Ethics & Metaethics · Ground of Rightness

Deontology

There are duties to keep and constraints not to cross, regardless of consequences.

What it claims

Deontology holds that certain types of action are required or forbidden independently of the goodness or badness of the outcomes they produce. What it denies is the consequentialist premise that “it produces a better outcome” is always a sufficient justification. The core argument comes from the separateness of persons.

Nearby positions

Key thinkers

Immanuel Kant · W. D. Ross · Frances M. Kamm · Christine M. Korsgaard · Charles Fried