There are two types of deontological ethics: act deontology and rule deontology. Act deontology maintains that there are no firm ethical rules to be followed when making ethical decisions. Instead, decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, with each individual doing what he or she feels to be the right thing to do at the time. This paper, however, will focus on the mo

re common form of deontology, rule deontology.

The third and final theory that will discussed here is Ross’s theory of Prima Facie Duties. Prima Facie duties are duties which must be “obeyed in a general way before any other considerations enter into the picture” (Thiroux, 2001). Ross gave examples of these duties such as: fidelity, justice, beneficence and nonmaleficence, but did not give all of the prima facie duties, nor did he rank them. Instead, he believed that human beings would know intuitively which duties were prima facie and which prima facie duties should be first taken into consideration when making our ethical choices. Therefore, in making an ethical decision in which two prima facie duties conflict, one would be required to act based on the strongest, or most important duty. However, from person to person, these rankings could be entirely different. How then, do we judge which decisions are right and which are wrong? This is one of the greatest weaknesses of the theory. In fact, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2001) states that deontological ethics in general, and this author feels that Ross’s theory in particular, rests too heavily on “spontaneous moral intuition”. Consequently, even though this theory is a rule deontological theory, there are no hard and fast rules to follow, which could leave one confused and in doubt of their decision.

The second, and more complex rule deontological theory is that of Immanuel Kant’s Duty Ethics. Kant believed that every human being has an inclination to behave in a certain ways, whether they are positive behaviors, such as participating in volunteer efforts, or negative behaviors, such as abusing children. Therefore, to escape these “irrational and emotional” inclinations, human beings should duty bound to behave morally according to certain rules (Thiroux, 2001).

How much do these two methods truly differ? Is making exceptions to rules (as in rule utilitarianism) really that different than ranking rules by priority (as in rule deontology)? Kordig (1973) argues than in fact these two methods only differ in what particular considerations are made. He says that the only real difference is that of language; whether to use the phrase “prima facie duty” or “intrinsic good” (greatest happiness) when making the decision. Using either method, the same conclusion will quite often

Some topics in this essay:
Encyclopedia Philosophy, Jeremy Bentham, , Prima Facie, Wofford College, College Online, Ethics Kant, Practical Imperative, Command Theory, Categorical Imperative, prima facie, facie duties, prima facie duties, thiroux 2001, deontological ethics, rule deontology, rule utilitarianism, deontological theory, wofford college online, deontology rule, practical imperative, roth 1995, deontology rule deontology, college online 1997, encyclopedia philosophy 2001,