Kantian Ethics vs. “Consequentialism”

Conventional labels put Kantian ethics under the rubric of “deontology,” which is contrasted with “consequentialism.” The referents of both labels, however, are usually caricatures, used to oversimplify philosophical positions for the sake of convenience and less innocently to provide people with a plausible pretext for rejecting ideas they do not understand. There are in fact a number of quite different reasons why Kantian ethics distances itself from most positions that go by the name “consequentialism,” and the chief effect of the caricatures is to erase the distinctions among these reasons.

Fundamental values are distinct from methods of ethical reasoning. One basic issue in ethical theory – which arises at least for the kind of ethical theory I have ascribed in Chapter 3 to both Kant and Mill – is the nature of the fundamental value and the kinds of entities in which this value is to be found. Many ethical theories take these entities to be states of affairs, especially regarded as consequences of actions. These theories share with Kant the view that purposiveness, the setting of ends to be produced, is the most fundamental feature of all action, but they differ from him in taking this feature also to determine the nature of the values grounding ethical theory. As we saw in Chapter 5, the basic value for Kantian ethics is not a state of affairs but the dignity or absolute worth of rational nature as an end in itself.