Rohith Gopal

Doug Thiel
Philosophy R
November 28th
Deontology Term Paper
Immanuel Kants deontological moral theory is the best theory to model our societal
moral values after. In a world where people are naturally self-interested, it is difficult to deter
people from only making decisions and choices that will benefit them directly. Acting based on
moral duties, formatted in a way to be universal and indiscriminate towards anyone, yourself
included, is a way to ensure that every action you make is of good intent. This encourages taking
on positive duties and deters individuals from breaking their negative duties. I believe that
selflessness is the key to progression of an individual and a society, and following these moral
duties is a way to accomplish this.
We live in a world where there are options and opportunities we can seize, and there are
things we are prohibited from doing, either lawfully prohibited or ethically shamed. This is
consistent with having positive and negative duties. If we apply ourselves into seizing positive
duties with good intentions, and abiding by our negative duties, then we are living morally
righteous lives. Living with this theory would mean that we do not treat anyone as a means to
an end, unless they have consent, which is one of the major problems of consequentialism. The
categorical imperative ensures that your moral duty and intentions are universal, which
eliminates the subjectivity associated with virtue ethics and makes sure the principles you follow
are aligned with the principles others will follow. This will prevent individuals from conducting

themselves in a way that only makes sense to them, because they are held accountable to conduct
themselves in a manner that others could accept and follow.
What is right and wrong varies immensely from individual to individual. Accepting the
divine command theory, and any religious text telling you how you must conduct your life would
be disregarding your own personal intuition to reason and do the right thing based on what your
duty is in respect to others. If virtue ethics was implemented in our society, it would be very
difficult to make it work, because trying to keep order maintaining the belief that everyone will
do the right thing would quickly lead to chaos. We all have a different moral code and a
different set of ethics that we believe are correct, and others will think are wrong. However, if we
can come to a consensus on what moral duties we have, that is something tangible and
measurable, there is a universal set of duties. With positive duties, there is imperfection; there is
no rule for what positive duties you decide to take on, and with what extent you decide to
execute them. This is a good thing because people can exercise their free will and come to make
more developed decisions with each circumstance they are put in when they have a choice to
execute a positive duty. It is what creates variety in individuals while still maintaining a strong
ethical code.
With utilitarianism, an argument could be made that positive and negative duties can lead
to a bad outcome. If you knew your friend (A) wanted to hurt your other friend (B) for an
argument they had gotten into, and you were hanging out with friend B while you receive a
phone call from friend A asking if you knew where friend (B) is. It is your positive duty to help
your friend B and try to prevent him from getting hurt. That would just the right thing to do,
according to Kant. However it is your negative duty to not lie, and in order to help your friend B,
you would need to lie to friend A about his location. Negative duties are perfect, meaning you do

not modify them due to circumstances. What would you do in this instance? Because you can
modify positive duties, and you cannot modify your negative duty to lie, your only course
consistent with deontology would be to tell friend A that you are with friend B. However the
reason this would be the best course, not only to this specific situation, but all situations of this
nature is the uncertainty involved. You do not know what friend B has done to provoke friend A,
and it is not your place to interfere with things that arent your business. As history has taught us,
interfering with nature does not always do what we intend it will do. There are to many variables
in a situation like this, or any situation that involves breaking a negative duty to do something
that a utilitarian would consider for the greatest good. This amount of uncertainty is the reason
why we should just let it be, and make sure we stay consistent with our negative and positive
duties. If we do this, and others do this, it will lead to the best outcome that could have
happened. It is not our responsibility to interfere with others affairs and try to manipulate a better
outcome, there is too much grey area with this to ensure a 100% success rate.
Utilitarianism does not work in the sense that Dr. Consequentialist is not very empathetic.
Empathy is very important in any moral situation, and utilitarianism is too objective to include
empathy. In the instance that you witnessed a robber stealing money from a bank and donated it
to an orphanage, there are hundreds of kids that now have much better lives, clean and new
clothes, toys, and a healthier environment. A utilitarian would argue that this is the best outcome
for the money, however there are a ton of people affected by the banks robbery, and someone
down the road is taking the toll for the robbery. There is a divide here, a discrepancy on who has
it worse and if this is the best outcome for society. There could be an argument saying the
children could use the money more-so than the bank and that you should report the robber to the
police, or vice versa. With deontology, it would be clear that it was the robbers duty not to steal,

and the money that children are using was stolen, and that is not right. It would be your duty to
report the thief because he broke a negative duty. Deontology has a consistency unmatched by
virtue ethics and utilitarianism. Consistency is very important with ethics because it maintains
universality.
There is a point to where logic can go against humanities best interests. Which is the
main reason I feel why utilitarianism will not work in our society. It is good in theory, but when
applied, mankinds self interest comes in and utility becomes selfish. Relying on human natures
ability to do the right thing is also futile, because the right thing quickly becomes a game of
telephone when transferred from person to person. There must be a sense of duty, duties that are
both crafted from logic and duties that can come close to universally doing the right thing, all
persons considered. This is a difficult task to accomplish, but deontology captures the beauty of
logic from utilitarianism and the faith in humanity to do the right thing from virtue ethics, which
is why it is the most effective moral theory. It can be applied to all situations and remain firm in
stance, even when put in question, as outlined in the examples above. Deontology does not copout and adapt to counterarguments, nor does it merely state that the right thing will be done.