I think it isn’t precise to say that they value different things, since the deontologist doesn’t decide in terms of values. Speaking of values is practical from the point of view of a consequentialist, who compares different possible states (or histories) of the world; values are then functions defined over the set of world states which the decider tries to maximise. A pure ideal deontologist doesn’t do that; his moral decisions are local (i.e. they take into account only the deontologist’s own action and perhaps its immediate context) and binary (i.e. the considered action is either approved or not, it isn’t compared to other possible actions). If more actions are approved the deontologist may use whatever algorithm to choose between them, but this choice is outside the domain of deontologist ethics.
Deontologist rules can’t force one to act as if one valued some total amount of murders (low or high), as the total amount of murders isn’t one’s own action. Formulating the preference as a “deontological” rule of “you shouldn’t do things that would lead you to believe that the total amount of murders would increase” is sneaking consequentialism into deontology.
Formulating the preference as a “deontological” rule of “you shouldn’t do things that would lead you to believe that the total amount of murders would increase” is sneaking consequentialism into deontology.
This is not at all clear to me. The Kantian Categorical Imperative is usually seen as a deontological rule, even though it’s really a formulation of ‘reflective’ concerns (viz., ‘you should not act as you would not have everyone act’, akin to the Silver and Golden Rule) that could be seen as meta-ethical in their own right.
I think it isn’t precise to say that they value different things, since the deontologist doesn’t decide in terms of values. Speaking of values is practical from the point of view of a consequentialist, who compares different possible states (or histories) of the world; values are then functions defined over the set of world states which the decider tries to maximise. A pure ideal deontologist doesn’t do that; his moral decisions are local (i.e. they take into account only the deontologist’s own action and perhaps its immediate context) and binary (i.e. the considered action is either approved or not, it isn’t compared to other possible actions). If more actions are approved the deontologist may use whatever algorithm to choose between them, but this choice is outside the domain of deontologist ethics.
Deontologist rules can’t force one to act as if one valued some total amount of murders (low or high), as the total amount of murders isn’t one’s own action. Formulating the preference as a “deontological” rule of “you shouldn’t do things that would lead you to believe that the total amount of murders would increase” is sneaking consequentialism into deontology.
This is not at all clear to me. The Kantian Categorical Imperative is usually seen as a deontological rule, even though it’s really a formulation of ‘reflective’ concerns (viz., ‘you should not act as you would not have everyone act’, akin to the Silver and Golden Rule) that could be seen as meta-ethical in their own right.