Ambrose Bierce and the Problem of Deontology Essay

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DeontologyDeontology posits that the rightness of an action is based upon its inherent quality, i.e., whether it corresponds to one’s duty based on one’s state in life (p. 242). Kant prescribed absolutes when it came to defining this quality, but others have not. Kant stated that a good will “is good in itself” and this goodness is not dependent upon performance or effects (p. 245). It is good, in other words, because it is doing what it should be doing. In a sense, this is similar to the idea of virtue ethics, because both rely on an idea of universals—good defined in an absolute way. Frankena posits that one may break a promise (p. 262). Ross contends that we must intuit what is right by consulting deep within ourselves (p. 276). This is more or less what Carter Druse’s father tells the young man he must do when Carter says he will fight for the Union rather than for the Confederate South. Druse ends up firing at his father in the course of the war, and it is shocking—but he convinces himself that he must do this based upon his own father’s admonition that Carter do what he believes his duty to be. But can one’s duty ever be to kill one’s own father?The story has echoes of Plato’s Euthyphro,…

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…short time, is that Euthyphro is very likely rushing into action based on a self-righteous attitude that what he is doing is holy and good. Yet there is nuance to every moral situation, and this is something that is not clear in Kant’s deontology.

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It is also why virtue ethics may be the superior ethical system, since it is less arbitrary than deontology ala Kant but also situated in an objective standard. Individual consequences are important because every moral action is situated in the individual—but consequences have greater effects, too, such as how the impact others, and that also has to be considered—such appears to be the point of Plato and….....

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