Difference Between Utilitarianism And Deontology

When people think of philosophy, they mostly just say, “Oh, philosophers just think all day.” The people who say this do not actually consider what exactly it is that philosophers think about. Under philosophy, there are several sub-fields to specifically concentrate on. For example, normative ethical theory is a sub-field of philosophy that attempts to answer the questions, “What ought I do and how should I live?” Within this sub-field, three theories that try to answer these questions are Utilitarianism proposed by John Stuart Mill, Virtue Ethics proposed by Aristotle, and Deontology proposed by Immanuel Kant. The differences between these three theories will be illuminated by way of references to media and pop culture, as well as scholarly …show more content…
While Utilitarianism and Deontology are both act based theories, that fact itself is about the only thing they have in common. For example, killing one innocent person to save multiple others is a dilemma seen countless times in pop culture references, but have you ever wondered how this situation would translate in philosophy? An act Utilitarian would kill the innocent because according to the Greatest Happiness Principle, there would be more overall happiness if multiple people lived through a situation than if one person died in the same situation. However, according to Deontology, killing an innocent is an impermissible action. So even though a greater number of people would die if the innocent person lives, the fact that the person is innocent qualifies the act is impermissible and therefore if someone did kill the innocent person they would have acted immorally. In Game of Thrones, a character named Viserys Targaryen sells his sister Daenerys Targaryen into marriage to Khal Drogo, the leader of the Dothraki tribe. Viserys’s reason for doing so is so that the Dothraki soldiers would be on his side when the time came for him to go back to his homeland, overthrow the current leader and take his (Viserys’s) rightful place on the throne (Martin). According to Deontology, Viserys used his sister as a mere mean to the end of getting the army’s backing, which is impermissible. Had Viserys’s plan actually worked and he restored the throne to his family’s name and gained back the love of his country (which would translate to happiness), a Utilitarian would say that there was no issue with Viserys using Daenerys a mean because his doing so resulted in the happiness of thousands (Martin). Since Deontology and Utilitarianism are act based theories, it is quite difficult to make comparisons and contrasts between the two of them and Virtue