Buck-Passing and the Consequentialism/Deontology Distinction
Jonas Olson
Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University
Department of Philosophy, University of Otago
jonas.olson@filosofi.uu.se
jonas.olson@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
Abstract. According to T.M. Scanlon’s ‘buck-passing’ account of value, for something to be
valuable is not for it to possess value as a simple and unanalysable property, but rather to have
other properties that provide reasons to take up an attitude in favour of it or against it or to act
in certain ways in regard to it. Jonathan Dancy has argued (2000) that passing the buck
threatens to prematurely resolve the debate between consequentialism and deontology in
favour of consequentialism. In this paper I shall discuss this claim. Section II suggests that
Dancy’s worry is well-advised, but not in the precise sense he imagines. Dancy’s instructive
criticism raises another intriguing question that will be dealt with in section III. The question
is this: Given that the buck-passing account of value is accepted, how are we to frame the
traditional distinction between consequentialism and deontology in a way that is intuitively
plausible and that does not rule out one of the positions in advance? I shall discuss and reject
two attempts at an answer, and ultimately argue in favour of a suggestion that frames the
distinction in terms of comparative and non-comparative determination of normative status.
I. Introduction
According to T.M. Scanlon’s ‘buck-passing’ account of value, for something to be valuable is
not for it to possess value as a simple and unanalysable property, but rather to have other
properties that provide reasons to take up an attitude in favour of it or against it or to act in
certain ways in regard to it.1 There are two distinctive features of the account: The first is that
it is not value properties but rather the properties upon which value supervenes that provide
reasons. The second is that – pace G.E. Moore, who in his Principia Ethica famously argued
that ‘intrinsic value’ is the fundamental and unanalysable normative concept in terms of
1
Scanlon (1998, pp 95-100).
1
which any other normative notions such as right, wrong, ought, duty, reasons, and the like are
definable2 – the buck-passer analyses intrinsic value in terms of reasons.
The buck-passing account has in a short period of time become increasingly popular, but it
has also been exposed to criticism. Jonathan Dancy (2000) argues that passing the buck
threatens to prematurely resolve the debate between consequentialism and deontology. Since
the issue between consequentialists and deontologists resides in normative ethics one would
expect it to be settled by appeal to substantive argumentation, but Dancy claims that the buckpassing account tends to give the game away to the consequentialists already at the
definitional level.
In this paper I shall discuss this claim. My suggestion will be that Dancy’s worry is welladvised, but not in the precise sense he imagines: According to a classic statement of the
contrast between consequentialism and deontology, the buck-passing account in fact appears
to resolve the debate in favour of deontology, but according to another interpretation of the
contrast, which is probably the one Dancy has in mind, the buck-passing account does appear
to resolve the debate in favour of consequentialism. But in the latter case it is questionable
how grave the threat of premature resolve really is. This discussion is carried out in section II.
Dancy’s instructive criticism raises another intriguing question that will be dealt with in
section III. The question is this: Given that the buck-passing account of value is accepted,
how are we to frame the traditional distinction between consequentialism and deontology in
such a way that neither position is ruled out in advance?
2
See Moore (1903, esp. pp. 24-6, 147). By the time he wrote Ethics (1912), Moore had abandoned this
view.
2
II. Is the Buck-Passing Account Biased in Favour of Consequentialism?
A classic and very widespread statement of the contrast between consequentialism and
deontology comes from John Rawls. Rawls defined a consequentialist3 theory as one
according to which “the good is defined independently of the right, and then the right is
defined as that which maximises the good.”4 A deontological theory is one that fits the
negation of this, i.e. a theory that “either does not specify the good independently from the
right, or does not interpret the right as maximising the good.”5 Another common and related
way of making the distinction is to say that for the consequentialist, the good is prior to the
right, while for the deontologist, the right is prior to the good.6
On this view, the buck-passing account appears to be biased in favour of deontology rather
than consequentialism since it does not define the good independently of the normative notion
of ‘a reason’. This comes out even more clearly when one turns to one of the founding fathers
of the buck-passing view, viz. A.C. Ewing. According to Ewing’s definition, for a thing to be
good is for that thing to have properties such that it ought to be the object of a pro-attitude.7
Ewing got even closer not only to the spirit but also to the letter of Scanlon’s view in a later
work where he stated that “To say that some particular thing is intrinsically good is then to
3
Rawls used the term ‘teleology’ rather than ‘consequentialism’.
4
Rawls (1999, pp. 21f.). Rawls expresses his indebtedness to W.K. Frankena (1963).
5
Ibid., p. 26.
6
Fried (1978, p. 9).
7
See Ewing (1939) and (1947, ch. 5). The ‘ought’ appealed to is pro tanto and not all-things-
considered. Ewing intended ‘pro-attitude’ to cover “any favourable attitude to something (…) for
instance, choice, desire, liking, pursuit, approval, admiration.” (1947, p. 149). Scanlon does not refer
to Ewing, but the close affinities between their acoounts are pointed out by Dancy (2000, pp. 162f.).
3
say that its nature in itself provides a reason for adopting a favourable attitude towards it.”8
Here it is obvious that the good is not independently defined, and not conceptually prior to the
deontic notions, but defined partly in terms of the deontic ‘ought’ or ‘reason’.9 This is why the
buck-passing view, given Rawls’s classical distinction, would appear to be biased in favour of
deontology rather than consequentialism.10
However, on a related but different way of drawing the distinction, passing the buck seems
automatically to give the game away to consequentialism. The deontologist’s claim might be,
as Nancy Davies puts it, “that there is no clear specifiable connection between doing right and
doing good (…)”.11 But the buck-passing account attempts to establish an analytic connection
between the evaluative and the deontic. This is what Dancy has in mind when he says that the
buck-passing account is biased in favour of consequentialism:
“Deontologists have suggested in one way or another that there are duties, and so
reasons, that are not value-involving. An action can be one’s duty even though
8
Ewing (1959, p. 63) [my italics]. Hereafter, I will use the ‘buck-passing’ label to cover not only
Scanlon’s view that analyses ‘value’ in terms of ‘reasons’, but also Ewing’s view that analyses ‘value’
in terms of ‘ought’.
9
I follow Dancy (2000, p. 163), in taking the notion of a ’reason’ to be a deontic notion.
10
However, it might be argued that Ewing’s analysis does not lead to ‘moral deontology’, since the
‘ought’ in terms of which he analyses ‘goodness’ or ‘value’ is not the ‘moral ought’, but the ‘ought of
fittingness’ (1947, pp. 132ff.), but cf. his (1959, pp. 90ff. ). If the distinction between those two senses
of ’ought’ can be intelligibly made, we might be able to distinguish between non-deontologists and
moral deontologists. The latter would consider the ‘moral ought’ as prior, or as unconnected, to
‘value’ or ‘goodness’, while the former, with Ewing, would consider the ‘ought of fittingness’ as prior
to ‘value’ or ‘goodness’ (and possibly even as prior to the ‘moral ought’; see Ewing (1947, pp. 132,
136) and (1959, pp. 90-5) on this point). I thank Wlodek Rabinowicz for reminding me of this.
11
Davies (1991, p. 206).
4
doing it has no value and its being done generates nothing of value. (…) The
buck-passing view rules this out in advance. To have value is to have reasongiving features, we are told, and since this is an identity statement it goes both
ways. So to have reason-giving features is to be of value. So the deontological
view (…) is ruled out in advance of any significant debate.” (2000, p. 168)
Dancy’s remark is to the point, but it is questionable how serious this consequentialist
concession really is and how much of a triumph for the consequentialist it implies. That the
buck-passing account, and any view that reduces the evaluative to the deontic, implies some
such consequentialist concession was clear already to Ewing, but he tended to view it as
merely a Pyrrhic victory for the consequentialist, since the standard consequentialist formula
is that “what we ought to do is derivable from the good, while the reverse is true if [the buckpassing] view is correct.”12 This is in brief how Ewing reasoned: If we accept the buckpassing view that for a thing to be good is for that thing to have features such that it ought to
be the object of a pro-attitude (roughly to be chosen, liked, desired, pursued, approved,
admired, and so on), and if we accept that among the things that can be good are actions,13
then to say that a thing or an action is good is to say that there is, in W.D. Ross’s sense, a
prima facie duty to take up a pro-attitude of some kind vis-à-vis the thing or the action. To
claim that an action would produce the greatest good is on this view to claim that this action,
rather than any other alternative, ought all things considered to be chosen or pursued.
That the consequentialist principle that we ought always to do the best we can is made
necessarily true was for Ewing a significant merit of the reduction of the evaluative to the
12
Ewing (1947, p. 188). Cf. his (1939, pp. 10f.).
13
Some deontologists would perhaps not include actions among the things that can be good or bad. I
shall not here delve into the arguments for and against such a view. Suffice it to say that the claim that
there can be no such things as good or bad deeds seems highly counterintuitive.
5
deontic. For as Ewing was neither the first nor the last to urge, “it is hard to believe that it
could ever be a duty deliberately to produce less good when we could produce more (…)”.14
This “rather simple thought that it can never be right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a
better” is also what Philippa Foot in a classic article identifies as the main compelling force of
consequentialism.15 One achievement of the buck-passing view is that it accounts for this
simple and compelling thought in a way that to a large extent countenances Ross’s theory of
prima facie duties, since the requirement to do the best we can simply is the requirement to
choose or pursue the action we ought all things considered to perform, rather than any other
alternative.16
The response to Dancy’s claim that the buck-passing account is questionable because it is
biased in favour of consequentialism will then be this: On the Rawlsian conception of the
consequentialism/deontology distinction, Dancy’s worry is unmotivated since the buckpassing account would according to this conception qualify as a deontological theory. This is
because the buck-passer does not specify the good independently of some deontic notion such
as ‘ought’ or ‘reason’, but takes the latter to be conceptually prior to the former. On the other
hand, Dancy’s remark is well-advised if the deontologist’s essential claim is that there is no
specifiable connection at all between the evaluative and the deontic and hence that there are
duties and reasons that are not value-involving. But the form of consequentialism the buckpasser would then countenance should appear pretty harmless even to a convinced
deontologist. And one might reasonably conclude that the fact that the compelling thought
that we ought always to do the best we can is countenanced in a manner that does not in any
14
Ewing (1947, p. 188).
15
The quote is from Foot (1988, p. 227). See also Samuel Scheffler (1982) for an influential treatment
of this issue.
16
Ewing (1947, p. 189). I get back to Ross in section III.
6
obvious way conflict with the central contentions of a theory of prima facie duties makes the
price of this consequentialist concession worth paying (if, after all, this is a price to speak of).
But now, the discussion so far brings to the fore another issue: It appears that if the buckpassing account of value is accepted, the grounds on which to draw the traditional
consequentialism/deontology distinction dissolve. As Ewing put it: “The antithesis between a
view which based the ‘ought’ on the ‘good’ and a view which based it on prima facie duties
(…) disappear[s].”17 Ewing welcomed this conclusion, but it might reasonably be seen as
unfortunate. The buck-passing account is intended to be a formal18 account of what it is for
something to be valuable, and it is a plausible adequacy constraint on any formal account of
value that it is non-committal regarding substantive disputes, such as the one between
consequentialists and deontologists. The question to be dealt with in the remainder of this
paper is therefore: Given that we accept the buck-passing account of value, how are we to
frame the traditional distinction between consequentialism and deontology in a way that is
both intuitively plausible and that does not rule out one of the positions in advance? 19
III. A Buck-Passer’s Account of the Consequentialism/Deontology Distinction:
Some Suggestions
Before proceeding I should make two points: First, if the buck-passing account is accepted it
is still possible to distinguish between the view that whether an act ought to be performed
17
Ewing (1947, p. 189).
18
Scanlon’s term is ‘abstract’ (1998, p. 95).
19
I should note that since my primary aim is to frame the distinction in such a way that it captures
standard versions of consequentialism I set aside certain non-standard versions. Notably, I set aside
indirect versions, such as rule-consequentialism, and focus exclusively on direct act-consequentialism.
7
depends solely on its consequences as distinguished from the act itself, and the view that the
act itself is to be taken into account along with its consequences.20 But it is unclear what the
motivation for the former view would be since among the consequences of an act’s being
performed is the fact that that act was (would be) performed. Second, passing the buck leaves
open the debate on what it is that we ought to take up pro-attitudes towards and act in certain
ways in regard to – i.e. what is valuable – be it pleasure, happiness, virtue, knowledge,
friendship, or what have you. But this is best seen as a matter internal to consequentialism or
deontology (depending on which direction one takes the buck-passing account to be biased
towards). Crucially, these points are not helpful in the buck-passer’s quest for a proper
account of the contrast between consequentialism and deontology.
I shall now consider three attempts at such an account. My view is that the first two should
be rejected, while the third looks more promising.
(i) First Try: Distinguishing Among Reasons
One might attempt to restrict the identity statement that to have value is to have reason-giving
features to the effect that to have value is to have reason-giving features of a special sort;
features that provide reasons to take up certain attitudes, e.g., cherishing or rejoicing, but not
reasons to act in certain ways, e.g., choosing or pursuing. The buck-passing deontologist
might then claim that features of the former sort generates value in their objects by virtue of
providing reasons to take up certain attitudes. But reasons of this kind are not relevant in
determining which course of action we ought to choose or pursue. In this sense, to have value
I also set aside satisficing versions. See Carlson (1995, pp. 14-20) for a critical discussion of
satisficing consequentialism.
20
Ewing (1947, p. 189). Dancy (2000, p. 168) reports that Philip Stratton-Lake has made a similar
suggestion.
8
is to have reason-giving features of a special sort – features that give reasons to take up
certain attitudes – but there are still reasons of another sort – reasons for action – that are not
value-involving.21 By contrast, the buck-passing consequentialist would according to this
proposal maintain that all reasons are value-involving.
A first worry to note here is that the distinction between reasons to take up attitudes and
reasons to act in certain ways may not always be clear-cut. Will it always be possible to
distinguish between, say, a reason to cherish something and a reason to pursue something?22
And furthermore, attitudes and actions may not always be easily distinguishable either. Can
we really be sure that there is always a clear-cut distinction between, say, cherishing
something and pursuing it?
A second worry is that distinguishing among reasons in the sense at issue gives up on what
is perhaps the main appeal of the buck-passing account, viz. its theoretical simplicity. The
thrust of the current suggestion is that there are roughly two categories of reasons,
‘reasonsevaluative’ and ‘reasonsdeontic’, we might call them, and besides the fact that any reason
that falls into any of the categories is obviously a reason, the categories are unconnected. But
recall now that one of the distinctive features of the buck-passing account is the analysis of
value in terms of reasons, or more generally, the reduction of the evaluative to the deontic.
This theoretical neatness is lost on the current suggestion since it merely invents new labels
(‘reasonsevaluative’ and ‘reasonsdeontic’) for the same old distinction between the evaluative and
the deontic categories. The attempt to distinguish among reasons is thus not in accordance
21
If I am not mistaken, Dancy reports Derek Parfit to have made a suggestion along these lines (2000,
p. 168, fn. 4). Again if I am not mistaken, Wlodek Rabinowicz has made a similar suggestion in
conversation.
22
These doubts are shared by Dancy: “[M]y present view is that there is no effective way of carving
the reasons up appropriately.” (2000, p. 168, fn. 4.)
9
with the reductive spirit of the buck-passing account. Nor does it go well together with
Scanlon’s own formulations. He makes it clear that he takes judgements about value to be
judgements not only about reasons for attitudes, but more generally about “reasons for acting
or responding in certain ways.” (p. 96) [my italics] And he also says that “Understanding the
value of something is (…) a matter of knowing how to value it – knowing what kinds of
actions and attitudes are called for.” (p. 99). [my italics] We may also note that neither did
Ewing distinguish between attitudes and actions: In his (1947, p. 149) he intended ‘proattitude’ to cover, inter alia, choice and pursuit, and in his (1959, p. 63), he suggested that “we
might well widen the term ‘attitude’ to include ‘actions’.”
I conclude that from the buck-passer’s perspective, distinguishing among reasons is not a
stable and attractive way of framing the consequentialism/deontology distinction.
(ii) Second Try: Distinguishing Among Responses
But maybe the last verdict was too rash. Perhaps we should amend the proposal and shift
focus from different types of reasons to different types of responses. The thought might be
that the only response to values that the consequentialist prescribes (indeed the only response
she could prescribe without betraying consequentialism) is promotion. By contrast, the
deontologist might argue that at least some values are not to be promoted, but rather to be
honoured.23 According to this proposal, the buck-passing consequentialist holds that for a
thing to be valuable is for that thing to possess properties that provide reasons to promote it,
while the buck-passing deontologist holds that for a thing to be valuable is for that thing to
have properties that provide reasons to promote it or reasons to honour it.24
23
This is in effect how Philip Pettit (1991) distinguishes between consequentialism and deontology.
24
Philip Stratton-Lake made this suggestion (in correspondence). See Hooker & Stratton-Lake
(forthcoming), and Scanlon (1998, pp. 98, 384 fn. 20).
10
The general problem with this proposal is that it tends to construe consequentialism too
narrowly. The reason is that some value bearers seem to be of an ontological kind that it
makes little or no sense to promote. I suspect that the inclination to think that
consequentialists really are committed to promotion being the only adequate response to value
stems from a tendency to attribute to the consequentialists some variant of monistic axiologies
such as hedonism, eudaimonism, or welfarism. It is reasonable to suppose that if apparently
quantitative things such as pleasure, happiness, or welfare, however construed, are the only
things of value then the proper response to value is promotion. Granted, consequentialism has
traditionally been associated with monistic theories of value of this stripe. But this is a poor
reason for denying the consequentialist the possibility of adopting a genuinely pluralistic
account of value according to which physical objects and persons – that it apparently makes
no sense to promote – may possess intrinsic value just as well as things that it apparently does
make sense to promote, such as pleasurable experiences, happy lives, or welfare. After all,
accepting consequentialism as a normative theory is one thing; choosing an axiology is quite
another.
The remainder of this section illustrates how the promoting/honouring distinction tends to
lead to an overly narrow construal of consequentialism. Assume for illustrative purposes that
our consequentialist holds that objects with unique causal histories may possess intrinsic
value. A suggestion might be that the pen used by Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation
Proclamation, freeing the slaves, is not merely instrumentally but intrinsically valuable. 25 It
wouldn’t make much sense to say that we have reasons to promote the pen. To assume that
physical objects and persons are among the entities that can be promoted is to commit a
25
I borrow this example from Kagan (1998, p. 285). Kagan uses this example to argue for the
conclusion that intrinsic value may supervene on non-intrinsic features.
11
category mistake. For instance, how do you promote (in the relevant sense) Lincoln’s pen?26
One possible response is that what we have reasons to promote is the state of affairs that
Lincoln’s pen is well-preserved, and that in order to achieve this we should cherish and
protect the pen itself. But this is just to say that we have reasons to honour the pen itself. This
makes the alleged dichotomy between promoting and honouring value – and consequently the
attempt to contrast consequentialism and deontology in terms of it – highly obscure.
But the gist of the proposal might be the slightly different one that for the consequentialist,
it is the state of affairs that Lincoln’s pen is well-preserved that is intrinsically valuable and so
provides a reason for certain responses, while for the deontologist, it is the pen itself that is
intrinsically valuable and so provides a reason to respond in certain ways to it. Put briefly
then, the proposal might be that while consequentialists view states of affairs as the sole
bearers of intrinsic value, deontologists hold that not only states of affairs but also physical
objects and persons may be bearers of intrinsic value.27
The problem with this last proposal is that it is unclear why a consequentialist would be
committed to this view. Indeed, it appears highly sensible for the consequentialist to maintain
that if the state of affairs that Lincoln’s pen is well-preserved is intrinsically valuable, this is
so because the physical object – i.e. Lincoln’s pen – is intrinsically valuable in the first
place.28 It is also notable in this context that recent consequentialist responses to the charge
26
One could of course try to see to it that there are as many pens as possible in the world, but it
doesn’t make sense to try to see to it that there are as many exemplars as possible of one unique pen,
such as the one Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, in the world.
27
Consequentialists’ presumptive commitment to the view that states of affairs are the sole bearers of
intrinsic value is what Elizabeth Anderson (1993) identifies as the distinguishing mark and the great
flaw in consequentialism.
28
Cf. Sturgeon (1996, pp. 515-523); Card (2004a).
12
that consequentialism cannot accommodate genuine friendship relations have made use of the
idea that persons may be intrinsically valuable.29
In order to avoid an overly narrow construal of consequentialism that would rule out these
axiological options in advance, the buck-passer should look elsewhere for a better account of
how to frame the consequentialism/deontology distinction.
(iii) Third try: Comparative and Non-Comparative Determination of Normative Status
John Broome (1991, p. 12; 2004, ch. 3) defines a teleological theory as one that determines
rightness in terms of a normative ordering of alternatives. Broome calls this ordering a
betterness-ordering (we need not, of course, take this to imply that goodness, or the
betterness-relation, are primitive) and says that it has to satisfy certain conditions: in
particular, it has to be transitive.30 As Broome himself has pointed out (in correspondence),
this means that some deontological views are teleological. Take for instance a deontological
view that involves only the rule “Don’t kill!”. This theory will order all alternatives that are
killings lower than all alternatives that are non-killings. Hence, it will be a teleological
version of deontology. If a theory violates transitivity, it is non-teleological.31
29
See, e.g., Railton (1984, pp. 149-50); and, more recently, Card (2004b).
30
Additionally, it has to be reflexive and asymmetric.
31
Such a theory might consist of three rules, e.g., “Do not kill”; “Do not steal”, “Do not lie”. Call
those rules A, B, and C, respectively. The theory might hold that the order of normative priority
among these rules is such that in dilemmatic situations where we are forced to violate either A or B, B
ought to be violated; in situations where we are forced to violate either B or C, C ought to be violated;
and in situations where we are forced to violate either C or A, A ought to be violated. A nonteleologically structured deontological theory is suggested and defended in Kamm (2000, esp. pp. 21821.).
13
Obviously, then, Broome’s distinction between teleology and non-teleology does not
coincide with the consequentialism/deontology distinction; ‘teleology’ is wider than
‘consequentialism’, while ‘non-teleology’ is narrower than ‘deontology’. But I do believe that
the notion of an ordering can be employed so as to render a distinction between
consequentialism and deontology that enables us to accept buck-passing about value without
ruling out either position in advance. Furthermore, I hope to show that this way of drawing
the distinction is plausible in so far as it captures what is intuitively at issue between
consequentialists and deontologists. Very briefly put, the proposal will be this: Ordering
alternatives is a comparative matter. According to consequentialism, the normative status of
any alternative is comparatively determined, whereas according to deontology, the normative
status of some alternatives is non-comparatively determined.
Let us first focus on consequentialism. The consequentialist will hold an act to be right if
and only if it is in the circumstances better or at least as good as any other alternative act
available. That one alternative is better than another means in buck-passing terms that this
alternative rather than the other ought to be chosen.32 According to the buck-passing
consequentialist, the ought here supervenes directly on non-normative features of A and B
and not on an intermediate feature of goodness or betterness: For A to be better than B just is
for A and B to have natural properties such that A rather than B ought to be chosen. Note that
this is compatible with there being two or more equally good – and hence equally right – acts.
Note also that the ordering of alternatives need not be complete. This means that the
32
An early precursor of this view is Franz Brentano: “When we call one good ‘better’ than another, we
mean that the one good is preferable to the other. In other words, it is correct to prefer the one good,
for its own sake, to the other.” (1969[1889], p. 26). In Brentano’s analysis, the notion of ‘correctness’
is the normative component that corresponds to the ‘ought’ in Ewing’s vocabulary. ‘Preference’ is the
psychological component that corresponds to ‘pro-attitude’.
14
possibility of incomparability among alternatives is left open. The buck-passing deontologist
can happily agree with everything said so far (she disagrees, of course, if her theory is nonteleologically structured: see fn. 31 above). The distinctive mark of consequentialism is that
the consequentialist’s appeal to an ordering of alternatives is such that the determination of
normative status is for her always and essentially a comparative matter. Slightly differently
put: The normative status of an alternative is always dependent on what other alternatives are
available in the situation at hand; normative status supervenes not merely on features intrinsic
to the act-type in question. To illustrate: If we in a concrete circumstance ought to fulfil a
promise, this is so because there is in the concrete circumstance no other, incompatible,
alternative that ought to be chosen rather than the one that consists in the fulfilment of the
promise. 33
According to the deontologist, however, this is not so. For her, the normative status of an
alternative is not always determined by what alternatives are available, but in at least some
cases by the simple fact that there are some things we ought never to do, i.e. are not permitted
to do (and additionally, perhaps, that there are some things we ought always to do, i.e. things
we are not permitted not to do). Such non-overridable oughts are non-comparatively
determined in the sense that they supervene only on features intrinsic to the act type in
question and not also on features of other alternatives.34 They are what Robert Nozick called
33
Note that this claim is not about decision procedures; the claim is that, for the consequentialist, the
determination of normative status is always and essentially comparative, while for the deontologist,
normative status is sometimes non-comparatively determined. See Bales (1971) for an influential
discussion of the distinction between decision procedures and criteria of right-making characteristics.
34
Davies (1991, p. 206) suggests that it is a distinctive feature of deontological views that they are not
comparative. Cf. Frankena (1963, p. 14).
15
‘side constraints’.35 To illustrate: If there is a side constraint against breaking promises, the
fact that we in a concrete circumstance ought not to break our promise is not due to the fact
that there is in the concrete circumstance no other, incompatible, alternative that ought to be
chosen rather than the one that consists in the fulfilment of the promise. In order to determine
the normative status of breaking the promise (i.e. in order to determine that it would be
wrong) it suffices to consider the intrinsic features of the act – its non-intrinsic features are
simply irrelevant to its normative status.
It might be objected that this fails to mark a difference between consequentialism and
deontology, since the deontologist is still committed to there being an ordering of alternatives
in much the same sense we took to be characteristic of consequentialism. For, as indicated
earlier, if there is a side constraint against A-ing, then it seems that there is an ordering that
says that we ought to choose not to A, rather than anything that is incompatible with not Aing. The response is that this is a kind of ordering that follows trivially from deontological
claims about the normative status of alternatives, whereas for the consequentialist
comparative orderings of alternatives always determine their normative status.36
It is sometimes thought that the principle that one ought always to do the act that is best is
distinctive of consequentialism, and that a deontologist therefore must concede that there are
actual or possible situations where we ought not to do what is (would be) best. But as we saw
in section II, if the deontologist passes the goodness buck, the principle that we ought always
to do what is best becomes inescapable, since for an alternative to be best just is for that
35
Nozick (1974, pp. 28-33).
36
Indeed, an ordering of alternatives follows trivially from any particular judgement about what you
ought to do, on any theory. For the judgement that you ought (all things considered) to A entails that
you ought (all things considered) to A rather than not-A. But again, this is very different from the nontrivial claim that comparative orderings of alternatives always determine normative status.
16
alternative to be such that it ought all things considered to be chosen. We should say, then,
that the claim that we ought sometimes to choose the act that would not be the best is not
distinctive of deontology, since a buck-passing deontologist does not accept it. What is
distinctive of deontology is that normative status is sometimes non-comparatively determined,
and not, as in consequentialism, always determined by a comparative ordering of alternatives.
We also suggested in the preceding section that the deontologist should welcome this
conclusion since it rids her theory of the commonly recognised air of paradox that stems from
the claim that we ought sometimes to do the act that would not be the best.
However, the claim that a deontological theory must involve at least one noncomparatively determined non-overridable ought may appear less charitable to the
deontologist in another respect: it may appear to make her theory unreasonably rigid. But
whether a deontological theory is unreasonably rigid will depend on which act type(s) the
theory takes there to be non-overridable oughts against performing. For instance, it is
unreasonably rigid to hold that there are no possible or actual circumstances in which we
(would) have to break a promise or tell a lie because fulfilling the promise or telling the truth
is (would be) incompatible with what we ought rather to do. But nevertheless, I take it that it
makes much intuitive sense to assume that for a theory to qualify as deontological, it must
include at least one non-comparatively determined non-overridable ought, or side constraint.
This might plausibly be a side constraint against killing innocents or torturing babies, no
matter the alternatives or the consequences. It is likely that many people would not find side
constraints against such activities unreasonably rigid. Some prominent contemporary
deontologists seem to accept them.37 So far, then, this proposal of how buck-passers should
carve up the distinction between consequentialism and deontology seems intuitively
promising.
37
See Donagan (1977, pp. 155, 157); Fried (1978, pp. 10); Nagel (1986, p. 177).
17
But a related and perhaps more serious objection is that I have cast the consequentialist net
too widely. For it may seem that any view that does not recognise non-comparatively
determined non-overridable oughts turns out to be consequentialist. Notably, this way of
carving up the distinction seems to classify as consequentialist W.D. Ross’s theory of prima
facie duties. According to Ross:
“[T]he ground of the actual rightness of the act is that, of all acts possible in
the circumstances, it is that whose prima facie rightness in the respects in
which it is prima facie right most outweighs its prima facie wrongness in any
respects in which it is prima facie wrong.” (1930, p. 46).
Ross thus thought that while what we ought prima facie, or rather pro tanto, to do is noncomparatively determined, what we ought all things considered to do is always a comparative
matter.
That Ross might be turned into a consequentialist is at the first glance a disturbing upshot
for the attempt to distinguish between consequentialism and deontology in terms of
comparative and non-comparative determination of normative status. But there are two things
to say in response. The first is that it has been argued that Ross’s theory was in fact a
disguised version of consequentialism. G.E.M. Anscombe made this claim, and she based it
precisely on the fact that Ross did not recognise any non-comparatively determined nonoverridable oughts.38 But be that as it may. I think it should be conceded that for anyone who
accepts both the buck-passing view about value and Ross’s theory of prima facie duties,
consequentialism as I have here characterised it is the inevitable upshot. For the buck-passing
38
“(...) Ross explicitly denies (…) that the gravity of, e.g., procuring the condemnation of the
innocent is such that it cannot be outweighed by, e.g., national interest. Hence [the Oxford
Objectivists’] distinction [between consequentialism and non-consequentialism] is of no importance.”
(1997, p. 34, fn. 4).
18
view commits one to the view that one ought always to do the best one can, and Ross’s theory
of prima facie duties commits one to the view that what one ought all things considered to do
is always determined by a comparative ordering of alternatives. However, Ross himself did
not see any necessary connection between all things considered oughts, i.e. actual duties, and
intrinsic value. So Ross did not accept the buck-passing account, and so he allowed for the
possibility that (paradoxically, as some would say)39 we sometimes ought all things
considered not to do the best we can.40 This saves Ross himself from being captured in the
consequentialist net.41
We have thus arrived at a way of framing the distinction between consequentialism and
deontology that allows adherents of both camps to accept buck-passing about value without
dissolving the fundamental opposition between them. Is this way of carving up the distinction
intuitively plausible? In the last few paragraphs I have tried to indicate that it is. Yet another
consideration that tells in its favour is that it lends plausibility to the common thought that
consequentialism and deontology reflect two different conceptions of morality: While
consequentialism is often thought to reflect a pragmatic conception (thence the appeal to noncomparative determination of normative status), deontology is commonly seen as absolutist or
legalistic in spirit (thence the appeal to non-comparative determination of normative status).42
A related point is that the distinction between comparative and non-comparative
determination of normative status explains why deontologists are generally more likely than
39
E.g. Ewing, Foot, and Scheffler: see above.
40
It is true, of course, that Ross recognised a prima facie duty to promote intrinsic value.
41
Interestingly, in so far as Ross thought that what we ought all things considered to do is always
comparatively determined, he does not qualify as a deontologist either. This suggests that while
consequentialism and deontology, as I have here characterised the positions, are mutually exclusive
they might not be mutually exhaustive.
19
consequentialists to allow for ‘tragic dilemmas’, i.e., situations in which acting on any
available alternative implies that we act wrongly. The deontologist is more likely to recognise
such possibilities precisely because for her, the normative status of some alternatives is
determined solely by the intrinsic features of the act-type in question, and not by a
comparative ordering of alternatives. The consequentialist, on the other hand, is less likely to
recognise such possibilities precisely because for her, an act is wrong if and only if there is in
the situation some incompatible act available that ought rather to be performed.
All of this has of course prompted sympathies as well as antipathies for and against both
sides of the debate. I shall not dare to attempt a forecast as to which side is winning; my only
concern has been to secure the thesis that if the buck-passing account of value is accepted, it
is still conceptually possible to make a reasonably clear and intuitively plausible distinction
between consequentialism and deontology.43
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22