Why Deontology may be correct! The deep problem of Morality!

[r0ckyreed]

So I posted an article on the forum earlier about Why Utilitarianism is Correct.  After much thought, I realize that my version of morality and utilitarianism is actually more in line with deontology.  PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE IF YOU CAN

I will get right to the point.  The reason why deontology is "correct" relatively speaking is because having a set of principles, rules, and guidelines is what allows societies to flourish.  If everybody took on the notion that the "ends justify the means" and that "maximizing happiness and utility is all that matters," then we will be exactly where we are now.  Whose definition and view of a "greater world" should we follow?  A Libertarian believes maximizing happiness means maximizing freedoms.  A liberal might view maximizing happiness as sacrifices freedoms to ensure equality, etc. etc. etc.  The problem is that happiness and well-being should not be the defining characteristics of morality.  Well-being and happiness are important, but when it comes to morality, the rules by which we live by through our social contracts are what uphold and ensure our happiness, freedom and well-being.  

However, I do acknowledge that deontology has its limits in that our world is not black and white.  Since reality is always changing, our rules and principles should also evolve as well.  But I would argue that the standard foundation for deontological ethics consist of the golden rules of society such as "treating others with respect if respect is something I want for myself."  Sure, there will be outliers of people who don't follow the golden rule of "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you," but deontology also includes Kant's principles of treating living things as an end not as a means.  A pop culture example of a brilliant deontologist is Captain America.  The life of one person is equal to the lives of millions.  We have a duty to serve our community and this comes from a foundational ethical guidelines that a deontological perspective provides.  

I know the objection that people have about how deontologists support the notion that one should never lie because any exceptions to the rules contradict with the rules anyways.  If everyone makes exceptions to the rules, then the rules will not exist anymore.  The rules not existing will result in chaos because without rules, people will have the morality of ethical egoism, which is a self-centered utilitarianism only applying to one's self not the community.  Breaking the rule of lying to save someone from death is a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis of the ends justifying the means.  But I also think that as a deontologist, our duty is to respect and treat all living things with kindness, not as a method of using or manipulating them.  In the case of Jack and the Bean stock, when the wife of the giant lies to him to protect Jack, she is committed to her duty to protect Jack from further harm.  If she were honest, she would have allowed the giant to kill Jack.  Honesty is a virtue, but so is courage.  It takes mighty courage to lie to someone to protect another even if it costs you your life.  Since our foundational rule as deontologists are to "treat others the way we would want to be treated," the wife lying to the giant is totally deontological because if everyone in her situation had the courage to lie in order to save someone else, that would be our utmost duty.  If we commit to telling the truth all the time, there comes a point in which radical honesty may become a weakness because if honesty comes at the cost of another's suffering, then we will not be committed to "treating others as an end."  Deontologists value life over concepts.  If I lie to save a life from a corrupt system, I am fulfilling my duty.  But if I commit to honesty because Kant says I can never lie, then my honesty at certain, rare cases may affect others lives.  Lying to protect others is standing up for them and valuing their lives in this case. I am advocating more for subjective deontology since morality is relative not black and white.  It is similar to the morality of the Jedi.  There are guidelines and principles that we live by such as non-attachment, courage, advocacy, selflessness, self-defense, and taking people as prisoners rather than torturing or killing them.  These are just a few of the Jedi principles, but since every situation is different, the guidelines and rules we live by may be altered. Captain Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean makes a good point in that "The Code is more like guidelines than actual rules."

Argument for utilitarianism

Another objection I thought of was that since moral situations are very complex, for a deontologist to hold maxims of honesty, bravery, compassion, fairness, duty, etc.  certain situations will challenge these maxims and hold them contradictory.  For example, in the case of Jack in the Bean stock, the wife lies to the giant to save Jack.  Bravery and honesty are in conflict with each other.  So which one do we use?  This is a good argument for utilitarianism because it shows that everything comes down to a cost-benefit analysis.  Even the maxims we create, aren't they also based on a cost-benefit to promote a high quality society?  Why do we have the golden rule in the first place?  Is it because everything boils down to our survival?  

 

Let me know what you think.  I have changed my mind a bit.  I am exploring the deontological perspective, but am also realizing that no matter what maxims or rules we create, it always boils down to survival.  Is it safe to say that Deontologists are rigid in moral situations (adhering to guidelines to generalize to all situations) and utilitarians are more flexible, finding different ways to maximize wellbeing and minimizing suffering?  Isn't it correct to say that we are creating these rules based on a cost-benefit analysis?  For example, wearing face masks.  Wearing face masks is a rule that is now established to protect people in our communities, but the only reason why it is a new rule is because wearing face masks are shown to increase wellbeing and reduce suffering.  So don't all deontological maxims boil down to utilitarianism since survival is the foundation for why we have morality anyway?  Rules and maxims make it easier and more ordered for a society to function healthier than utilitarian societies I assume because if everyone is a vigilante, then there would be no order.  Deontology provides us with this solution by have maxims that are universalizable to help keep societies functional.  Chaos runs amok when people decide for themselves what's the best for everyone.  That is why nothing good ever happens to those who play God.  

This all might sound confusing, but what I am saying is that deontology is a better way for morality to take place in society, but we must acknowledge its consequentialist roots in survival.  All of our rules are based on maximizing happiness for everyone because if our laws or principles marginalize a group, then rioting and chaos will happen.  Please let me know what you all think.  I am still very openminded about it all so feel free to share your perspectives because I know that this is my belief in how societies should function morally speaking.

What do you all think?  What would the most enlightened guru say about morality?  Would the most enlightened person be aligned more with utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc.?  If you do not agree with any of the theories on morality, then what do you think is the best system of morality.

Here are some examples:

Yoda = utilitarian/virtue ethicist

Obi-wan Kenobi = utilitarian

Gandalf = Deontologist 

Captain America = Deontologist

Dumbledore = Deontologist/utilitarian

Luke Skywalker (original series) = deontologist/virtue ethicist,  Last Jedi Luke Skywalker = utilitarian

Thanos = utilitarian/ethical egoist

James Bond = utilitarian

Superman = Virtue ethicist/deontologist

Batman (Christian Bale) = deontologist

Spiderman (Toby McGuire) = deontologist

Han Solo = ethical egoist

Spock = utilitarian

 

 

 

[AtheisticNonduality]

Very cool.

[Gidiot]

I like the concepts. However I feel like there is an intrinsic reason why morality was developed, there is the survival aspect to it but also there is an unconscious bias inside of all beings to maximize love it seems, we may not all agree on what maximizing love is, but through my life experience I feel like “god” has an agenda and it certainly influencesyou from the inside. Morality is based on far more than physical survival mechanics. It can also be based on abstract ideas such as art and ideology and ego. I guess in a sense you could say morality comes out of the physical or psychological need to survive and the ego. But I think there is an intuitive conscious side to it. 
 

there is a reason why spiral dynamics seems so accurate and most civilizations  follow the same trends. I think “god may have an agenda and is playing it out through us. We have our own little agendas as part of god but ultimately we are maximizing its love not ours. 
 

 

hope that helped

[Gidiot]

Also utilitarianism in the way you presented it sounds great. Because every rule needs exceptions, and there plenty of examples for this but every good rule needs to be upheld as well. Morality is certainly a tricky thing and certainly I think the best morality is unconscious yet conscious at the same time, explicit and implicitly, relatively, right.

[Leo Gura]

@r0ckyreed It's very simple: you are imagining morality. It is whatever you imagine it to be and it will not hold for anyone other than yourself.

But it's even worse than that. It won't even hold for true for you. You yourself will violate your own morality for the sake of survival. Because your commitment is not to anything but the preservation of your ego-mind and your identity.

[Gidiot]

@Leo Gura but isn’t there a reason why the most developed beings have the most love for all? Maybe you don’t even have the call it morality but it doesn’t seem like coincidence or survival at stage turquoise. This seems like an almost intrinsic motor in humans and most beings. Maybe I’m wrong but I just feel like there is a reason why the most developed people are the most selfless. 
 

I guess my point is isn’t gods being itself a kind of morality? Like the selflessness

[Leo Gura]

27 minutes ago, Gidiot said:

Maybe I’m wrong but I just feel like there is a reason why the most developed people are the most selfless.

To be the most selfless you must forget about morality.

Quote

I guess my point is isn’t gods being itself a kind of morality? Like the selflessness

God is more like amorality.

Morality is that which prevents you from realizing that everything is Good.

[Gidiot]

Point taken, I’ve never been a big fan of morality, so in a paradoxical sense the most developed worldview is no morality sense morality is about exclusion rather than inclusion.

i think problem is that many people (myself) included make the mistake that selflessness is a moral value instead of just leaving behind the values and just being selfless

 

i still feel like god has an agenda though.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Gidiot

[Scholar]

12 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

The reason why deontology is "correct" relatively speaking is because having a set of principles, rules, and guidelines is what allows societies to flourish.

You could just read up on some of the literature. What you are describing is not deontology, but rule utilitarianism.

A utilitarian can just say that the right way to maximze well-being is to create rules for us to adhere to. This is different from deontology, even if it looks  similar.

Although this whole dichotomy of utilitarianism vs deontology I don't think is very useful, because you always have to ask the question, on what basis does any human being choose one over the other? It seems to me that it is more useful to use this language as a way to attempt to describe what one already values, not what one ought to value.

[lmfao]

Morality is plato's shadow of something. What that something is I don't know. What it is a shadow of still might be something in the domain of the relative, I have no idea. 

[DocWatts]

@r0ckyreed Very well written and thoughtful exporation of some of the strengths and weakness of deontology. I don't really have a dog in the race here, as I see utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics as being valuable while also having their own limitations. One point against deontology though, that I've yet to see adequately refuted, is a point I'll borrow from Sam Harris : the only reason that deontology works is that following a categorical imperative is only useful because it leads to positive consequences, and wouldn't make sense as an ethical system if following it led to bad and/or harmful results. If someone had an adequate refutation of this point though, I'd be very interested to hear it.

Edited August 20, 2020 by DocWatts

[r0ckyreed]

@DocWatts Yeah I totally agree with Sam Harris there. I think that was one of my points in that utilitarianism, wanting to maximize survival and wellbeing is a foundation of morality. We all want to have a prosperous society and to do that, we have to create rules that will allow people to flourish. A Deontologist system that produces suffering does not make any sense to me. That is why I mentioned that the moral thing for the giants wife to do is to lie to save Jack. Even though the lying is the maxim being violated, assisting in murder is a maxim that outweighs the maxim of lying. Wow. I think I realized that I am a rule utilitarian lol.

[Apparition of Jack]

@r0ckyreed Honest question, do you hold to these beliefs in your real life? When you're faced with an in-the-moment moral dilemma, do you mentally try and go through all these different concepts in your head to find out the correct course of action, or do you act on impulse? Because to me, and forgive me for being a bit stark here, but all this kind of sounds like elaborate mental games that don't really mean much when its comes time to act.

[DocWatts]

@Apparition of Jack I realize that the question was directed at the OP, but I think you make a good point. What generally happens  is that ethics is inculcated into a value system that becomes second nature at some point, and in real life we don't have the time or inclination to deliberate the ethical merits of every (or even most) decisions we make. Perhaps virtue ethics has a point here then, as ethics can build in someone a set of foundational principles that they act on as part of their nature.

Of course in the real world there are a handful of decisions where we can and should deliberate the ethics of  (public policy, who to support for office, long term plans for an organization you're part of), but your point still stands.

Edited August 21, 2020 by DocWatts
grammar

[DocWatts]

To add to that, your point reminds me of a character in 'The Good Place'. One of the characters in the show, Chidi, is a moral philosophy professor, who's personality flaw is decision paralysis because he over analyzes every mundane decision in his life.
 

 

[r0ckyreed]

Yeah I just started watching the Good Place and I remember Chidi talking about Deontology.  But even he succumbs to utilitarian philosophy when he is willing to lie in the Bad Place to prevent them from being caught. @DocWatts @Apparition of Jack I think you make a good point.  In my experience, I have never encountered a moral situation that required me to act on impulse.  I have always had time to weigh the consequences of my actions.  Even if I had to act immediately like Spider-Man did when the Green Goblin had Mary Jane's life on the one hand and a box cart of children on the other, I would still do what Spider-Man did and try to act in a way that brought about the best outcome, which is saving both Mary Jane and the children.  But then again, I think most moral situations encountered are not always in-the-moment.  But if I had no time to think, I am not sure what I would do to be honest, but I would think I would choose the option that I think leads to the best outcome.  Isn't that what most people want?  The fact that I am concerned about how my actions affect others is a sign of strength to me.  A deontologist that is only concerned with their actions and disregards the consequences is more damaging to me because no action is intrinsically right or wrong because it is relative.  As a Utilitarian, I have to ask what the best outcome is and would I be okay with everyone acting the way I just did?  I don't know. Ethics is tough, but I do believe that the consequences of our actions are what really matter.