Consequentialism is typically contrasted with ‘deontology’ where the moral obligation to perform an act is thought to come from principles that make little or no reference to consequences. Deontology therefore departs from the ‘teleological’ character of consequentialism: the latter is concerned with the ends of action, the former with rules and principles that ‘precede’ actions. In this chapter, we will run through the classic expression of deontological thinking (Kant), look at recent Kantian ‘contractualists’ and then develop our understanding of applied ethics.

Kant's ethics

Grounds

Although complex, the basics of Kant's ethics are fairly well known (O’Neill, 1989; Baron, 1995).

Seventy-five years before Mill's Utilitarianism, Kant (1996, pp 156-8) anticipated and dismissed its central premise. Pleasure and desire are all of one degree, he claims. Some may possess greater intensity than others but to imagine that certain pleasures and desires are of a higher order is to allow them to intrude on to a level that can be reserved only for reason. Given a choice between Bentham's and Mill's utilitarianism, Kant might have preferred the former. But ultimately, of course, he would have supported neither, since consequences are too capricious a foundation for morality:

Moral actions are those performed not simply in conformity with the moral law, as revealed to reason, but for the sake of that law. Inclination and motivation are irrelevant since, as aspects of nature, they are subject to vicissitude; to do good is to act from duty in accordance with the ‘good will’. Since duty is a question of principle, rather than of realising whatever consequences are held to be preferable, the job of ethical philosophy is to determine what those principles or maxims are. This leads to Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork (Kant, 1991).

Hypothetical imperatives demonstrate an ‘if … then’ quality: if you wish to succeed, then you ought to work hard. In such propositions, the property of ‘ought’ and ‘should’ is dependent on the nature of the object the ‘if’ is referring to.