ETIC211
WEEK-8
DEONTOLOGICAL
ETHICS
DEONTOLOGY – The end does not justify the means
UTILITARIANISM – The end justify the means
DEONTOLOGY
• duty based” or obligation based ” ethics
• It is an approach to ethics that focuses on the
rightness and/or wrongness of an action itself; rather
than on the rightness or wrongness of the
consequences or the character of the person.
• What makes a choice RIGHT is its conformity to moral
norms
• Deontology may sometimes be consistent with Moral
Absolution , the belief that certain actions are just
wrong, no matter what follows.
EXAMPLE
• Suppose you’re a software engineer and you learned
that a nuclear missile is about to launch that might
start a war. You can hack the network and cancel the
launch, but it is against your professional code of
ethics to break into any software system without
permission. Thus, a form of lying and cheating.
What does deontology suggest you to do?
REGGIE CABUTUTAN
• Reggie, is a taxi driver who drove his Australian
passenger, Trent Shields to his workplace.
SITUATION
• Sure win. As he is already assured for their daily needs
- Returned the suitcase.
• Takes the suitcase & sell all contents - No promise of
any reward
DUTY AND AGENCY
DEONTOLOGY
- Moral theory that evaluates the actions that are done
because of duty
- Refers to the study and obligation
- Immanuel Kant is the main proponent
RATIONAL WILL capacity to act according to principles that we
determine for ourselves.
SENTIENCE
- Organism has the ability to perceive and navigate its
external environment
RATIONALITY
- Humans are rational because they have the ability to
stop and think about what they are doing.
Immanuel Kant (1724 1804)
- Born on April 22 1724
- College University of Konigsberg (AKA Albertina)
- After College 6 years as private tutor to young
children and began teaching Philosophy at the
Albertina the following year
- After retiring he came to believe that there was a gap
in this system separating the metaphysical
foundations of natural science from physics itself, he
then closed this gap in his series of notes Opus Post u
mum
- Herald the “Copernican Revolution in Philosophy”
- Kant developed revolutionary insights concerning the
human kind and the conditions for the possibility of
knowledge similar to Copernicus
- He intends to develop “Supreme Principle of
Morality”. It is supposedly supreme because by
basing it on the faculty of reason, it becomes binding
for all creatures that have that faculty. The binding
force then become universal rather than relative.
- A key thinker in moral reflection
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
- A 15 th century mathematician and astronomer who
proposed that the sun was stationary in the center of
the universe and the earth revolved around it.
- He proposed the heliocentric model of the universe in
his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
- Heralded a radical paradigm shift in the way humans
considered their place in the universe.
RATIONAL WILL
- Ability to enact our thoughts
- Refers to the faculty to intervene in the world to act
in a manner that is consistent with our reason.
AGENCY
- Ability of a person to act based on her intentions and
mental states.
- The capacity of a person to be the cause of her actions
based on reasons and not merely to mindlessly to
react to the environment and base impulses.
AUTONOMY
Immanuel Kant on Autonomy
- He claims that the property of the rational will is
autonomy which is the opposite of heteronomy.
These three Greek word are instructive:
• Autos
• Heteros
• Nomos
Which means
• Self
• Other
• Law
Example
- Brushing one’s teeth which is not yet a moral dilemma
but is sufficient to explain the difference between
autonomy and heteronomy
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- Now think about the children twenty years later the
children might concluded that they
→ Agree with the principle behind it ..(Act of
legislating principles)
→ Every night they impose it upon themselves
to brush their teeth before going to bed
..(Enacting principles)
PURE REASON
- There is a choice or action
- Kant calls this kind of action free choice, and one may
argue that human freedom resides in this capacity of
reason to intervene to “ within arbitrium
- Kant describes that human choice can be affected but
is not determined by sensible impulses

“The will is thus not only subject to the law, but it is also subject What does it mean for a human to be affected but is not
to the law in such a way that it gives the law to itself, and determined by sensible impulse?
primarily just in this way that the will can be considered the ALTERNATIVE SCENARIO
author of the under which it is subject.” Reggie tells himself “I am entitled to benefit from this lost
suitcase
The distinguishing point in autonomy is the locust of the
authorship of the law which can be divided by the external or The action of Reggie in the scenario is considered as
internal heteronomous.
- External author law the will is subjected to an
Why heteronomous?
external authority, thus heteronomy will
- Internal author law if the author was the will itself,
CONCLUSION
imposing the law unto itself, then it is autonomous
- Heteronomy of the will occurs when any foreign
impulse, whether it is external (as in other persons or
Scenario:
institutions that impose their will on the agent) or
Reggie found a suitcase and she returned it to the owner but
sensible (as in bodily instincts or base emotions) is
what if Reggie did not return the suitcase, destroyed the lock,
what compels a person to act.
then took and sold its valuable contents?
- In contrast, autonomy is the property of the will in
- Reggie may have concluded “I am entitled to benefit
those instances when pure reason is the cause of the
from this lost suitcase. I am the author of this
principle. I am acting autonomously.” He may action
UNIVERSABILITY
conclude this since no external authority is legislating
KINDS OF MORAL THEORIES
laws for him by using rewards or punishments.
- SUBSTANTIVE
What is the focus of the authorship of Reggie based on the
- FORMAL MORAL THEORY
scenario?

SUBSTANTIVE THEORY
- Kant claims that there is a difference between
- it immediately promulgates the specific actions that
rational will and animal pulse
comprise that theory
- The choice can be determine by pure person is called
free choice That which is terminable only by (sensible Example
- ten commandments
impulse stimulus) would be animal choice (arbitrium
- “honor your father and mother”
brutum
- “you shall not kill”
- Human choice is a choice that may indeed be affected
FORMAL MORAL THEORY
but not determined by impulses, and is therefore in
- It does not supply the rules or commends straight
itself (without an acquired skill of reason) not pure,
away
but can nevertheless be determined to do actions
Immanuel Kant
from pure will
- Embodies a formal moral theory in what he calls the
SENSIBLE IMPULSE
- These are usually bodily and emotional. categorical imperative, which provides procedural
way of identifying the rightness or wrongness of an
Examples:
action
- Jealously from seeing your girlfriend or boyfriend
- Kant describes the categorical imperative in 3 ways
make eyes at someone
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
- The rage from being pushed foully by your opponent
- “Act only according to such a maxim, by which you
in a basketball game.
can at once will that it becomes a universal law
- Universability Universalisability
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→ Humanity as end
→ Kingdom of ends
- FOUR KEY ELEMENTS
- Kant state that we must formulate an action as maxim
which he defines as a “subjective principle of action”
- We have many maxims in our lives, and we live
according to them
- “Act only according to such a maxim, by which you
can at once will that it becomes a universal law.”
What does it mean to will a maxim that can become a
universal law?
- In groundwork towards a metaphysics of morals, Kant
takes up the issue of making false promises He
narrates the predicament of who needs money, but
has no immediate access to obtain it except by
borrowing it from a friend
- This is a specific act under the general category of acts
called false promising Kant says that the man would
like to make such a promise, but he stops and asks
himself if what he is about to do is right or wrong is it
really wrong to borrow money without intending to
pay it back?
- PATERNALISM
- MAXIM I will borrow money even though I know that
I will not be able to return it
- UNIVERSAL LAW/UNIVERSABILITY A world where
everyone borrows money without the intention of
returning it
Now there are two possibilities in this hypothetical world
- By “making sense”, we refer to the logical plausibility
- By “not making sense”, we refer to the logical
impossibility
- Kant between being “consistent with itself” and
“contradict itself”, but must necessarily contradict
itself.
- “When I am in need of money, I shall borrow it even
when I know I cannot pay it back. “
- The meaning of the act “to borrow” implies taking and
using something with the intent to return to it. In the
maxim, the claim is “to borrow” even when I know I
cannot pay it back, which contradicts the very
meaning “to borrow”.
- The act of borrowing money without intending to pay
is rationally impermissible.
TWO WAYS WHICH KANT REJECTS MAXIMS ARE THE
FOLLOWING
- Self-contradictory
- Act and its purpose become impossible
RATIONAL PERMISIBILITY
- Intrinsic quality of an action that is objectively and
necessarily rational.
UNIVERSALIZABILITY TEST
- a form of a moral test that invites us to imagine a
world in which any proposed action is also adopted by
everyone else.
- it is the foundational principle for deontological, or
duty based, ethics.
“When a suitcase that does not belong to me is left in my cab,
I shall take its contents and sell them for my own benefit.”
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
- It is precisely for the rational will that is autonomus
Kant gives two forms of the categorical imperative:
- Behave in such a way that a reasonable generalization
of your action to a universal rule will lead to a benefit
to a generic person under this universal rule.
- Always treat others as ends and not means.
- is the term used for actions we take or decisions we
make for another person with the intention of
benefiting that person.
- metaphor of father
ENLIGHTENMENT MORALITY
- Deontology is the spirit of enlightenment of
morality. It is based on the light of one’s own reason
when maturity and rational capacity take hold of a
person’s decision making.
- Moreover, with deontology particularly the method
of universalizability , we can validate and adopt the
rules and laws which are right and reject those that
are irrational. Thus, impermissible because it is self
contradictory.
The practice of deontology in our moral reflection, we are
encouraged to have courage to think on our own, to use our
rational will against external authorities as well as internal
base impulses that tend to undetermined our autonomy and
self determination.
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to
the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing
higher than reason.”
- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
DO WHAT IS RIGHT, THOUGH THE WORLD MAY PERISH.