Duty ethics

• Act only according to the maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.
• Duty ethics, attributed to Immanuel Kant, stresses duty as the norm of moral actions
• In duty ethics, one acts morally if and only if one does whatever one is obligated to do
• Acting from a sense of duty is essential in duty ethics, where the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the motive from which it is carried out, regardless of the consequences
• According to Kant, to determine one’s duty in a particular situation, one must test the act’s universalizability by applying the categorical imperative
• Two types of duty in Kant's theory:

  • Perfect duty: must always be observed, irrespective of time and place (e.g., not harming others)
  • Imperfect duty: must be observed only on some occasions (e.g., showing love and compassion occasionally)
• Moral principles of duty ethics include treating others as ends, autonomous and self-regulating will, and the basis of human dignity
• In a medical context, duty ethics dictates that it is always wrong to lie, and individuals must treat themselves and others as ends, preserving dignity and worth
• Difficulties in duty ethics include resolving cases of conflicting duties, such as duty to keep a secret versus duty to lie or tell the truth
• Duty-based or Deontological ethics, attributed to Immanuel Kant, is concerned with what people do, not with the consequences of their actions