deontology

This note last modified September 1, 2024

#todo

Random notes:

The doctrine of double effect is a good deontological response to many consequentialist thought experiments. e.g. is it ok to pull the lever? Yes, because killing the 1 is collateral damage, not the intended outcome
Social Contract theory provides a good response to “breaking rules”. You can lie to the murderer, you can kill baby Hitler, because they are breaking the social contract and thus are not protected by it
the golden rule differs from the categorical imperative

ethics
- Extremely broadly speaking, ethics is split into two categories: “There are certain actions you should never take, like murder” (deontology) vs “Anything is ok as long as it leads to good outcomes” (consequentialism)
deconstruction
- This is the problem of deconstruction. If you constantly analyze and tear apart theories, you find that every abstract structure doesn’t really make sense. Deconstructing religion leads to nihilism. Deconstructing deontology leads to utilitarianism (see philosophical collapse, deconstructing utilitarianism leads to even more nihilism. This process applies to every branch of philosophy I’ve encountered, the more you think about these branches, the more you find out that every theory is ad-hoc, that every structure humans have made to organize thought are built off of nothing. In the same way that the patriarchy is a meaninglessness concept built by humans to make sense of society, maybe ethics itself is a meaninglessness concept.
Why study ethics
- While I wouldn’t expect someone to apply “Utilitarianism” to day to day decisions, I think an understanding of ethics is important to design larger systems. I feel like my understanding of deontology helps me understand why our legal system is set up the way it is, and helps me think through proposals for a better one.