Deontological arguments (apart from helping with “running on corrupted hardware”) are useful for the compression of moral values. It’s much easier to check your one-line deontology, than to run a complicated utility function through your best estimate of the future world.
A simple “do not murder” works better, for most people, than a complex utilitarian balancing of consequences and outcomes. And most deontological aguments are not rigid; they shade towards consequentialism when the consequences get too huge:
Freedom of speech is absolute—but don’t shout fire in a crowded theatre.
Don’t murder—except in war, or in self-defence.
Do not lie—but tell the nazis your cellars are empty of jews.
Where denotology breaks down is when the situation is unusual: where simply adding extra patches doesn’t work. When dealing with large quantities of odd minds in odd universes; or the human race over the span of eons; then it’s time to break out the consequentialism, and accept that our moral intutions can no longer be deontologically compressed.
“rule utilitarianism” collapses into deontology or regular utilitarianism when pushed; otherwise, it’s inconsistent. Though it is generally accepted by utilitarians that acting according to general rules will in practice generate more utility than trying to reason about every situation anew.
Deontological arguments (apart from helping with “running on corrupted hardware”) are useful for the compression of moral values. It’s much easier to check your one-line deontology, than to run a complicated utility function through your best estimate of the future world.
A simple “do not murder” works better, for most people, than a complex utilitarian balancing of consequences and outcomes. And most deontological aguments are not rigid; they shade towards consequentialism when the consequences get too huge:
Freedom of speech is absolute—but don’t shout fire in a crowded theatre.
Don’t murder—except in war, or in self-defence.
Do not lie—but tell the nazis your cellars are empty of jews.
Where denotology breaks down is when the situation is unusual: where simply adding extra patches doesn’t work. When dealing with large quantities of odd minds in odd universes; or the human race over the span of eons; then it’s time to break out the consequentialism, and accept that our moral intutions can no longer be deontologically compressed.
I think what you’re talking about isn’t deontology, but rule utilitarianism.
“rule utilitarianism” collapses into deontology or regular utilitarianism when pushed; otherwise, it’s inconsistent. Though it is generally accepted by utilitarians that acting according to general rules will in practice generate more utility than trying to reason about every situation anew.
Possibly; are they distinguished in practice?