Conflicting Deontological Duties

Great Debates
1

[QUOTE=about.com]
A common criticism of deontological moral systems is that they provide no clear way to resolve conflicts between moral duties. a deontological moral system should include both a moral duty not to lie and one to keep others from harm, for example, but in the above situation how is a person to choose between those two moral duties?
[/quote]

Can’t you choose a specific course of action tailored to your situation so that you prevent harm to others by lying?

Or must all actions be distilled to their component parts? E.g. lying to save someone must be distilled down to the individual actions of lying and saving someone before assessment using Kant’s ethical system?

2

I’m not sure why a deontological system has to include a duty to keep others from harm. Kant would say that not lying is a moral (deontological, the just, about universal rules and categorical imperatives) duty whereas preventing harm to others is an ethical (teleological, the good, about the good life and hypothetical imperatives).

In the situation you specify, you would still be lying. If this were made universal, then everyone would lie which would make lying ineffective. Lying could not work in a world in which lying were made universal because no one would be believed. It therefore fails deontologically because it could not be made a universal rule. In Kant’s view, if you lie, you’re saying that you’re a special flower because the rules which apply to others don’t apply to you; that your morality is not universal.

Think of it a bit like a trial. A trial not properly conducted might give you a true verdict of culpability but that’s not good enough. It has to be done the right way too.

Perhaps I got something wrong and an actual Kantian can correct the crass utilitarian that I am.

3

I know that one is still lying, but let’s say that you lied specifically to save someone’s life. Couldn’t this be a universalizable rule?

“Always lie to save someone’s life.”

And I think that preventing harm to an innocent person is a duty. If we let a murderer get to an innocent person, the murderer will use the innocent person to his own ends. That violates the 2nd CI.

4

I thought Kant was without exception opposed to all lying, and so
his system was not one of assessment.

Unless he changed his mind he thought it impermissible even to lie
to an intended murdrer who was asking for the whereabouts of the
intended victim:

Kant: On A Supposed Right To Tell Lies From Benevolent Motives

(from link, Kant speaking):

5

Thank you for the information.

I guess this is one of the weakness of Kant’s ethical system. E.g. a terrorist asks a SS agent - a strict Kantian - for the exact location of the POTUS on the campaign trail. Deontological ethics: fail.

6

Don’t forget how Christian (Pietist) Kant is. His morality is a personalist morality. It is about the guilt and conduct of a particular individual, not maximizing an aggregate (like utilitarianism).

If John violates the 2nd CI, that’s entirely on John, not Paul even if Paul could have easily prevented it by lying. Paul would be acting for the Good but doing so unjustly (non-deontologically). Kant is not opposed to promoting a particular Good but it has to be done strictly within deontological limits.

7

The SS agent could always tell the terrorist to go fuck himself. That’s not forbidden by Kant. Well, as long as it’s purely figurative since Kant was against masturbation.

Perhaps a better example would be a Jew in 1940 being approached by a Gestapo agent and being asked “Sinn Sie ein Jude?” and the Jew having to answer: “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ll have to decline answering that question.”

8

Deonotology is to be contrasted with consequentialism; for a consequentialist, only the consequences matter.

I take it the force of the objection is meant to be that a deontologist cannot easily block the dilemma, except by taking into account the consequences.

(NB: you might be a deontologist that thinks consequences matter sometimes, or to some extent. But you also might not want to be that sort of deontologist. And even if you do think consequences matter sometimes, you might want to be careful about when they matter.)

In the particular example you start with a list of moral obligations, which both include preventing harm and not lying. So, sure you could do this, but what do you appeal to, to say that in this case you should break an obligation?

The article sets things up by saying, you should have these duties, and look, dilemma follows. I don’t think that is good way to do it. I think the better question is not; how can a deontologist deal with this situation, but rather, how can a deontologist deal with a conflict between moral oblgiations.

As an aside, the about.com article is a bit dodgey. The relevant SEP articles are Moral Dilemmas and Deontological Ethics, though these are quite long.

9

Let’s say the SS agent was given the option of divulging the exact location of the POTUS in the motorcade at a specific time. If the agent refused to answer, the terrorist will kill her.

The problems:

  1. If the agent does not answer - she is in essence committing suicide (opposed by Kant)

  2. If the agent answers truthfully - she endangers the life of an innocent person.

  3. If the agent lies - she violates the deontological stance on lying.

I’m still in shock that Kant did not try to account for this situation in his philosophy.

Lol.

:dubious:

10

Since this is not a factual question, let’s move it over to GD.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

11

Where does “silence” fit in?

12

She’s not committing suicide in your scenario. She’s choosing to not act immorally, even though she knows the consequence of her moral action may be her martyrdom. But if the terrorist kills her for keeping silent, then he’s the one who bears moral culpability for her death, not her, because her death is due to the terrorist’s choice to kill her.

13

The immorality of lying is based on the moral obligation to tell the truth, which is not present in all cases. Otherwise we could have no fiction. When you go to the movies, the actors lines are all lies. You are not obligated to truthfully answer questions from Nazis. You are not obligated to tell the truth to people who want to know if something looks good on them (except in cases where you have relationship based on such truthfulness). In general you have no obligation to be truthful to strangers.

Please identify the system of belief that makes the blanket proscription of all things not factually correct.

14

Lying involves intent to deceive.

Fiction and acting are different from lying because of the context. In a perfectly Kantian world, they won’t have any more trouble distinguishing fiction from nonfiction than we do. (Though they might take to carrying signs that say “This is fiction” or “I’m playing make-believe with my kids” just to avoid any possibility of confusion). Likewise, a Kantian could also say “This is an example of a lie: the sky is green.”

As to sharing information with Nazis - the Kantian system doesn’t agree with you. You can refuse to answer in all manner of ways, but you don’t get to lie.

15

I think he did; in On A Supposed Right to Lie From Altruistic Motives, he replied to folks who thought they were doing a reductio ad absurdum; he patiently explained that they weren’t extrapolating his ideas to some new and weird conclusion, but were accurately and routinely expressing his sentiments on the matter.

As per Kant, the “question is: Is he not in fact bound to tell an untruth, when he is unjustly compelled to make a statement, in order to protect himself or another from a threatened misdeed?” The answer, from Kant, is that “a lie always harms another; if not some other particular man, still it harms mankind generally, for it vitiates the source of law itself.”

He goes on and on and on about it in the essay. “If, by telling an untruth, I do not wrong him who unjustly compels me to make a statement, nevertheless by this falsification, which must be called a lie (though not in a legal sense), I commit a wrong against duty generally in a most essential point … I cause that declarations should in general find no credence, and hence that all rights based on contracts should be void and lose their force, and this is a wrong done to mankind generally … This is because truthfulness is a duty which must be regarded as the ground of all duties based on contract, and the laws of these duties would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted. To be truthful (honest) in all declarations, therefore, is a sacred and absolutely commanding decree of reason, limited by no expediency … Each man has not only a right but even the strict duty to be truthful in statements he cannot avoid making, whether they harm himself or others. In so doing, he does not do harm to him who suffers as a conesquence; accident causes this harm.”

By lying, he believes, you’re already inflicting harm – and he feels you’re responsible for any further harm unforeseeably sparked by your well-intentioned lie (rather like the archetypal robber convicted for felony murder when a cashier returns fire and hits an innocent bystander); as for the other side of the coin, “if by telling a lie you have prevented murder, you have made yourself legally responsible for all the consequences; but if you have held rigorously to the truth, public justice can lay no hand on you, whatever the unforeseen consequences may be.”

You can disagree with the guy; I certainly do. But it’s not that he didn’t try to account for it; he addressed it head-on.