Relation to others· Morals
Deontologism
Axis: Criterion of right action — What makes an action morally good?
An action is good if it conforms to duty, that is, to principles valid for everyone, regardless of its consequences. Some acts, such as lying or treating others as mere means, remain forbidden even when they would be useful.
Movements 1
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Vedānta (Advaita)inferable
Vedanta's ethics is rooted in dharma, the duty proper to each according to one's order and station, to be fulfilled for its own sake. The Bhagavad Gita gives its formula, disinterested action (nishkama karma): to act without attachment to the fruits, from duty and not from calculation. To which is added the cultivation of detachment and self-knowledge, a virtue leading to liberation.
Bhagavad Gita, II-III · Shankara
Philosophers 2
Kantexplicit
Nothing is good without qualification except a good will: neither talents nor happiness, which can serve evil. If moral worth lies neither in the object willed nor in the consequences, it can lie only in the form of the maxim, its fitness to hold as a law for all. From this the is derived: act only on a maxim I can will to be universal. This is a deontology that refuses, against , to measure duty by outcome; the reintroduces the virtues, but as derived from duty, hence a small residual weight on that pole.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, sections I and II · Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue
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Lockeinferable
Locke conceives a natural law, accessible to reason and grounded in God's will, which prescribes duties (not to harm another in life, liberty or possessions): a morality of obligation, close to . He nonetheless mixes in the consideration of rewards and punishments, and so of consequences, which motivate obedience, hence a secondary consequentialist weight.
Essays on the Law of Nature (1664); Two Treatises of Government, II, ch. 2 (the law of nature)
Argument
- There is a difference between things, which have a price and can be replaced, and persons, who have a : they are worth something as ends in themselves, not for the service got from them.
- To use someone as a mere means, to sacrifice them, deceive them, instrumentalize them 'for the good', is to deny that dignity, to reduce them to a useful thing. The gain obtained does not redeem that denial.
- Some acts therefore carry this violation in themselves, independently of their happy outcomes: what makes them unjust is not their balance sheet, but what they do to the person.
Therefore So the right action is the one that conforms to duty, to principles valid for all and respectful of each as an end; and some prohibitions, such as treating another as a mere means, hold whatever the cost.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position Thought experiment
- Your spouse and a stranger are drowning, you can save only one. The morality of duty first has you check that it is permitted to save your own.
- But this check is 'one thought too many': the person who, before the one they love, first asks whether the rule allows it has already failed what the bond requires.
- A morality that requires passing through the impartial rule, even in our most intimate attachments, alienates what makes a moral life worth living: the bonds themselves.
Therefore So the impartiality of duty misses the concrete heart of morality: it is not the rule that commands saving the one you love, it is the bond, and a morality that forgets this asks one thought too many.
See the page- PrescriptiveMoral Thought experimentThe consequences or the forbidden act
Should an act be judged by its consequences alone, even if that means sacrificing one to save five, or do some acts stay forbidden whatever the cost?
an act - PrescriptiveMoral Thought experimentSaving a loved one rather than a stranger
We save the one we love without hesitating; but is what makes that act good a calculation, a rule that permits it, good character, or the bond itself, which no morality should require us to justify?
an act for a loved one - PrescriptiveMoralAre there absolutely forbidden acts?
Do some acts, such as lying or letting an innocent die, stay forbidden even when they would avert a disaster, or does everything give way before the scale of the consequences?
the act - PrescriptiveMoralThe part luck plays
We judge the reckless driver who ran over a child more harshly than the equally reckless one who happened to meet none: does the moral worth of an act depend on results we do not control?
the act - PrescriptiveMoralRivals or facets
Consequences, duty, virtue, care: are these rival theories of which only one can be true, or the facets of a single morality that nothing compels us to unify?
the moral criterion - PrescriptiveMoralIs the moral standpoint impartial?
Is judging morally a matter of rising to principles that hold for everyone regardless of persons, or is concrete attentiveness to those close to us the very heart of morality?
the moral standpoint - PrescriptiveMoralThe rule or the situation
Is acting well a matter of applying principles fixed in advance, or of judging each situation in its singularity, at the risk that rule and case never quite coincide?
moral judgment