Rough observations on two major schools of western ethics

Most public policy debates seem based on one or both of these lines -- often without a lot of intellectual honesty.

right/duty or deontological ethics

utilitarianism
greatest good for greatest number

key exponent Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German academic

John Stewart Mill (1806-73) English parliamentarian and

writer; important economist and political thinker

key quotes by Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become

the above
by thy will a universal law of nature.
exponent
Act as though you were through your maxims a
law-making member of a kingdom of ends.
Act that you use humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of any other, always at the
same time as an end, never merely as a means.

actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote

happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, ...
the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of
what is right in conduct, is not the agent's own happiness,
but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness
and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as
strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent
spectator.

focus on

right vs. wrong conduct; act (and person) judged on

compliance with moral laws, not outcome

good vs. bad results; ~ end justifies means; act (and

person) judged on outcome, not whether following moral
laws

perspective

ex ante: rules apply before you know results of

actions; acts judged based on intent to comply with
rules, not what happens

ex post: must, before acting, predict consequences but acts

judged good or bad not on intent or whether broke moral
rules but on results after the act

well suited

where the rules and any relevant exceptions are well

understood and accepted in society (murder, lying,
stealing, etc.)

where economic well-being is the major goal; e.g. we

want to increase employment: what is the most effective
way to accomplish this goal

difficulty

deriving and justifying rules to deal with the

complexities of real life; can add a rule or exception
to deal with hard cases (avoid results ordinary
citizens find absurd), but this results in a large set of
rules which become impossible to coherently
reconcile

determining a unit of measure and then measuring

everything; are there bad pleasures? often, the analysis
is of costs and benefits measured in money; some parts of
analysis and some results will seem morally absurd to
ordinary citizens (putting a price on human lives)

not well
suited

where socially accepted rules are non-existent,

contradict each other, or dont apply well to the
situation: do we spend a billion dollars in tax money
to build a bridge which will benefit only 100 people;
each of those 100 persons is an absolute end, but
how much should 300 million others be taxed to
benefit only 100?

where society places an absolute or infinite value on, e.g.

human life or freedom; yet some public decisions have to
be made which implicitly put a value on life; no car can be
absolutely safe within bounds of what people will actually
buy (both design of car and price), so there will always be
marginal changes which would cost X but save Y lives no
matter how much you spend to make cars safer

similar to:

economics: complex set of logic and mathematics to

law: complex set of inter-related rules to govern
maximize economic well being by using a monetary
behavior and rules for determining which rule has
priority when an act could be governed by apparently measure as proxy for utility
inconsistent rules

religion

a duties approach to ethics is often fairly consistent

with the moral teachings of major religions; it is
likely that each ethical thinker derives rules which
often have a close connection to the moral teachings
of the religious traditions of his/her society.

the early utilitarians were generally non-religious, or even

anti-religious and attempted to deliberately derive their
principles from rational sources unconnected with
religion; they were willing to shock society with their
opinions, yet they were part of society and often reached
results within the broad moral consensus of their times

for papers/tests try to include both A & B below:

A. specify the rule(s) relevant to decision, apply the
rule, and state result; for extra credit describe the
source of the rule and how widely it is accepted

A. assess the costs and benefits for each alternative option

to be considered, at least in relative terms (e.g. costs are
twice as high)

B. state the categories of persons considered and for B. state the categories of persons considered and for each
each describe their rights and duties relevant to the
describe the allocation of costs and benefits
question and to each other; note for each person with
a right to something, someone must have a duty to
provide it
Wikipedia has good articles on these ethical schools. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantian_ethics;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism. See also http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#MilUti;
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/