UTILITARIAN AND DEONTOLOGICAL THEORIES

Utilitarian and deontological theories

Utilitarian and deontological theories

Introduction

There are two major ethics theories that attempt to specify and justify moral rules and principles: utilitarianism and deontological ethics. Utilitarianism (also called consequentialism) is a moral theory developed and refined in the modern world. Utilitarianism is an ethical system that is most often attributed to philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Deontology is an alternative ethical system that is usually attributed to the philosophical tradition of Immanuel Kant. Whereas utilitarianism focuses on the outcomes, or ends, of actions, deontology demands that the actions, or means, themselves must be ethical.

Comparison between Utilitarian and deontological theories

According to Utilitarianism, actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. In other words, judge an action by the total amount of happiness and unhappiness it creates. Whereas Deontology stands for 'Duty Based' Ethics. Deontologists deny that what ultimately matters is an action's consequences. They claim that what matters is the kind of action it is. What matters is doing our duty. There are many kinds of deontological theory e.g., The 'Golden Rule' - "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.".

Utilitarianism believes that the most ethical thing to do is to maximize the happiness within a society. Utilitarians believe that actions have calculable outcomes and that ethical choices have outcomes which lead to the most happiness to the most members of a society. Utilitarianism is thus often considered a consequentialist philosophical outlook because it both believes that outcomes can be predicted and because it judges actions based on their outcomes. Thus, utilitarianism is often associated with the phrase the ends justify the means.

Deontologists argue that there are transcendent ethical norms and truths that are universally applicable to all people. Deontology holds that some actions are immoral regardless of their outcomes; these actions are wrong in and of themselves. Kant gives a categorical imperative to act morally at all times (Hooker, 2000). The categorical imperative, in its most widely used formulation, demands that humans act as though their actions would be universalized into a general rule of nature. Kant believes that all people come to moral conclusions about right and wrong based on rational thought. Deontology is roughly associated with the maxim 'the means must justify the ends.

There are several varieties of utilitarianism. But basically, a utilitarian approach to morality implies that no moral act (e.g., an act of stealing) or rule (e.g. Keep your promises) is intrinsically right or wrong. Rather, the rightness or wrongness of an act or rule is solely a matter of the overall non-moral good (e.g., pleasure, happiness, health, knowledge, or satisfaction of individual desire) produced in the consequences of doing that act or following that rule. In sum, according to utilitarianism, morality is a matter of the non-moral good produced that results from moral actions and rules, and moral duty is instrumental, not intrinsic. Morality is a means to some other end; it ...