Deontological Vs Teleological Ethics

The concept of ethics acts as the foundation for the transcendental world. Ethics can be referred to a set of principles by which people live by. The virtue of ethics drives each individual’s belief system. Such like doctors operate under a code of ethics, every person acquires some type of guidelines that they choose to live by. As ethics presents itself as theoretical study amongst philosophers, there are several questions that continue to be discussed. How should people behave? How should people carry out their day to day life? What is the good life for man? The answer to these questions begin with the extraction of the theory behind ethics. Morality, as closely related to the notion of ethics, can be defined as a set of principles that
Regardless of the current circumstances, if one stole from the store, that person is automatically in the wrong; they made the morally wrong decision because they strayed from a specific set of rules. As deontological morality is a black and white way of thinking, it would not matter if a mother stole a bottle of medicine for her extremely ill child. It would also be irrelevant if it were a criminal who stole money from a cash register. Stealing is wrong no matter the circumstance. Another example relates the Holocaust to deontological morality. As the Holocaust lasted from 1933 to 1945, many non-Jewish citizens dictated under the Nazi regime hid Jews in their homes. When Nazi officers knocked on peoples’ doors asking if they were hiding any Jews, most would lie and say no. However, deontological morality states that person who lied to the Nazi officer is morally wrong as it is a universal principle to never lie. Deontological morality does not consider the fact that all Jews at the time were being executed. It does not matter that lying would save the life of a Jew, but because lying is wrong, so is the person participating in the act. The stealing and Holocaust examples both display the fault in deontological
There is a test to determine which way of thinking one primarily possesses. A train is approaching five tied up people on a railroad track. There is a witness that has the option to reroute the train to another set of tracks that only has one person tied up. Does the witness push the button so the train kills one person instead of five people? From a deontological perspective, the witness would not push the button as one of the universal principles states one should never be responsible for the act of killing someone. Adversely, teleological morality could claim that by not pushing the button, the witness is choosing to kill five people instead of one by not interjecting. From a teleological perspective, the witness should press the button as killing one person instead of five creates more happiness for more people. Morally, it would be acceptable to press the button as the goodness of the act outweighs the harmful effects. Morality can be classified as deontological or teleological. Nonetheless, morality is extracted from religion, reason, and