Deontological Ethics: A Summary And Analysis

In chapter three of Human Kindness and The Smell of Warm Croissants, philosopher Ruwen Ogien describes a thought experiment involving a surgeon, a healthy young man and five patients who need to undergo a transplant. In this scenario, the surgeon is presented with two courses of action, either kill a healthy young man to save the lives of the five patients or to let the five patients die. The purpose of this essay is to expound how two different moral theories would decide which course of action would be morally justifiable for the surgeon. After presenting the deontological and utilitarian approach to this situation, I will argue that the surgeon should take the deontological position. Deontological ethics or deontology is a moral theory …show more content…
I arrived at my decision through questioning myself. First, I paid attention to my intuitions about the actions in question. Secondly, I analyzed why I am against the surgeon killing the one healthy man to save the lives of the five patients. My reasons included my perception of the role of surgeons, how I would not want to be killed or anyone else killed to procure organs for others and if I was in the surgeon’s position I would not kill the one man so I cannot expect someone to commit that action. In the end, my decision was reached by focusing on the action rather than the consequences of the action, thus my views aligned more with deontology. Focusing on actions rather than consequences is a strength of deontology. A person cannot perceive all of the consequences of a particular action. Another strength of this theory is that people are not treated merely as a means and that the ends do not justify the means. To me this is more just and fair. While deontology has its strengths, the theory has limitations. This includes being impersonal, not establishing how to resolve conflicting duties and that rules are absolute. In light of these limitations, I know that some people will disagree that the surgeon should choose the deontological approach. To those who would argue that utilitarian is the best approach I say that while deontology has its limitations so too does utilitarianism. How can utilitarianism calculate pleasure and pain for unforeseen consequences, the violation of individuals’ liberties and rights or lastly, deriving the act as morally right just because a lot of people derive pleasure from an act? These criticisms apply to this transplant