Deontology has no legs

Most of modern philosophical research revolves around the questions of ethics. It’s no surprise either, for the questions of what is morally good, and why we should do those things have profound impacts on our day to day lives. Within the discussion of ethics, there are several different “schools” and categories of though. Probably two of the biggest of these categories are deontology and consequentialism. Deontology comes from the Greek root deon, which means ‘duty’. Deontology holds that the moral value or standing of an action comes from the action itself, not from its consequences. Consequentialism on the other hand states that the moral value of an action comes from its consequences and moral context. I believe that Deontology has no way to actually be put into practice. Deontological frameworks often actually include moral context and consequences and thus are not deontological. Any context they might choose to include are merely arbitrary and have no grounds in the very deontological framework they seem to be supporting. Let’s take a look at a few examples and see how deontology has no legs to carry its view, and how no moral system can be justified on its grounds.

Suppose I told you that I punched someone. Is that a morally right or wrong action? You might say you need to know more than that in order to make the judgment. This however, is not deontology. Even if I added that the person I punched was a criminal in the process of robbing an old lady, this is moral context and consequence, in this case such a judgment based on the moral context in not deontological in nature. A deontologist might say that, ‘well you said you punched a person and punching a person violates their being so we can judge it as wrong’. Well, even in this extreme case adding an object to the verb of an action is really adding context. Saying, I punched X, whatever that X is constitutes moral context. So on a pure deontological foundation all you could examine is the fact that I punched. Try to answer that question without any appeal to context: is it right or wrong to punch? This seems like an absurd question to ask but one that you must ask in order to be a deontologist.

Let’s take it one step further and add some context, assuming that’s compatible with deontology, which I feel it isn’t, and see how deontology would judge it. Suppose I told you that I punched and knocked out a little girl who was only six years old. Now at first glance this seems like it would be easy to judge on deontology. A six year old girl should never be knocked out by a grown man! In fact, we have a word for that, child abuse! Even though this is an extreme example, I feel it shows the faults in deontology very well. Suppose the six year old in question was about to push a push a button on their vest that would detonate a bomb that would kill millions of people. Is it still wrong that I punched and knocked out the child? In a perfect world we wouldn’t ever want to have to punch a child but it seems intuitive to me that the lives of millions are worth a good wallop to the head of a child. On deontology however, you could not factor in these consequences and would have to judge the action itself. This to me shows a very large void of power in deontology to judge things morally and I Hope others see this too.