posted 5th October 2024
When you get a new board game, do you read the rules five times and memorise them before you even take the pieces out of their plastic packets? When you used to play (or still play) with Lego, did you prefer the sets that gave you precise instructions on how to build a model of Buckingham Palace or the Death Star? Are your favourite teachers the ones who have lots of very precise rules and insist everyone sticks to them?
If so, you are probably a deontologist, a believer in deontology.
Deontology essentially means playing by the rules. It is a way of thinking that assumes that there are certain absolute rules which must always be followed. Our choices should be determined by those rules, even if following the rules brings consequences we may not like.
Here are some ways in which deontological thinking could be applied to debates on three issues, each of which deal with the most profound moral and philosophical questions:
- War
- Abortion
- Assisted dying
For war
If your cause is just, you should fight for it, whether that is defending your own freedom, or protecting others who cannot protect themselves. War may bring terrible consequences, but failing to confront injustice or tyranny or genocide or other kinds of evil would be worse. Once you compromise on your principles, your life, either as an individual or as a society, is no longer worth living. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Better to die right than live wrong.
Against war
There is no justification for taking another person’s life, or for deliberately using violence against them. It doesn’t matter how good or right your cause is – violence and killing are simply wrong. Once you concede this principle, you open the door to barbarism. Even if refusing to use violence to resist aggression leads to the triumph of injustice, that is still better than becoming unjust ourselves by resorting to violence. Better to put your hands up than to put your hands round another man’s throat. Better to die innocent than live guilty.
For abortion
A woman’s right to control her own body is absolute. No one else should be allowed to interfere with this right. Any restrictions on abortion intrude on her autonomy, and should not be allowed. Women should be allowed to have abortions on demand. Anyone working in the medical profession should be expected to support them, even if they personally disapprove of abortion. Their beliefs are overridden by the absolute right of women to make their own decisions about their own bodies.
Against abortion
An unborn child is a person, and any form of abortion is an act of murder committed against a vulnerable person who cannot defend themselves. Abortion is therefore wrong in all circumstances. If a woman has been raped or is the victim of incest, she should be supported and helped, but this should not be extended to killing the child inside her. If the woman’s life is in danger, every effort should still be made to protect the life of the unborn child, as they are as important as the mother. Because abortion is murder, it should be illegal.
For assisted dying
A person’s autonomy over their own life is absolute. They should therefore be allowed to end their life if they are suffering unbearably with no prospect of that suffering ending. Doctors are allowed to give patients pain relief to protect them from suffering. In the same way, they should be allowed to administer lethal drugs to end patients’ suffering if they request it. It should be entirely a matter of choice for the person, who should have absolute control over their own life. Therefore the law should be changed to permit assisted dying.
Against assisted dying
The sanctity of life is absolute. However much you may wish to alleviate someone’s suffering, it is never right to take life deliberately. We should give people with terminal illnesses as much palliative care as we can to alleviate their suffering and to make their last days as comfortable and dignified as possible, but we should not take any action to end their life prematurely. The taking of life is always wrong, however good the intentions behind it. Therefore the law should not be changed to permit assisted dying.
Motions that go with this topic
1. This house would be pacifist (against war in all circumstances).
2. This house would make abortion illegal
3. This house would make assisted dying legal.
