The moral theory of utilitarianism argues that people have an ethical obligation to take the course of action that will lead to the most positive outcome. (And the best outcome is happiness, because that’s the absolute best possibility.) Consequentialism dictates that humans consider any possible outcome of an action, be it “good” or “bad,” especially because the outcome of that act would reveal the act itself to be objectively morally “right” or “wrong.” In the moral philosophy of deontology, by contrast, outcomes and consequences are not as important in the decision-making process, or in the evaluation of right versus wrong. In this philosophy, it’s about the moral nature of the overriding rules and principles that guide the act. Acting under a morally correct rule system guarantees that doing the right thing is the right thing, regardless of the outcome or consequences.
In terms of religion, deontology is a big deal. Most any major religion’s tenets derive from a set of divine commands, or commandments, that make adherents morally obligated not to engage in clearly defined immoral acts. In Christianity, for example, lying, stealing, and laying with thy neighbor’s wife are objectively immoral acts because the moral system set forth by the Ten Commandments explicitly says that they are.
These religious moral ideas can be used outside of a religious system, a concept called secular deontological moral theory. The most cohesive, thorough, and lasting writings on the ideas were set forth by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in the late 1700s. Rather than deriving some kind of universal or widely accepted moral code from divine rules, church laws, or maxims, Kant’s theory of deontology comes from what he affirmed were certain truths about humanity’s ability to reason, and from that reason comes a sense of deon, or duty.
Born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia (now part of Russia), Kant devoted almost his entire life to the pursuit of knowledge and deep understanding at the University of Königsberg, where he studied from age sixteen until just before his death in 1804. He also studied math and astronomy, but he was a pioneer in the philosophical subset of ethics, with books like Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Metaphysics of Morals (1798).
One major way that deontology diverges from utilitarianism is that under utilitarianism, any action can be justified if it leads to happiness. (In other words, the ends justify the means.) Deontology presents a far more absolute view, in that some things, whatever they may be, are always wrong, and that even if an okay consequence results, it doesn’t change the immoral nature of the action itself. As such, actions in deontology must always be judged independently from their outcomes.
Here’s an example: A man walks by a yard and sees a dog that’s been tied up and neglected. He decides to steal the dog, take it home, feed it, and treat it well. A utilitarian philosopher would argue that the man’s theft was morally good, because the outcome was favorable—the dog (and probably the man) received happiness. But a Kantian or deontologist would argue that stealing is wrong, period. The outcome itself was a good one, but the nature of that outcome has little to nothing to do with the action that caused it—because it is objectively wrong to steal.
“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’—that is the motto of enlightenment.” —Immanuel Kant, on the path to enlightenment
Flip the situation around, and there’s still a disconnect. Someone intending to do something objectively bad can accidentally create a good consequence. Let’s change up the previous example. A man decides to steal a dog, and this he does, but he has no idea that the dog he stole was being mistreated by its previous owner. This objectively wrong act of theft saves the dog from mistreatment, and the result is a “good” outcome from a “bad” action.
It’s all well and good to separate an action from its outcome. But how is an action determined to be unambiguously morally right or wrong in the secular realm, without religious maxims to point the way? The seed of Kantianism is the idea that human beings alone have the capacity for reason. We can think things through and act based on our thoughts, and this ability empowers us with a sense of duty or moral obligation. These abilities supersede and diminish our animal instincts, which don’t play a role in decision-making. Duty and obligation are so universal that they provide all of us with more or less the same system of rules that guide our actions and make us do the right thing, regardless of instinct, desire, or personal intentions. We intend to do good, or at least we have the will to do so. In other words, good intentions matter, and we are guided not by religious faith but by duty to our fellow man. Goodwill comes when a person commits an action out of “respect for the moral law,” or in other words, one’s duty.
To Kant, will is truly the only thing that is intrinsically good, or “good without qualification.” The moral status of concepts that most people (and other schools of philosophy) would assume are quite good have a bit murkier status in Kantian philosophy. Intelligence and even pleasure are not intrinsically good, nor are they good without “qualification.” Pleasure is suspect because there are so many kinds of pleasure, such as schadenfreude, the German term for deriving pleasure out of the suffering of others.