Deontology v. Consequentialism
Last week dailymeh wrote an excellent post examining the two opposing schema of rule-based morality and consequence-based morality that seem to compete when we make a decision. They’ve been distinct schools of thought for centuries, but there’s recent evidence that shows both find distinct force in the brain’s reasoning process.
But if we rush to declare this a “dialectic,” we ignore the third major school of thought in modern ethical theory: virtue ethics, which says the most important part of morality is neither the rules followed nor the results engendered, but the character of the person making the decision. It’s actually the oldest* of the three major schools, appearing in Plato’s Republic and other Greek writings. It disappeared for a while when deontological and consequentialist ethics were articulated, but has roared back into the philosophical mainstream in the last half-century. (It’s also my favorite.)
As always, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has excellent entries on deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics - as well as some sketchy hybrids like rule consequentialism.
* Older works like the Old Testament espouse rule-based, deontological morality (like do not kill, do not have any other gods before me, etc.). But it doesn’t become philosophically articulated until approximately Much Later A.D., whereas we see attempts at argument in virtue ethics from the very beginning.
