Introduction
Two prominent normative ethical theories in evaluating the morality of actions are utilitarianism and deontology. In this paper, I argue that, while Kantian ethics serves as a more sustainable framework than Act Utilitarianism in evaluating the morality of an individual’s actions, it struggles to address situations where moral duties may conflict. Rather, I propose a system that utilizes a hierarchical ranking of duties by moral weight derived from the Categorical Imperative serves as a better means of determining what to do in these complex scenarios where our duties may conflict.
Summary
At its core, utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that holds that the resulting consequences of an individual’s action should be the sole basis on which the action’s morality is judged. Consequentialism maintains that no action has intrinsic goodness, but rather actions that result in the most net welfare are ones that are morally good. Act Utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that addresses maximizing utility in actions rather than rules, irrespective of intentionality (Technology Ethics 63).
On the other hand, Kantian ethics, a deontological theory, determines that the morality of an action can be derived from the intention with which we performed it. Actions taken by a self-interested individual that benefit the greater good are considered less moral than actions performed with the intent of bringing about good (Technology Ethics 64). Kantian ethics makes use of a principle known as the Categorical Imperative as a means of determining the moral rightness of an action. The Categorical Imperative serves as a moral obligation that can be universally applied in a way that serves its intended purpose, which Kant uses to derive certain moral duties such as telling the truth, keeping promises, and not harming others such that, if they were to be universally applied, would form constructive purposes (Technology Ethics 65).
Case Study
Let us consider an intuitive example with two police officers: one who takes their duty of protecting the city and those who reside within it seriously and another who little about their duty as an officer and has secretly developed a rather twisted hobby of killing animals as entertainment. Patrolling late at night, let’s imagine each of these officers comes into contact with a highly dangerous fugitive whom they have been given orders to shoot on sight. The first officer, closely scrutinizing the individual and determining that they are indeed the wanted criminal, fulfills their obligations and kills the criminal according to orders. The second officer, who has spent the entirety of their night in boredom, falls prey to their perverse desires and, without distinguishing the criminal from an ordinary citizen, kills them.
Though the results from both actions are the same: the city has been rid of a danger to the rest of the people, intuition tells us that we cannot possibly categorize the two actions with the same moral rightness. Moreover, if we were to consider another officer, one who falls asleep at the wheel and unintentionally hits and kills the same criminal, this would create another situation entirely. While a utilitarian framework would suggest that we ascribe comparable moral weights to comparable outcomes, Kantian ethics would demand us to investigate the motive behind performing these actions.
Critical Engagement + Case Study 2
In this case, the contrast in motives is what creates this difference in morality that we intuitively feel: that the officer who acted to protect his community is more moral than the one who unintentionally did the same, who in turn must be more moral than the officer who derives enjoyment from killing. While I believe that the Categorical Imperative and the moral duties derived from it serve us better in evaluating morality than utilitarianism, I take some issue with the rigidity with which it is held. While it is clear that lying is wrong, it cannot possibly be that it is wrong on all accounts. Were I to lie to a serial killer about where an innocent group of people is hidden, surely I have performed the morally correct action even at the expense of breaching the moral duty of telling the truth.
While it is impossible to construct and define these case-by-case situations in which it is acceptable to break from the categorical imperative, I feel equally weary in adopting a purely intuition-based approach. Who is to say that one individual’s intuition is remotely similar to another’s? Rather I use a universally hierarchically ordered set of duties derived from the Categorical Imperative, where certain obligations take priority over others. For instance, we might take the ‘do not harm others’ principle in a higher regard than the ‘keep promises’ principle so that, in the event of a conflict of duties, we are justified in the breaking of a ‘lower importance’ principle in protecting a ‘higher order’ principle. The establishment of such an order creates a universally applicable set of duties that accounts for intentionality.
Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings, Edited by Gregory J. Robson and Jonathan Y. Tsou
Tianyi Evans Gu 