TEBOGO MOLIEA

15 OCTOBER 2020

ETHICS

This essay serves to discuss, compare, and contrast between Mill’s Utilitarianism which is all
about promoting overall happiness and pleasure and rejects actions that might interfere with
communities or individual’ happiness: and Kant’s Deontology which is all about duty or
whether action is write or wrong under a placed rule.
 Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory that develops the common sense that all
consequences of our decisions should always play a significant role in deciding what to do. In
general terms it helps in directing us in maximising the overall good or in producing the
greatest good for the greatest number. Tradition utilitarianism could be viewed or understood
under two elements namely the good and rule for judging all acts and decisions taken by
individuals, in terms of a good and just how they are rules that are always followed by
consequences. Rule in this context refers to the consequences of any act and judge the ethical
status of that act in terms of consequences (Desjardins, 2012 pp.33). So, if it ever maximises
good consequences the act is ethically right and if not, the act is said to ethically wrong.
Value according Desjardins (2012) is an important phenomenon, because all things that are
valued are because of their relation to the good. All acts and decisions are judged in terms of
utility and their importance in providing good consequences to the society. It also involves
measurements which as to do with asking whether humans should choose or rank their
desires or preferences, and comparison which looks at phrases such as” maximize overall
good” and “greatest good for greatest” number. J.J.C Smart (1956) poses a question that
which way should we interpret the actions since they determine consequences. Firstly, he
postulates that if by actions we mean an individual actions we get the sort of doctrine held by
Bentham, Sidgwick and Moore. According to this doctrine we test individual actions by their
consequences, in general terms rules like “keep promises” are mere rules of the thumb used
to the necessity of estimating the probable consequences by individuals. Consequences of
breaking the promise is a part in which the extreme utilitarianism will normally ascribe
decisive importance and will be the weakening of faith in the institution of promising. If the
opposite happens then we must break the rule irrespective any consequences. And can infer
that rules do matter, save per accidens as rules of thumb and as de facto social institutions
with which the utilitarian must reckon when estimating consequences according to J.J.C.
Smart (1956).

Secondly a more modest form of utilitarianism has recently become fashionable and it is
found Toulmin’s book The place of Reason in Ethics, in Nowell-Smith’s Ethics part of its
charm is that it appears to resolve the dispute in moral philosophy between intuitionists and
utilitarian’s in a way which was very neat, the above philosophers hold, that moral rules are
more than rules of thumb. The rightness of an action is not to be tested by evaluating its
consequences but considering whether it falls under a certain rule. Whether the rule is an
acceptable moral rule or not and is too decided by considering the consequences of adopting
the rule placed. According to J.J.C. Smart the only case in which we can test the individual’s
actions directly by its consequences are when actions are under two different rules, one of
which enjoins it and one which forbids it, and when the is no rule whatever that governs the
given case and he calls it the restricted utilitarianism. The obligation to obey rules, says
Nowell Smith (Ethics, p. 239), does not, in the opinion of ordinary men rest on the beneficial
consequences of obeying it in a specific case.

Deontology is all about the notion of acting on principle rather than in terms of consequences
and central concepts being duties or rights. According Desjardins (2012) Kantian ethic begins
is the claim that we can be held responsible for the things we can control. Which in simple
terms would mean focus of our ethics be on principles which Immanuel Kant refers to them
as maxims, we decide how we want to act and express our intention or actions and can be
held responsible for our actions because humans can reason. Kant argued that something
could be viewed as ethically right when principle or maxim is rational and fundamental ethics
requires, we treat people as ends never as means or subjects or objects since their have rights
protecting them as elite. Mappes and DeGrazia (1996) in their introduction to the popular
textbook Biomedical Ethics they locate the basis of the moral value accorded to individual
autonomy in Kant’s view of respect for persons, they ask how Kant understands autonomy.
They response being that Kant’s primary focus is on the autonomy of will, it is the property
the will has being of a law to itself. What Kant calls the dignity of man as a rational creature
is due to human’s beings possessing just that property that enables them to govern their own
actions in accordance with rules of their own choosing (Secker, 1999 pp.47). In simple terms
in Kantian positioning central in biomedical ethics describes autonomy in terms of one
having self-control, self-direction, or self-governance. An individual being capable of acting
on basis of effective deliberation, guided by reason and neither driven by an emotion
whatsoever (Mappes and DeGrazia, 1996). Secker (1999 pp 49) states that the moral
requirement to respect Kantian autonomy in the health contexts has the potential to balance
the traditional paternalism and power relations in health practitioners-patient relationships.
He adds that they are difficulties with appealing to this picture of Kantian autonomy in
making judgments of patients. These difficulties, which appear to stem from unanalysed
assumptions about human capacities, may make the concept unfit for practical use in
bioethics. His main criticism of Kantian autonomy concern: its impracticality given the
nature of patients and health contexts; its normative assumptions about human and its
potential for abuse.
McNaughton & Rawling (1998) states that according to direct-act consequentialism, our tasks
as moral agents is on increasing value. And the more good we can do the better so the best
action is one that produces more good and less harm than any other, and it is solely the value
of actions open to us that is relevant to which is the right one. Consequentialism provides a
formal structure within which a family of substantive moral theories can be found.
Deontological lacks in this structure. At the fundamental level, we claim, deontology, in
opposition to consequentialism, acknowledges moral reasons that do not rest on
considerations of value.

Deontology embraces agent-relative according to McNaughton & Rawling (1998) which is

the sense that it gives each agent a special concern that she does not perform acts of a certain
type rather than a general concern with the actions of all agents, reasons of some or all
varieties. Thus, deontological theories fail to fit consequentialist structural templet. It
definitive of deontology that it includes constraints and duties of special relationships: not all
deontologist accept options, however some think that we have a duty to maximize the good,
whenever we would not be in breach of one our duties in doing so. So long as we hold that
the right actions which is determined by the amount of agent-neutral value, our actions will
produce, then consequentialism. McNaughton & Rawling (1998) raised a point that many
scholars have failed in trying to see the power of the argument, and have concluded that
deontology can be defended within the basic consequentialist structure, by pointing to some
value which consequentialism has ignored. Scheffler (1982) shows that as long as we play the
game by consequentialist rules the consequentialist will always win, and that any value can
be sucked up into what we have elsewhere dubbed the consequentialism vacuum cleaner
(McNaughton & Rawling, 1991). Example is that we might thing in rejecting constraints-in
allowing that there may be occasions when we may do nasty things to innocent people, we
can positively infer that consequentialist fails to pay proper respect to persons. The
Consequentialist may respond by agreeing that failing to respect persons has great disvalue,
so we must equally maximize respect for persons. The consequentialist concludes in saying,
no matter how great the value of respect, the is no constraints against violating respect
oneself,

In conclusion duties or rights give us another way to understand the major deficiency in
Utilitarian thinking. It also neglects the important role that the moral principle can play in
ethical decision. Act in principle is known as categorical imperative. Utilitarianism requires
to fulfil duties and respect other’s rights only when maximising the overall good
consequences. Does not provide practical basis for making substantive value judgments or
account of what is good, valuable, or worthy. The theory could be viewed as being
inadequate in terms of action implied by the utilitarianism, it fails to engage at a serious level
with real problems of moral philosophy, and fails to make sense of notions such as happiness
or in general the intrinsic factors. Deontological and utilitarianism are not only
simultaneously active but typically compatible and reinforcing wrong acts have harmful
consequences and harmful consequences stem from wrong acts. These theories represent two
distinct and competing modes of moral decision making (Greene et al, 2001) deontology
emphasizes acts over consequences and utilitarianism emphasises consequences over acts.
This essay was able to discuss, compare between Mill’s Utilitarianism and Kant’s
Deontology.
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