deontology sucks. prefer util.

4. The Weaknesses of Deontological Theories On the other hand, deontological theories have their own weak spots. The most glaring one is the seeming irrationality of our having duties or permissions to make the world morally worse. Deontologists need their own, non-consequentialist model of rationality, one that is a viable alternative to the intuitively plausible, “act-to-produce-the-best-consequences” model of rationality that motivates consequentialist theories. Until this is done, deontology will always be paradoxical. There are several distinct hurdles that the deontologist must overcome. One hurdle is to confront the apparent fact that careful reflection about the degrees of wrongdoing that are possible under any single moral norm does not make it easy to see deontological morality as consisting of general, canonically-formulated texts (conformity to which could then be said to constitute the distrinct form of practical rationality unique to deontological ethics); rather, such apparently simple texts as, “thou shalt not murder,” look more like mere epistemic aids summarizing a much more nuanced and detailed (and thus less text-like) moral reality (Hurd and Moore forthcoming). A second hurdle is to find an answer to the inevitable question of authority, assuming that there are such general texts. If it is rational to conform one’s behavior and one’s choices to certain general texts, as deontology claims, it is always in point to demand the reasons making such texts authoritative for one’s decisions. Deferring one’s own best judgment to the judgment enshrined in some text is always prima facie paradoxical (see the entry on authority) and deontologists like everybody else need to justify such deference. Hopefully they can do so other than by reference to some person-like but omniscient Deity as the supposed source of such texts, because many deontologists cannot accept such theism (Moore 1995). Moreover, even for those with theistic commitments, they may prefer to join Kant’s insistence that ethics proceed from reason alone, even in a theistic world. The third hurdle exists even if the first two are crossed adequately. This hurdle is to deal with the seeming demand of deontological ethics that on occasion one’s categorical obligations require one to preserve the purity of one’s own moral agency at the cost of having one’s actions make the world be in a morally worse state of affairs—at least, “worse” in the agent-neutral sense of the word used by consequentialists. Patient-centered versions of deontology cannot easily escape this problem, as we have shown. It is not even clear that they have the conceptual resources to make agency important enough to escape this moral paradox. Yet even agent-centered versions face this paradox; having the conceptual resources (of agency and agent-relative reasons) is not the same as making it plausible just how a secular, objective morality can allow each person’s agency to be so uniquely crucial to that person. Moreover, it is crucial for deontologists to deal with the conflicts that seem to exist between certain duties, and between certain rights. For more information, please see the entry on moral dilemmas. Kant’s bold proclamation that “a conflict of duties is inconceivable” (Kant 1780, p. 25) is the conclusion wanted, but reasons for believing it are difficult to produce. The intending/foreseeing, doing/allowing, causing/aiding, and related distinctions certainly reduce potential conflicts for the agent-centered versions of deontology; whether they can totally eliminate such conflicts is a yet unresolved question. One well known approach to deal with the possibility of conflict between deontological duties is to reduce the categorical force of such duties to that of only “prima facie” duties (Ross 1930, 1939). This idea is that conflict between merely prima facie duties is unproblematic so long as it does not infect what one is categorically obligated to do, which is what overall, concrete duties mandate. Like other softenings of the categorical force of deontological obligation we mention briefly below (threshold deontology, mixed views), the prima facie duty view is in some danger of collapsing into a kind of consequentialism. This depends on whether “prima facie” is read epistemically or not, and on (1) whether any good consequences are eligible to justify breach of prima facie duties; (2) whether only such consequences over some threshold can do so; or (3) whether only threatened breach of other deontological duties can do so. Thirdly, there is the manipulability worry mentioned before with respect to agent-centered versions of deontology. To the extent potential conflict is eliminated by resort to the Doctrine of Double Effect, the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, and so forth (and it is not clear to what extent patient-centered versions rely on these doctrines and distinctions to mitigate potential conflict), then a potential for “avoision” is opened up. Such avoision is the manipulation of means (using omissions, foresight, risk, allowings, aidings, acceleratings, redirectings, etc.) to achieve permissibly what otherwise deontological morality would forbid (see Katz 1996). Avoision is an undesirable feature of any ethical system that allows such strategic manipulation of its doctrines. Fourth, there is what might be called the paradox of relative stringency. There is an aura of paradox in asserting that all deontological duties are categorical—to be done no matter the consequences—and yet asserting that some of such duties are more stringent than others. A common thought is that “there cannot be degrees of wrongness with intrinsically wrong acts…” (Frey 1995, p. 78, n.3; also Hurka 2019). Yet relative stringency—“degrees of wrongness”—seems forced upon the deontologist by one if not two considerations. First, duties of differential stringency can be weighed against one another if there is conflict between them, so that a conflict-resolving, overall duty becomes possible if duties can be more or less stringent. Second, when we punish for the wrongs consisting in our violation of deontological duties, we (rightly) do not punish all violations equally. The greater the wrong, the greater the punishment deserved; and relative stringency of duty violated (or importance of rights) seems the best way of making sense of greater versus lesser wrongs (Hurd and Moore forthcoming). Fifth, there are situations—unfortunately not all of them thought experiments—where compliance with deontological norms will bring about disastrous consequences. To take a stock example of much current discussion, suppose that unless A violates the deontological duty not to torture an innocent person (B), ten, or a thousand, or a million other innocent people will die because of a hidden nuclear device. If A is forbidden by deontological morality from torturing B, many would regard that as a reductio ad absurdum of deontology.