Comment on What Deontology gets right

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:50:11 GMT

The thing is, to deal with any real problem, one has to work out the details. In practical application, consequentialists will have to deal with all the same facts of reality that deontologist do, and vice versa. From our last go around, I was increasingly wondering whether the difference between consequentialists and deontologists go to zero in application, and whether they're just arguing over structural commitments in their language model.

I am aware that they often come to different and stereotyped conclusions, but that could have more to do with differences in underlying moral preferences, and a failure to truly drive home to the details. My guess is we all have a bit of each in us, but prefer one or the other according to how well it facilitates our preferred conclusions.

Rule consequentliasm becomes the natural way for someone insisting on consequentialism to try to take care of deontological concerns.

They get farther by recognizing that acts are events too. What is a consequence, but an event? If you can have preferences over events, you can have preferences over acts, and you can get to have all the preferences a deontologist does, and still call yourself a consequentialist.

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