Problems with Deontology

I have been thinking about moral philosophies recently and have been debating which seem the least problematic to me. Specifically I have been thinking about normative ethics, which is the branch of ethics that asks the question "How should one act?"

First I will summarize the two major normative theories on ethics.

• Deontology - the normative theory that judges the morality of actions based the action itself, with no regard to the consequences of the action.
• Consequentialism - the normative theory that judges the morality of actions based on the consequences of those actions alone.

There are other normative theories, virtue ethics for instance, but these two are the most popular and in my opinion the least problematic.

So to help explain what these normative theories are I will present the classic trolley thought experiment.

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

So the basic question is should you let the 5 die and save the 1 or kill the 1 and save the 5. Intuitively, I think most people will choose the latter, which is what the consequentialist theory would support. If you tweak the problem just a bit you may likely change your decision though:


As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

In this scenario most people would probably not push the fat man, killing him in order to save the 5. Why the consequences are the same? This inclination of many people seems to support deontology, where it is more important to do what is right, "not murder", regardless of the consequences. The ends do not justify the means.

Until recently I would side with deontology over consequentialism precisely because I felt that the ends do not justify the means. However a few things have been leading me to believe otherwise.

First of all the latter scenario may not have the same consequences as the first. The consequences of pushing the man off the bridge are not the same as flipping the switch.

1. I think there are different consequences between indirect action and direct actions in terms of the guilt that are likely to be felt as a result of the action. Killing someone directly with your hands and flipping the switch will not have the same emotional consequences.
2. This may lead to others not to trust you or others. If you are willing to use others as tools to achieve "better" ends you may be ostracized. If actions like this were taken regularly by all people this would also greatly destabilize society which would be a very negative consequence.

 Not only are the consequences worse, would people feel the same if the stakes were higher? What if instead of saving 5 you would be saving 50? 500? 500,000? What if instead of saving 5 adults you were saving 5 innocent children? What if the five children were your children?

The point being, the higher the stakes the more likely people will be willing to push the man off the bridge, in essence supporting the view of consequentialism. Is doing the right thing really that important that all consequences become mute?

It also seems that deontology could be viewed as essentially a selfish normative theory, in that it doesn't seem to be concerned with the well being of others, but rather is focused on the moral "purity" of the person performing the moral act. It doesn't matter if hundreds die, as long as I am in the right and can't be condemned of any wrongdoing.

What do you think?