Sibin Thomas, “Right to life’’ as Analyzed by Deontologist.

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"Right to life'' as Analyzed by Deontologist.

The word deontology derives from the Greek words for duty (deon) and science (or study) of (logos). Deontology falls within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess our choices of what we ought to do. Deontology characterizes those systems of morality in which the rightness is determined without regard to consequence. Right to life includes the following arguments.

1.     Right not to be killed.

2.     Right to receive life saving aid.

     1. Right not to be killed.

This right which we hold against all people is that no one may cause our death. Killing involves a cause effect relationship. A person who has no right to kill has no right to cause for death.

   2. Right to receive life saving aid.

  This right which we hold against different people in different degrees, is the right that others must come to our aid, to save our life.

On deontological accounts of morality, agents cannot make certain wrongful choices even if by doing so the number of wrongful choices will be minimized. For deontologists, what makes a choice right is its conformity with a moral norm. Such norms are to be simply obeyed by each moral agent; such norm-keepings are not to be maximized by each agent. In this sense, for deontologists, the Right has priority over the Good. Deontologists of this stripe are committed to something like the doctrine of double effect, a long-established doctrine of Catholic theology. The Doctrine asserts that we are categorically forbidden to intend evils such as killing the innocent, or torturing others, even though doing such acts would minimize the doing of like acts by others (or even ourselves) in the future. By contrast, if we only risk, cause, or predict that our acts will have consequences making them acts of killing or of torture, and then we might be able to justify the doing of such acts by the killing/torture-minimizing consequences of such actions. Whether such distinctions are plausible is standard taken to measure the plausibility of an intention-focused version of the agent-centered version of deontology.