Deontology

Deontology is best described as a foil to (or a sort of antithesis of) consequentialism.

Where consequentialism looks at the consequences (or most probable consequences) of actions to determine if those actions (or rules of thumb for rule consequentialism) were ultimately good or bad, deontology completely ignores the consequences of actions and looks to the actions themselves and how they conform to certain rules to determine if those actions were right or wrong.

As an example, a typical deontological rule, or duty(deon) is to not lie. Presented with any hypothetical situation, a deontologist who subscribes to that rule must always agree that lying is wrong. Even in the case of the "[[#Inquisitive Murderer|]]", a thought experiment wherein a murderer looking for his victim comes upon you and asks you the location. In this hypothetical case you know the location (or believe you know) and you must answer.

Think we're strawmanning? Read this.

"It was only an accident (casus) that the truth of the statement harmed the occupant of the house; it was not a free act (in a juristic sense). For to demand of another that he should lie to one's own advantage would be a claim opposed to all lawfulness. Each man has not only a right but even the strict duty to be truthful in statements he cannot avoid making, whether they harm himself or others. In so doing, he does not do harm to him who suffers as a consequence; accident causes this harm. For one is not at all free to choose in such a case, since truthfulness (if he must speak) is an unconditional duty."
-Immanuel Kant, father of deontology. From "a supposed right to lie"

This, and responses to it, are outlined in more detail in the section on the #Inquisitive Murderer.

The nature of duties

Duties, or more specifically "perfect duties" refer to specific conduct and usually amount to prohibitions on that conduct.

Positive perfect duties are less common, and involve things like "preserve your life". In other words, instead of evaluating each scenario, Deontology creates a laundry list of (arbitrary) actions that are either good or bad (For instance, "Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not murder."). It assumes ALL instances of an action are bad. Take theft for example. A Deontologist would argue that stealing a ten dollars from a homeless man is as immoral as stealing ten cents from a billionaire.

Some Deontologists place these actions on a sort of hierarchy, such as saying stealing is worse than lying which is worse than defecating on a table in a public library. Interestingly, Deontologists who rank actions have a hard time agreeing on which actions are worse than others, which is to be expected since it's all arbitrarily decided, not to mention it misses the point of of deontology; That is, it's supposed to be "rationally derived."

More specifically, perfect duties have to deal with *intent* to do these things, because again consequence (and actual outcome) don't really matter.

Perfect duties are those that we must intend to "do" (or more often refrain from doing/never intend to do) at all times.

Kant also described "imperfect duties" which we aren't obligated to do all of the time (they are essentially optional), and which are far more complicated. Most of this article covers perfect duties and calls them duties as a shorthand, imperfect duties are covered in this section.

Consequence as duty

For those unfamiliar with deontology, it may be tempting to try to merge it into consequentialism by claiming we have a duty to do whatever has the best consequences.

First, this undermines the point of deontology as a category of ethical thought which is identified principally by its indifference to consequence, so if it can not be demonstrated to be necessary (perhaps it could be so demonstrated, which is another matter, see this section) such a claim is categorically dubious.

Second, duties are typically prohibitions for a reason. Perfect duties are things that must always be done (or not done) and no intentional action can always be undertaken in practice save basic things like living (although even this is complicated by the autonomous nervous system). This makes such active practices as perfect duties futile and seemingly contradicting the notion of the categorical imperative (the incoherence of willing that everybody do the impossible).

In broad consequential terms sleeping may be the action with the best consequences at times because it provides for the ability to do more the next day, but perfect duties can not presume later unspecified intended actions on your own part to compensate for them suggesting an implausibly broad intention, and more importantly it's also true that the action with the best consequences is fundamentally unknown. Perfect knowledge of what actions have the absolute best consequences is impossible, and even an intention to do the best action is impossible when we know that we do not know what the best action is (only a delusion of absolute faith would make the intention arguably possible, but faith isn't knowledge and treating it as such has its own problems in contradiction with the categorical imperative as discussed in this section).

Third, if stated in the inverse as a prohibition against doing the thing with the worst consequences, this formulation does nothing because we can easily understand taking the worst possible action to be essentially impossible thus in that knowledge never intend to do it.

The essential problem with this incompatibility is that actions in consequentialism lie on a spectrum where there are better and worse things to do with respective moral responsibility while duties represent extremes -- there is THE right or THE wrong thing to do, and it occupies an idealized principle. It also doesn't matter what magnitude or number of violations occur, these duties are by definition perfect and absolute, and resistant to any calculus or comparison. This makes consequentialism and deontology fundamentally incompatible, and if it could be shown that there were a duty to consequence it's very likely that this would result in the implosion of the deontological system making that claim as demonstrated in this section.

Formulation as an imperfect duty to do more good for other than harm may help resolve this, but suffers from the same fundamental flaws every imperfect duty suffers from like indefinite procrastination which makes them effectively optional, discussed more in that section. Imperfect duties are also always overridden by perfect ones because of their comparative immediacy, so if there exist any perfect duties at all they supersede the imperfect one at any immediate cost as long as it might be possible to complete the imperfect duty at a later date.

Inquisitive Murderer

Contemporary Kantian Rationalizations

As one of the more problematic thorns modern Kantians inherited in deontology, the inquisitive murderer is something that has seen many attempts at rationalization.

An example of one such attempt:

"The gist of my defense is as follows: First, each individual has a Kantian moral duty of self-preservation, a duty which would require lying to save herself from a murderer. Second, with a few exceptions that can be readily explained away, Kant views our duties as subject to a kind of symmetry, according to which if an agent is morally required to treat herself in a particular fashion, then all other things being equal, she is morally required to treat similarly situated others in the same fashion. Hence, our moral duty of self preservation requires lying in order to fulfill it, which in turn entails that our duty to preserve others' lives requires lying in order to fulfill that duty"
-Michael Cholbi, Kantian Ethicist[1]

Both premises are incorrect. First, duties don't inherently exist in hierarchies with the exception of the perfect/imperfect distinction, though even these are not really a true hierarchy but one of immediacy (one thing to be done all of the time, one to be done sometimes). The derivation of duties is based on the conception of a contradiction in accordance with the categorical imperative, and no contradiction is any more or less contradictory than another. A conflict of duties results in an ethical dilemma for a Kantian with no self evident resolution (despite many attempts).

Kant himself apparently realized this, and generally avoided any discussion on moral dilemmas, but responded on rare occasions with a monomaniacal certainty that true duties could not possibly be in conflict, "for where something is morally necessary, no other obligation can make the opposite necessary." The position of outright denial is one he had to take, because otherwise moral dilemmas made deontology impossible to put into practice (thus arguably violating its own categorical imperative).

"obligations cannot conflict, for where something is morally necessary, no other obligation can make the opposite necessary. But since duty and obligation are concepts that express the objective practical necessity of certain actions, and two rules opposed to each other cannot both be necessary at the same time – rather if it is one’s duty to act according to one of them, to act according to the opposite one is not only no duty, but even contrary to duty – a collision of duties and obligations is not even conceivable.
-Immanuel Kant"

The bottom line is that, unless we deny reality, once we accept the existence of duties arising as such in deontology, we are left rather adrift when they clash. Ultimately, as an equally credible claim, it could equally be said the duty to avoid lying requires suicide -- in a deontological framework the two are equally absurd. In the case of an analogous thought experiment where the murderer indicates you will be murdered if you are a friend of your friend and asks you if you are, the more credible answer is that lying is wrong in this case as well because you are not committing suicide at all, but the murderer is potentially committing the wrong (something you will never know for sure will happen) and your duty is only to be truthful.

As to the second premise, that "symmetry" is the argument for imperfect duties (which Kant recognized could conflict). Perfect duties always take precedence over imperfect ones since imperfect duties can be accomplished in many ways at different times -- such as ways that do not require a violation of a perfect duty. You can satisfy an imperfect duty that arises from your need to be protected from murderers by protecting somebody from a murderer in that specific circumstance, but you can also satisfy that duty by (for instance) paying your taxes that fund the police force that do that professionally. It's entirely plausible that, in a reversed circumstance, you would not demand for others to lie for you -- it's not something that innately generates a contradiction or duty via the categorical imperative.

Within Veganism

Unfortunately, there is a strong deontological side within the Vegan movement, which (in general) is opposed to ALL uses of animals. That is, it is not morally correct to use animals for testing of medicines, as helpers (such as seeing-eye dogs to help the blind, or aiding those with mental disorders), or to be eaten in survival situations.

It becomes a matter of differentiating use and abuse; Intuitively, whenever a being is used for something, it seems as though the person using it is engaging in something unethical. However, just because someone is being used does not automatically translate to harm, and completely disregards the consequences of that use. As a real-world example, take the existence of Sweatshops. These are often opposed on the grounds of the workers being "used" by the owners of the factory and the corporations, yet it ignores that sweatshops provide better wages, jobs and living standards to the people in these countries as well as improving gender equality.

From a consequentialist standpoint, it is perfectly acceptable to use animals if the consequences are good. In terms of helper animals long as the animal is being provided for and isn't being abused, and the overall consequences of having the animal being used are positive, there is nothing morally objectionable about using an animal.

It also is a matter of how people view vegans and veganism. Giving people the impression that Vegans won't even support the use of animals when it would benefit humans, or that Vegans equate all sentient life (such as putting even insects at the same level of moral value as humans) makes people think that the movement is filled with a bunch of loons with no sense of nuance, and they will distance themselves from it and thus harms more animals.

You'll also find many (not all) deontologists are against things such as buying vegan products from otherwise non-vegan companies (such as Ben&Jerry's Non-Dairy Ice Creams, or Burger King's Impossible Whopper) because they don't agree with giving money to people who engage in animal cruelty. But the fact that these people are making money off of Vegan products is morally irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant here is whether or not buying their Vegan products helps alleviate animal suffering, and being concerned with someone getting rich off of it is a red herring. Are these corporations getting richer off of Vegan products? Sure, but it also reduces animal suffering by making Veganism easier for people and shifting demand away from animal products.

Rights Based Activism

When we talk about "Rights Based Activism" we're not referring to legal rights, we're referring to moral rights. Legal rights are a valid thing and can have some serious utility (as it did in terms of Civil Rights). Moral rights however is a deontological position, and are thus philosophically suspect.

Rights Based Activism comes with all the problems Deontology brings with it. It's an approach that's based on circular reasoning and arbitrariness. It can be broken down as so:

Why is it wrong to do X to Y? Because Y has inalienable rights to not have X done to it.

Why does it have such rights? Because it's wrong to violate those rights.

Why? Because they're rights!

So what though? Who or what granted animals these rights? Why should anyone care about them?