Are there absolutely forbidden acts?
On the axis: Criterion of right action · the act
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?
Justification
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.
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section II
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, sections I and II · Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue
Anchors: Kant · Anscombe