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12 - Intuition, system, and the “paradox” of deontology
- By Timothy Chappell
Edited by Lawrence Jost, University of Cincinnati, Julian Wuerth, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Book:

Perfecting Virtue

Published online:

04 February 2011

Print publication:

03 February 2011, pp 271-288
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Summary

The picking and choosing among our intuitions that the author wants to criticize is found both in consequentialism and in Kantianism. The diversity of the roles of agency the consequentialist might concede is undoubtedly an intuitive phenomenon that confronts us. The clearest and most rational assessment method on the table is the one offered by consequentialism, which involves treating all agencies as if it had a productive role. This chapter deals with what Kant, the most systematic deontological theorist of all, has to say about the roles of agency. A philosophical or ethical outlook which did not insist, as Kant does, on the fundamental impregnability of causal determinism and of epistemological skepticism alike might have a number of advantages that Kant cannot duplicate. It might be less pessimistic about our prospects for doing science and causal explanation without marginalizing the possibility of agency.