Leaving (the Concept of) Deontology Behind

Abstract Deontology is typically taken to describe a family of theories in normative ethics that are opposed to consequentialism. This chapter reviews four different ways philosophers have drawn the consequentialism/deontology distinction. It argues that consequentialism is best defined as the view that all reasons for action are fundamentally reasons to produce outcomes. This might suggest that deontology should be understood as the complementary view: that some reasons for action are not reasons to produce outcomes. However, the chapter argues that such a wide variety of meaningfully different views fall into that category, that the better option is to dispense with the concept of deontology altogether. Carving up ethics into outcome-focused views versus “all the rest” has distorted debates in normative ethics, by suggesting that consequentialist views should be regarded as a default and minimizing the importance of distinguishing among alternatives to consequentialism.