Hence a lie defined merely as an intentionally untruthful declaration to another man does not require the additional condition that it must do harm to another, as jurists require in their definition ( mendacium est falsiloquium in praeiudicium alterius). In his essay, " On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns", arguing against the position of Benjamin Constant, Des réactions politiques, Kant states that: 'I will lie', then their action is wrong, even if some good consequences come of it. Kant argued that the only absolutely good thing is a good will, and so the single determining factor of whether an action is morally right is the will, or motive of the person doing it. Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in a universal kingdom of ends.Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end and.Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.Kant's three significant formulations of the categorical imperative are: He defines respect as "the concept of a worth which thwarts my self-love." Thus, the only thing that is truly good in itself is a good will, and a good will is only good when the willer chooses to do something because it is that person's duty, i.e. Instead, he claims, a person has a good will when he "acts out of respect for the moral law." People "act out of respect for the moral law" when they act in some way because they have a duty to do so. Kant then argues that the consequences of an act of willing cannot be used to determine that the person has a good will good consequences could arise by accident from an action that was motivated by a desire to cause harm to an innocent person, and bad consequences could arise from an action that was well-motivated. Nothing in the world-indeed nothing even beyond the world-can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will. He concludes that there is only one thing that is truly good: Pleasure, for example, appears not to be good without qualification, because when people take pleasure in watching someone suffer, this seems to make the situation ethically worse. Kant then argues that those things that are usually thought to be good, such as intelligence, perseverance, and pleasure, fail to be either intrinsically good or good without qualification. Something is " good in itself" when it is intrinsically good and is " good without qualification" when the addition of that thing never makes a situation ethically worse. Kant's first argument begins with the premise that the highest good must be both good in itself and good without qualification. Second, Kant argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong, but the motives of the person who carries out the action. First, Kant argues that in order to act in the morally right way, people must act from duty ( Pflicht). Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics is considered deontological for several different reasons.
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The more general sense of the word is retained in French, especially in the term code de déontologie ( ethical code), in the context of professional ethics.ĭepending on the system of deontological ethics under consideration, a moral obligation may arise from an external or internal source, such as a set of rules inherent to the universe ( ethical naturalism), religious law, or a set of personal or cultural values (any of which may be in conflict with personal desires). Older usage of the term goes back to Jeremy Bentham, who coined it prior to 1816 as a synonym of dicastic or censorial ethics (i.e., ethics based on judgement). Broad in his 1930 book, Five Types of Ethical Theory. The term deontological was first used to describe the current, specialised definition by C. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences. Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism, virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. It is sometimes described as duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics.
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In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: δέον, 'obligation, duty' + λόγος, 'study') is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action. Not to be confused with the opposite of ontology.