In the case of the Inquiring Murderer, a woman runs past you and hides in some bushes. When you ask her what is going on, she tells you that someone chasing her is attempting to kill her, and asks you to leave. Soon after, a man armed with a knife asks you if you have seen the woman. Most people would have no issue lying to the man about the woman’s whereabouts. If you tell him where she is, he will almost certainly kill her. This way of thinking produces the greatest good, a consequentialist theory. However, one deontological approach to this situation would hold that lying, regardless of the circumstances, is unethical and an absolute moral law that cannot be violated. This idea of Kantian Ethics, along with Prima Facie Duties and Rights-Based …show more content…
Similarly to Kantian Ethics, what matters morally is whether our actions conform to relevant duties and moral laws, but there are occasions when some duties take priority over other duties. Thus, in the case of the Inquiring Murderer, the duty to protect human life overrides the duty not to lie. There is a correlation between rights and duties, therefore Prima Facie Duties and Rights-Based Ethics often go hand-in-hand. The woman has a right to life, and those around her have a duty to protect that right when it becomes …show more content…
Utilitarianism, on one hand, holds that the morality of actions is dependent upon whether or not they bring about good consequences. Criminal punishment, whether it be through incarceration, deterrence, of rehabilitation, seeks to prevent future crime, thereby benefitting the greater good. Deontology, however, has some objections to these justifications. If the punishment does not prevent future crime, then by deontological standards, we are only inflicting harm towards a person without the benefit of the greater good. Also, punishing people is equivalent to using them as a means and not an end, a violation of human dignity. Therefore, deontologists justify punishment by looking at it as a necessary act. We must punish criminals for their wrongdoings in the name of justice. If good consequences come out of it, that is just an added bonus. Arguably the most important aspect for punishing criminals in the eye of a deontologist is that the punishment must be proportionate to the crime. In turn, we are punishing them because they committed a crime, yet still respecting their human
A system of rules organized an association of people to establish a society. These rules enhance the lives of people to get organized and progress. One of the rules is the rule of conduct which ought the people to do or ought not to do depends on the situation. These rules constitute a phenomenon of Morality. The philosophical study of morality is an ethics which are rational and systematic analysis of conduct that can be a source of benefit or harm to other people. The predominant focus of an ethics is based on the voluntary and moral choices of the people. In the past era, philosopher proposed many ethical theories. The ethical theory which fails to enable the user to make persuasive arguments in front of the diverse audience is a non-working
Capital punishment, or death penalty, is one of the most controversial topics in the United States for a long time. Death penalty is when a criminal is put to death for committing crimes such as murder. Regarding this type of punishment, while there are many supporters who believe that the death penalty should be legalized throughout the nation, there is also a large number of people who against it. While Ernest van den Hagg believes that death penalty is a form of retributive justice that is needed to maintain the legal order by punishing the one who deserves to be punished, on the other hand, Hugo Adam Bedau believes that the purposes of death penalty are to be valued in term of utilitarianism, or giving positive consequences to the society.
The death penalty in American society using the deontological and teleological argument is in the deontological perspective, believes that the death penalty is a morally appropriate punishment and also views capital punishment as being immoral. In deontological argument, it will place moral emphasis on the intentions of his or her actions. The deontological ethics does not focus on the actual consequences. A deontological defense of punishment is likely to be a retributive justification. According to Kant, he believes in the retributive punishment, which is known as the idea of “an eye for an eye”, meaning the law says that we should punish someone not because what they did was wrong, but to just punish them for the sake of punishing.
Kantian Deontology is a theory of ethics written by Immanuel Kant. He argues that to be acting in a morally correct way, one must be acting from duty. He also argues that it isn’t the outcomes of the action that makes the actions right or wrong, rather it is the reason that the person had carried out the action. These two arguments rely on the categorical imperative. The first is the Formula of Universal Law (FUL). Kant describes it as, “I ought never to act in such a way that I couldn’t also will that the maxim on which I act should be a universal law” (Kant). In another words, if you universalize a maxim (a principle of intention), i...
Everyone has duties to do things which are morally correct rather than to do things morally wrong or incorrect. Consequences are not the determinant whether an action is right or wrong but instead the action itself is the determinant whether it is right or wrong. Using the case as an example of this belief would be the fact that after shooting the intruder they are dead. No matter if they were intruding, the action itself was to grab the pistol and commit a violent act. Taking away any of the outside circumstances such as protecting your family, you still in fact murdered and killed someone. Kant’s theories recognize duties that are mostly prohibitions for example “do not lie, do not murder.” (Kant) By committing the murder in order to save your family you have now went against the deontologist rules that state do not murder. They believe in no intentional killings. Even if it does benefit the majority as a whole it is still not morally right in their theory. In Kant’s theory a killing is the action and the only exception to killing another being is if it was accidental or if you were defending yourself. Why this case is so tricky is because technically you were not defending yourself you were protecting your family because the intruder had no idea that you were in the house and also the killing is in no way accidental, because you intentionally grabbed the pistol to kill the intruder.
Consequentialism is a punishment theory that provides moral justification for punishment by taking into account future consequences and by weighing the intrinsic value of a punishment against other available alternatives. The primary rationale for punishment is to bring the most good over harm, to deter or prevent crimes from occurring in the first place and to prevent future crimes from being committed. Utilitarianism would even consider punishing the innocent or pass a more severe sentence for a lesser crime if it could be determined that benefits to society outweighed the consequences of such punishment (Howard). For example, if it were believed that better crime deterrence or prevention could be achieved, a consequentialist would consider executing a murderer versus handing down a life sentence. Retributivism is a punishment theory that looks back at the specific nature of a crime and determines how much the victim suffered, in order to morally justify the severity of punishment. The moral emphasis is on righting a wrong and seeking justice by ensuring that criminals get what the...
According to deontology, people have an obligation that is imposed upon them by the duty to perform certain actions without due consideration on their consequential outcomes, (Braswell, McCarthy & McCarthy, 2011). This explains the instances where it is morally justified to perform a certain action whose pain is greater than the collective pleasures that can be derived from it, (Braswell, McCarthy & McCarthy, 2011). One of the major contributors to the deontological ethical theory is Emmanuel Kant. Deontologists include other ideologies that are inherently lacking among the consequentialist theories, particularly the utilitarianism. These aspects include the duty to act as well as a consideration of the intention to do what is right against what is wrong, (Braswell, McCarthy & McCarthy, 2011). Deontological theorists argue that good intentions or good will is what informs the moral worth of an action and not just a consideration of the
In Martin Perlmutter's essay "Desert and Capital Punishment," he attempts to illustrate that social utility is a poor method of evaluating the legitimacy of it. Perlmutter claims that a punishment must be "backward looking," meaning that it is based on a past wrongdoing. A utilitarian justification of capital punishment strays from the definition of the term "punishment" because it is "forward looking." An argument for social utility maintains that the death penalty should result in a greater good and the consequences must outweigh the harm, thereby increasing overall happiness in the world. Perlmutter recognizes the three potential benefits of a punishment as the rehabilitation of an offender, protection for other possible victims, and deterring other people from committing the same crime. The death penalty however, obviously does not rehabilitate a victim nor does it do a better job at protecting other potential victims than life imprisonment. Since a punishment must inflict harm on an individual, deterrence is the only argument that utilitarians can use to defend the death penalty. The question then ari...
Deontology is a non-consequentialist theory. While consequentialism believes the ends always justify the means, deontologists claim that the rightness of an action should not be solely dependent on maximizing the good, even if that action goes against what is ethically right. For example, four critical conditioned patients in a hospital need a different organ to survive and a healthy man comes into the hospital for a check-up, would you kill the healthy man to save the four? According to consequentialism, the doctor should take the healthy man’s organs to save the others, thus maximizing the good. However, we all know that it is ethically wrong. Deontology objects to this way o...
Capital punishment is a difficult subject for a lot of people because many question whether or not it is ethical to kill a convicted criminal. In order to critically analyze whether or not it is ethical, I will look at the issue using a utilitarianism approach because in order to get a good grasp of this topic we need to look at how the decision will impact us in the future. The utilitarianism approach will help us to examine this issue and see what some of the consequences are with this topic of capital punishment. For years, capital punishment has been used against criminals and continues to be used today, but lately this type of punishment has come into question because of the ethical question.
Deontology is the ethical view that some actions are morally forbidden or permitted regardless of consequences. One of the most influential deontological philosophers in history is Immanuel Kant who developed the idea of the Categorical Imperative. Kant believed that the only thing of intrinsic moral worth is a good will. Kant says in his work Morality and Rationality “The good will is not good because of what it affects or accomplishes or because of it’s adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of it’s willing, i.e., it is good of itself”. A maxim is the generalized rule that characterizes the motives for a person’s actions. For Kant, a will that is good is one that is acting by the maxim of doing the right thing because it is right thing to do. The moral worth of an action is determined by whether or not it was acted upon out of respect for the moral law, or the Categorical Imperative. Imperatives in general imply something we ought to do however there is a distinction between categorical imperatives and hypothetical imperatives. Hypothetical imperatives are obligatory so long as we desire X. If we desire X we ought to do Y. However, categorical imperatives are not subject to conditions. The Categorical Imperative is universally binding to all rational creatures because they are rational. Kant proposes three formulations the Categorical Imperative in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Moral, the Universal Law formulation, Humanity or End in Itself formulation, and Kingdom of Ends formulation. In this essay, the viablity of the Universal Law formulation is tested by discussing two objections to it, mainly the idea that the moral laws are too absolute and the existence of false positives and false negatives.
Regarding the justification of punishment philosophers are not of the same opinion. According to the utilitarian moral thinkers punishment can be justified solely by its consequences. That is to say, according to the utilitarian account of punishment 'A ought to be punished' means that A has done an act harmful to people and it needs to be prevented by punishment or the threat of it. So, it will be useful to punish A. Deontologists like Mabbott, Ewing and Hawkins, on the other hand, believe that punishment is justifiable purely on retributive grounds. That is to say, according to them, only the past fact that a man has committed a crime is sufficient enough to justify the punishment inflicted on him. But D.D. Raphael is found to reconcile between the two opposite views. According to him, a punishment is justified when it is both useful and deserved.
In chapter 11 The Kantian Perspective: Fairness and Justice Immanuel Kant suggests that the clear cut basic works upon the same technique as the ethical law and it is likewise disregarded by the individuals who accept who apply "double standards ". The downright basic may further be recognized as a prerequisite to not regard other objective creatures as means, for Kant communicates that every single reasonable being contain the capacity of pressing together objectives, yet never see themselves as just an intends to another reason for their moves are eventually made all alone benefit and are finishes in themselves. Immanuel Kant thought along these lines and was prone to the most splendid savant ever to have done as such. He remains maybe the
Growing up we are put in situations where we learn what is the moral thing to do and non moral just by our upbringing like religion, culture, and or race. This is called Ethics which is one of the major branch of philosophy that systematize, defend, and recommend concepts of right and wrong conduct. With that being said there are different kind of ethical approaches different philosophers discovered/ believed in which lay in the structure of consequentialist (the consequence of an action), Deontological ( duty, obligation, motivation, intention), and teleological ( striving to be a certain kind of person or fulfilling a kind of purpose ). In this paper I’m going to be defending Kant’s deontological theory which
Unlike Consequentialism, Deontology focuses solely on a person’s action and not the consequences. In Deontology you basically always have to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do and avoid the things that are considered bad. Some of the universal rules that deontologists follows are; 1. It is wrong to kill the innocent. 2. It is wrong to steal. 3. It is wrong to tell lies. Those are some of them, but the list goes on from there. In Deontology you can not justify your action by showing its positive outcome. It does not matter about a good or bad outcome because you have to make sure what you’re doing is morally right. For example, If you had two friends and they bought were dating but friend B cheated on friend A what would be the right thing to do? If you were to not say anything then you would practically be lying to friend A and that would be the wrong thing to do even if she ended up not being hurt and continuing on with the relationship. Even though you would crush friend A’s heart, it would still be considered doing the right thing. A famous deontologist philosopher was Immanuel Kant. He believed that the consequence of an action did not give an accurate display of a person’s good will. Good consequences and bad consequences can happen unexpectedly, so a person’s good will can not be driven on just a consequence of what happens. For example if two men got drunk on a friday night and man A ended up crashing into an innocent pedestrian while the other man made it home safely. Both men made the decision to get drunk, but man A was unlucky and killed someone that night. Since man A killed someone and man B did not, it does not mean that man B is any better than man A. They both happened to make the bad choice but one of them was unlucky, and that is why basing moral reasoning off of consequences would be inaccurate in the perspective of deontologists. Kant also believed that we