Perhaps this is a problem with my understanding of Deontology, but it seems like Deontological ethics are not as robust under update as Virtue ethics. I.e., I can start with “don’t lie”, but then discover semi-reliable conditions under which lying IS preferrable, so I update to “don’t lie unless a life is at serious risk”, which now has a pointer snaking out from the “don’t lie” rule to the “life” and “serious risk” definitions. The next time I update something that affects the “serious risk” definition, I have to trace down all those dependencies and re-verify coherence.
Virtue ethics has the advantage of performing its coherence checks mostly subconsciously/instinctively, since it ties into behaviors that have been evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors. Deontology, with its necessity for strict rule-adherence and logical rigour, has many of the failure modes of consequentialism without any of its direct benefits.
Perhaps this is a problem with my understanding of Deontology, but it seems like Deontological ethics are not as robust under update as Virtue ethics. I.e., I can start with “don’t lie”, but then discover semi-reliable conditions under which lying IS preferrable, so I update to “don’t lie unless a life is at serious risk”, which now has a pointer snaking out from the “don’t lie” rule to the “life” and “serious risk” definitions. The next time I update something that affects the “serious risk” definition, I have to trace down all those dependencies and re-verify coherence.
Virtue ethics has the advantage of performing its coherence checks mostly subconsciously/instinctively, since it ties into behaviors that have been evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors. Deontology, with its necessity for strict rule-adherence and logical rigour, has many of the failure modes of consequentialism without any of its direct benefits.