It is difficult to decide what to do in morally ambiguous situations. Especially for these cases, in some universities, the program contains the subject of “deontology”. This is a science that studies the field of duty and moral behavior in various situations. Many decisions have already been invented long before us, but it must be remembered that responsibility still lies with us, and not with abstract rules.
Dogma outside religion
The foundations of the research direction were laid by Immaunil Kant. According to his teachings, a person is obliged to follow moral standards, regardless of the unusual situation in which he finds himself. Moral flexibility, according to Kant, is unacceptable. Even if following ethical canons leads to tragic consequences, a person must still adhere to moral rules. Deontology is the opposite of another ethical approach called consequentialism. The latter means that morality is determined by the result. Which is not always true: this is another name for the principle known as "the end justifies the means."
Areas of special proximity to people
In a deontological value system , a person’s character is evaluated first of all from the position of how he follows his duty. Based on the general theory, rules were developed for some areas of human activity: medicine, social work, legal practice. All these areas are marked by ethical problems, as the specialist in them takes responsibility for the other person. One of the unwritten but observed rules, for example, medical deontology, is the principle of separation of responsibilities - a council is convened to make important decisions.
The egoist's right
Within the framework of general discipline, there are different trends and different teachings. For example, a trend stands out, called agent-centered deontology, an approach that claims that a person has the full moral right to put his obligations above other people's problems. For example, consider the interests of your child more important than the interests of any other person. Opponents of this doctrine accuse proponents of an agent-centered approach of indulging selfishness.
Caution
The patient-centered approach is not just about medicine. This trend is supported by the deontology of social work. In practice, this means that the person being looked after cannot be used for the benefit of another person.
For example, if you care for two pensioners living together, you cannot spend part of the money put on one person on the other, even if one of them needs more. However, in social work, deontology is still a debatable direction.
It is illegal to save
Also, responsible decisions have to be made by specialists in the field of law. Legal deontology claims that a lawyer from the moral point of view does not have the right to lie in relation to the client, even to save the life of this person.
Borders and trade-offs
There is a so-called “threshold deontology”. This is the doctrine that, under certain conditions, moral standards can and must be violated. Of course, this approach causes a lot of heated debate. For example, is it possible to torture one person to save a large number of people? Or vice versa: is it possible to execute a murderer, because his life threatens many other people? Critics of the approach argue that raising the question of the threshold of morality devalues the very direction called “deontology”. This forces us to admit that one cannot transfer responsibility from oneself to moral standards. So the decision should always be made by the person acting.