Duty-based ethics can include intention in at least 2 ways.Consequentialist theories don't pay direct attention to whether an act is carried out with good or bad intentions most people think these are highly relevant to moral judgements.Furthermore, rule-based consequentialism provides people with a set of rules that enable them to take moral decisions based on the sort of act they are contemplating.Sometimes consequentialist theories can provide a fair degree of certainty, if the consequences are easily predictable. Of course things aren't that clear cut.Duty-based ethics don't suffer from this problem because they are concerned with the action itself - if an action is a right action, then a person should do it, if it's a wrong action they shouldn't do it - and providing there is a clear set of moral rules to follow then a person faced with a moral choice should be able to take decisions with reasonable certainty.Consequentialist ethical theories bring a degree of uncertainty to ethical decision-making, in that no-one can be certain about what consequences will result from a particular action, because the future is unpredictable.Rossian duty-based ethics modified this to allow various duties to be balanced, which, it could be argued, is an even better fit to the way we think.

This seems to reflect the way some human beings think.

Kantian duty-based ethics says that some things should never be done, no matter what good consequences they produce.

This provides a basis for human rights - it forces due regard to be given to the interests of a single person even when those are at odds with the interests of a larger group.

Duty-based ethical systems tend to focus on giving equal respect to all human beings.

emphasises the value of every human being.

Good and bad points Good points of duty-based ethics So a person is doing something good if they are doing a morally right action. (Actually this is what they do in practice, but it isn't really the starting point of deontological thinking.) If we compare Deontologists with Consequentialists we can see that Consequentialists begin by considering what things are good, and identify 'right' actions as the ones that produce the maximum of those good things.ĭeontologists appear to do it the other way around they first consider what actions are 'right' and proceed from there. So, for example, the philosopher Kant thought that it would be wrong to tell a lie in order to save a friend from a murderer.

People have a duty to do the right thing, even if it produces a bad result.

Someone who follows Duty-based ethics should do the right thing, even if that produces more harm (or less good) than doing the wrong thing: Deontologists live in a universe of moral rules, such as:

Kantian ethics