Deontology vs Consequentialism

Duckweed Jones May 18, 2020 at 02:42 1825 views 3 comments

I was writing an assignment where I had to answer a question from a deontological perspective. I've since spiralled into beleiving deontology doesn't actually exist.
pls refute if you can:

The idea of any act being inherently good or bad is unfounded in any context, even legal or religious. Ultimately everything is conequentialist as everything is good or bad because you are working for or against what someone or something commanded. Murder is not inherently bad, it is bad because it goes against the law, or against what god said or against what you yourself said. Either way, good and bad can only be determined when an act is tied to a consequence. Therefore Deontology can't really exist.

Comments (3)

jgill May 18, 2020 at 04:29 #413727 0 likes

Sorry. I misread this as "dermatology". :meh:

Pfhorrest May 18, 2020 at 05:06 #413734 0 likes

The question of consequentialism or not is whether the ends justify the means. “No” is obviously a possible answer to that. The means of course are still judged on some basis or another, but non-consequential reasoning judges the means themselves on that basis, and not just some end that those means cause.

E.g. harvesting one healthy person’s organs to save five dying people is good according to consequentialism, but not otherwise.

SophistiCat May 18, 2020 at 17:41 #413851 0 likes

Quoting Duckweed Jones

he idea of any act being inherently good or bad is unfounded in any context, even legal or religious. Ultimately everything is conequentialist as everything is good or bad because you are working for or against what someone or something commanded. Murder is not inherently bad, it is bad because it goes against the law, or against what god said or against what you yourself said.

I am not sure why you think this fits into consequentialism. You don't offer much of an argument, but your last sentence hints at a traditional deontological duty theory, as it contains a paraphrase of the well-known categorization of ethical duties: duties to God, duties to oneself, and duties to others.