Can anyone help me?
I have a question. This question is targeted toward:
1) those who know me personally
or who have read my entire blog
and
2) those who know what the terms deontology & consequentialism mean (you're free to look these terms up)
Anyway, the question is:
Am I a deontologist or a consequentialist?
I think I'm a consequentialist, but I have to defend this in writing for my "Bioethics: Conceptual Foundations" class. And I'm finding it very difficult, because I think both notions are quite compelling. Every other day I seem to change my mind as to which one I am, because I think of some new moral question I didn't consider before. And BTW, saying "both" is strictly prohibited, as is saying "neither".
So far, I've written an incredibly disjointed description of myself as a "rule consequentialist" and am having trouble defending myself against my own deontological attacks.
Maybe this explains why I'm part of the "virtuous non-believers" in the Dante's Inferno test (true believers are always deontologists, IMO). Maybe this is the punishment for virtuous non-believers - that they will never know whether they are a deontologist or a consequentialist.
Maybe what I really need is some sleep... ;o)
Besides, it's quite possible that by the time I get any answers (I suppose that's if and when), I will have already turned in my paper. But it will still be an interesting thing to see what others think.
1) those who know me personally
or who have read my entire blog
and
2) those who know what the terms deontology & consequentialism mean (you're free to look these terms up)
Anyway, the question is:
Am I a deontologist or a consequentialist?
I think I'm a consequentialist, but I have to defend this in writing for my "Bioethics: Conceptual Foundations" class. And I'm finding it very difficult, because I think both notions are quite compelling. Every other day I seem to change my mind as to which one I am, because I think of some new moral question I didn't consider before. And BTW, saying "both" is strictly prohibited, as is saying "neither".
So far, I've written an incredibly disjointed description of myself as a "rule consequentialist" and am having trouble defending myself against my own deontological attacks.
Maybe this explains why I'm part of the "virtuous non-believers" in the Dante's Inferno test (true believers are always deontologists, IMO). Maybe this is the punishment for virtuous non-believers - that they will never know whether they are a deontologist or a consequentialist.
Maybe what I really need is some sleep... ;o)
Besides, it's quite possible that by the time I get any answers (I suppose that's if and when), I will have already turned in my paper. But it will still be an interesting thing to see what others think.
posted by Barbara Preuninger at 3/19/2005 11:28:00 PM
4 Comments:
Didn't we have this conversation before? :-)
If I were you, I would found a third school called "Preuningeralism". But this might not get your paper a good grade.
I took that Dante's Inferno test and ended up in the 6th level, the City of Dis, along with all the other Heretics. Hooray! ;-)
consequentialist.
totally consequentialist.
abortion, as one example.
Yael,
I'm glad you said consequentialist, because that's what I went with and I'm not changing it now. But I'm a "rule consequentialist", not an "act consequentialist".
oh no!
now i have to procrastinate by looking up the difference between a rule and an act consequentialist!
i won't do it. (at this moment).
:)
back to writing the dissertation.
-yael
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