Deontology Vs Utilitarianism

Deontology focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves whereas utilitarian focuses on rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions.

Utilitarianism is the idea that the action’s moral value is based on its degree of maximizing pleasure and happiness as a consequence of the action. Hence, greater happiness the more beneficial or morally right it is based on this theory. It is a form of consequentialism compared to deontology which only takes into account of the moral value of the action itself regardless of its consequence.

Thus, to a Deontologist, whether a situation is good or bad depends on whether the action that brought it about was right or wrong. For example, if someone proposed to kill everyone currently living in this world that could not support agriculture in order to bring about a world without starvation, a deontologist would argue that the act of killing everyone is morally wrong since the act to kill is wrong. A consequentialist would then argue that since killing everyone would cure starvation, then killing everyone is morally right. Hence, utilitarianism focuses on the outcomes, or
Thus, rather than relying on amorphous, vague moral truths to guide action we should look to more concrete ways of determining the ethics of a particular act. Also, utilitarianism would argue that deontology leads to morally untenable outcomes, such as in the example above. Utilitarians would argue that the outcome of everyone's deaths (those who could not support agriculture) is much more desirable than having everyone living including those who cannot support agriculture as more people with insufficient food results in starvation. Thus, we should always look to the ends rather than the means to determine whether an act is ethical or