates only that the correctness of actions is often evaluated without reference to the goodness of the state of affairs that result. Far from being a puzzling irrationality, this feature of deontology is fundamental to rule-governed life.
5. Deontology and Side-constraints Not only is deontological ethics about the rightness of acts in a way that cannot be captured by the goal of bringing about worthy states of affairs, deontological systems direct the agent to what she should do rather than what she should make it the case that is done by her and others. If there is a deontic prohibition on killing, this shows that you, qua agent, have a strong moral reason not to kill. It does not imply that you have a strong moral reason to prevent others from killing, or to minimize the killing in the world. We do not take satisfaction of the deontic obligation or duty as itself something to be maximized. 27 This is part of what is meant by saying that deontic morality is one of side constraints.^28 This too strikes many philosophers as irrational, or at least paradoxical.^29 Thomas Nagel asks: “How can there be a reason not to twist someone’s arm which is not equally a reason to prevent his arm from being twisted by someone else?”^30 A number of recent philosophers have tried to make sense of this feature of deontic constraints by claiming that they provide agent- relative or agent-centered reasons for action.^31 According to Nagel: “Deontological
constraints...[are] reasons not to treat others in certain ways. They are not impersonal claims derived from the interests of others, but personal demands governing one’s relations with others.”^32 Thus, as he rightly sees it, “deontological reasons have their full force against your doing something — not just against its happening.”^33 Some philosophers account for this by depicting deontic restrictions as agent-relative values: a person has an agent-relative value, we can say, if only because that person happens to value, or be committed to the value does she has a reason to pursue it. On this view, a deontic restraint is a personal disvaluing by you of you doing a certain sort of act. This is clearly inadequate: it would make deontic restraints akin to personal projects or likings which are reasons for you but not for others because they stem from your special commitments or inclinations, instead of the impersonal demands on actions that they are. If, as many philosophers have suggested, the Ten Commandments are an exemplar of deontological morality, it seems odd indeed to conceive of them as issuing agent-relative reasons to act. Nagel rightly sees that deontic requirements are more than mere agent-relative valuings. Nevertheless, he insists that they are: agent-relative reasons which depend not on the aims or projects of the agent but on the claims of others....[T]he relative reason does not come from an aim or project of the individual agent, for it is not conditional on what the agents wants. Deontological restrictions, if they exist, are mandatory and may not be given up like personal ambitions or commitments.^34 Nagel finds this combination of impersonality and agent-relativity especially puzzling. On his complex account, the deontic restraint against, say, you breaking a person’s arm results from a
duties are agent-relative reasons that somehow emanate from our own perspective and personal relations. If we did accept this view of deontic restrictions, we could make sense of one feature of the notion of side-constraints: that an agent is not be committed to the project of ensuring that all other people satisfy the restraint. Our concern is with what we do, not what others do. However, the characterization of deontic reasons as agent-relative values leaves unexplained a second feature of deontic restraints: they do not imply reason to maximize in our lives their overall satisfaction. If deontic restrictions emanate from something valuable or important to our lives or personal relations in acting in a particular way, it would see manifestly irrational for us to act that way today, knowing full well that, as a result, we will not be able to act that way as much tomorrow. Yet deontic requirements often imply this. Suppose that as an atheist, I have a duty to oppose religious superstition whenever I am confronted by it; and suppose that if I oppose it today I will be fired from the university, and unable effectively oppose it in the future. As a moral agent, I have to weigh up a number of values and concerns when deciding whether to live up to my duty and oppose superstition today; however, what is crucial for the deontologist is that the mere fact that over the long run I will have less opportunity to act on my duty does not show that I do not have reason to act on it today. This seems irrational if acting on this duty is an agent-relative valuing; if, however, it is a rule-governed response to confronting certain situations, the relevance of the rule to the situation explains why regardless of the net costs in terms of honoring the duty, I have a reason to be oppose religious superstition now. My present act instantiates the general rule. That is my reason for performing it.
6. Deontology as the Morality of Modernity
To maintain that we have a reason to act in some way just because so acting instantiates a rule, principle or maxim that instructs us to do so implies that our reason to act does not depend simply on our goals, values, or desires. As Prichard stressed, deontic reasons are imperatival rather than attractive: they instruct us to perform our duties because performance is required, not because we find the action attractive. It is relevant that “[t]he term ‘deontology’ derives from the Greek words deon (duty) and logos (science).”^36 In the broadest sense, then, an ethical theory is deontological if it constitutes a science of duty and obligations. As Charles Fried says, “the whole domain of the obligatory, the domain of duty, [is] the domain of deontology as opposed to the domain of the good.”^37 Thus whereas teleology is the science of what is good and worthy, deontology is the science of duty and obligation. Charles Larmore has argued that in this expansive sense deontological ethics is the distinctively modern view of ethics: deontologists understand ethics as juristic, issuing demands or imperatives regarding what we must do.^38 Following Sidgwick, Larmore contrasts this modern conception of ethics to the view of the ancients, according to which the good is the foundation of ethics.^39 Referring to Sidgwick, he says: If the notion of right is replaced by that of good at the foundations of ethics...then the moral ideal will no longer be imperative , but rather attractive. His point was that ethical value may be defined either as what is binding upon an agent, whatever may be his wants or desires, or as what an agent would in fact want if he were sufficiently informed about what he desires. In the first view, the notion of right is fundamental, in the second the notion of good. 40 As Sidgwick saw it, “[a]ccording to the Aristotelian view — which is that of Greek philosophy
This is a crucial point. Utilitarianism too is a science of duties. Moralities justifying imperatival notions of right and wrong are part and parcel of the modern condition, in which we constantly confront others whom we do not know, and who typically entertain notions of what is good and desirable that differ markedly from our own. Our moral relations with such strangers must be centered on what actions and forbearances we owe each other and, as Mill says, we can exact from each other. Thus the notions of right, wrong, duty, and obligation become the core of ethical life. Seen against this background, neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics is a rejection of modernity rather than a solution to its problems. It is impossible to see how the ethical life of modern, pluralistic communities can be regulated by shared understandings of what is desirable and what attracts our wills. Although, as Sidgwick realized, modern ethics does not forsake inquiry into the “Good or Well-being of Man,” such an investigation becomes part what Sidgwick called “Private Ethics.”^46 In a similar vein, Peter Strawson distinguished social morality from individual ideals. Individuals, he tells us, construct personal ideals, “pictures of ideal forms of life.”^47 Much of our ethical thinking is about such ideals: what sort of life is best? What really makes life worth living? In the modern world, the study of ends is a study of personal ideals. Strawson contrasts such personal ends to social morality, the demands made on us by our fellows. Again, the point is that the ethical life of our society is inherently deontological, being focused on the “science of duty.”^48 If this is so, however, Prichard’s criticism of teleological theories takes on increased importance. As we have seen, teleologists such as Rashdall criticized deontology as irrational because of the claim made by deontologists that right action is not intended to promote any good.
Prichard, however, turns the tables on this common complaint, maintaining that the problem of teleologists and their fixation on the good is that they are unable to account for the imperatival reasons that characterize duties. If, as Sidgwick suggests, all modern morality, including modern teleology, is imperatival, the upshot of Prichard’s critique is the unsuitability of teleology as a modern ethical theory. Its very attraction, an intimate connection between rational action and promoting goodness, renders it unable to adequately account for our duty to promote the good, whether we are attracted to it or not.
7. Conclusion Because the idea of deontological ethics has been understood in so many ways, a number of different moral theories can be described as “deontological.” We have examined ten influential ways in which the notion of deontology has been understood: (1) as an ethical theory in which the right does not maximize production of the good; (2) as an ethical theory admitting considerations of justice; (3) as a moral theory that advances absolute moral commands or prohibitions; (4) as an ethical theory such as Prichard’s in which duties and obligations are justified independently of the concept of the good; (5) as an ethical theory such as Gauthier’s moral contractualism, in which the concept of the right is not defined in terms of a substantive notion of the good; (6) as an ethical theory according to which our values and conceptions of the good presuppose justified moral principles; (7) as an ethical theory which holds that we have reasons to respect as well as to promote
speaking a language, playing a game, or having good manners; it is to let our actions be guided by rules and principles rather than solely by outcomes. The really interesting question, perhaps, is why so many modern moral philosophers remain so committed to the one-sided view of reason and morality that we call consequentialism.
Notes
- Philip Pettit, “Consequentialism” in Peter Singer, ed., A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 233.
- Philip Pettit, The Common Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 303. For a similar understanding of deontology, see Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 499.
- Stanley I. Benn, “Personal Freedom and Environmental Ethics” in Gray Dorsey, ed., Equality and Freedom: International and Comparative Jurisprudence (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publication, 1977), vol. II, p. 414. See also Gerald F. Gaus, Value and Justification: The Foundations of Liberal Theory (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p.
- See Stephen L. Darwall, “Two Kinds of Respect,” Ethics vol. 88 (October 1977).
- S. I. Benn, A Theory of Freedom (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 7-8.
- Ibid.
- See Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals , Lewis White Back, trans. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill. 1959), p. 47; Roger J. Sullivan, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press), pp. 195ff. Cf. Benn, A Theory of
