Deontology judges the morality of actions by whether they conform to moral rules or duties rather than by their consequences, holding that certain acts are forbidden regardless of outcome and that the Right has priority over the Good. Immanuel Kant is its central figure: agent-centered deontologists draw on his focus on the maxims governing an action, and patient-centered deontologists draw on his injunction against treating others merely as means.
Facts
Start YearThe year of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, the work identified as the central founding text of deontology as a systematic theory. Deontology as a broader family of theories has no single founder or founding date; region is left unwritten for the same reason. Founded Date RegionGermany (Konigsberg), later Western Europe and the broader Anglo-American analytic tradition 1 Classification
TraditionModern or Enlightenment 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Categorical Imperative (Wikipedia)
In Branch
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informationentry: Deontological Ethics, Introduction
In contemporary moral philosophy, deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted.
Deontological Ethics entry, Bibliography (Kant 1785 entry)
Kant, I., 1785, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, H. Paton (trans.), New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
View the Source Categorical Imperative (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: The Categorical Imperative, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: The Categorical Imperative, Lead section
The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
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