Teleological Theory vs Deontological Theory

Rebuttals and concluding statement:Pro: "Deontology, while simple and easy to apply to society is rigid and unreasonable. "The first part of the statement is nothing less than a concession to my contention. The latter part, that deontology, being rigid and unreasonable, creates a paradoxy of morality, is supported by anecdotal case examples such as that of a man not killing baby Hitler given the hypothetically asserted result of it preventing the Holocaust or that of an 11 yr old rape victim not being given an abortion if abortion is deemed against deontological duty. I first addressed deontology's moral paradoxy by disseminating the use of the Hitler example as an unobjective, hypothetical foray. My argument was that the such examples are inappropriate in establishing teleological superiority. I agreed that given an already consequentially quantified, limited set of hypothetical results, deontology can, at times, be shown to be faulty. However, I also argued that teleology, when practically applied, is not only no better than deontology: it is worse. Again, the Hitler example (and other such examples), necessarily assume a limited set of actions and a predefined set of results. While this may all sound very nice, my opponent misses my clear address to the fact that an actual ethics practitioner can never know the results of an action. People can't see the future. The example would much more applicable if we were to take a man from the 1890's and put him in front of baby Hitler with a loaded gun. The man cannot possibly know what baby Hitler will do when it grows older. Is it reasonable for the man not to kill baby Hitler? Most definitely. Even if we give the extremely unreasonable assumption that the man does know what baby Hitler will be capable of, the man still cannot know that killing baby Hitler will change the future for the better. The only way for the Hitler example to work in favor of my opponent's argument is if we were to apply both ridiculous assumptions: that the man knows exactly what baby Hitler will do and what the consequential future of murdering baby Hitler will be. Thus I've accepted that deontological ethics can be shown to result in seemingly unreasonable results. I said as much numerous times in previou rounds. My argument is that, while deontological ethics can be shown to be paradoxical, I've shown that teleological ethics are no better since the core of my opponent's argument relies on examples which are based on ridiculous assertions (such as being able to tell the future). If my memory and reading comprehension serves correctly, the totality of my opponent arguments are:[1] deontological ethics, being rigid and unreasonable, creates a paradox of morality. My opponent then supports this singular case via numerous case examples. [2] deontological ethics is too objectiveEverything else he's said can be attributed to [1]. My basic response to [1] can be divided into two parts: part one is my concession that deontological ethics can create silly situations when hypothetically observed. Part two consists of a variety of arguments. The first of these arguments is that the examples used to show that deontological ethics to be potentially unreasonable do not make a case for teleological ethics' being superior in practical applications of ethics. Thus my opponent's argument, while compelling, does not really augment his side of the resolution. My response to [2] stands for itself both as a rebuttal and as an argument of its own. Teleology requires the ethics practitioner only consider objective quantities and ignore his own personal desires (such as saving his own child over that of a greater number of others). My example of the children's lives is a hypothetical example which assumes a known set of results and that the results' consequences are quantitavely known. Even within the hypothetical arena, teleology contains known problems. My opponent's only objection warps the definition of teleology, especially of that established in round 1. Again, teleology determines what is or is not moral via a teleological calculus. It does not make moral suggestions. That would be more Moral Pragmatism, and teleology is not Moral Pragmatism. My opponent's response to my argument of teleological ethics' impossible consideration of infinite possibilities thus remains unharmed. A real teleologist can say assertively that saving that 1 child and sacrificing the other 2 instead of vice versa is objectively immoral and that the objectively moral action is to save the 2 and let the 1 die given that the teleologically calculated quantity of the latter is superior to that of the former. I assumed my opponent understood the appended, underlined portion of this copy of my previous round's statement, but apparently not. I've added it to better clarify the example. Deontology = rigid. Teleology = impossible. Ergo while both teleological and deontological ethics, when applied to the literal extreme, are terrible, teleological ethics is worse. I believe my strongest argument, that teleological ethics is much too subjective, is one of my more powerful ones. My opponent says I cannot argue that teleological ethics are both much too subjective and much too objective. I can and I have. Neither argument contradicts the other since they apply to different areas of teleology. One applies anecdotally (just as all of my opponent's objections to deontological ethics do; I want to save my own child, screw all the others, they're not my obligation or problem, rawr! ! ), and the other applies systemically (the processes which constitute teleological decisions are inherently faulty). Example 1 in favor of this argument of subjectivity, given in my previous round, receives the singular objection: "Are you saying that [killing with the assumption that the teleologically greater outcome would result] is no less immoral than killing in cold blood? "This objection does not negate my point. The point is that the man committed an act widely considered to be objectively immoral, but did not obtain the results he desired. This leads back to my earlier argument which points out one of teleology's biggest problems: you cannot possibly know for certain that an action will lead to precisely the consequences you desire until both action(s) and consequence(s) are forgone. What if, taking this same example 1, that the man is not captured? Let us say that this man now decides to kill one of his friends for a different but also teleological reason? Say he believes his friends will be such horrendous people when they grow older that he decides killing them is the best, most moral option (teleologically speaking). How does he know this? He assumed it. He guessed it. He doesn't know. He thinks he knows. He then kills his friends to prevent them from doing horrible things in the future. Are the things that he believes his friends will do quantitatively worse, in aggregate, than their murder? The man thinks so. How does he determine so? Obviously arbitrarily. Will his friends really do what he thinks is friend will do? The man thinks so. I can keep coming up with similar examples, but the point is, as I've iterated earlier, that teleological ethics allows practitioners to do anything as long as they believe it is right. The God thing was my attempt at humor. Even if it was not, my point still stands despite it being appended by a less-relevant God-rant. My opponent brings up a point against Eample 2: "What if Obito accepts that all people are evil. His duty is to destroy all evil. Deontology would suggest his duty is to kill the entire human race [. .. ][Y]ou can do the same with deontology. If some random person accepts murder as a personal/moral duty, is not that singular person acting Deontologically. This debate assumes objective morality, meaning actions which are considered objectively immoral (actions which all of us must agree are immoral), are illegal in deontological ethics. Deontological duty cannot suggest killing if killing is an act of objective immorality. Assuming objective morality, as we've accepted at the beginning of this debate, deontological ethical duties are necessarily objectively moralMy opponent then says: "As we accepted at the beginning of the debate… both approaches to ethics, Deontological and Teleological accept Objective morality. What you are suggesting is that an approach to objective ethics is morally relative. Rather Teleology and Deontology are opposed to moral relativism. "We accepted that this debate assumes the existence of objective morality. Teleological ethics agree that even if an action is objectively immoral (this is deontologically determined), it is perfectly alright to do it if the results, which are subjectively determined, are objectively better. Yes we did agree that objective morality exists. It however does not hold any relevance to whether or not teleological ethics contains a massively gapping hole of arbitrary subjectivity. Teleological ethics are necessarily subjective. My statement, which is the summation of the arguments and examples I've provided, stands. Closing statementsWhew, this has been one hectically long debate. I thank my opponent for accompanying me 'til the end. This has indeed been fascinating and educational. I don't have space to rephrase my previous concluding statement and post it here, so I will urge the reader to go back to round 3's concluding statement. Sorry for the inconvenience. And thus I have shown that the extreme of deontology is superior to the extreme of teleology as was required of the CON side of this debate. Thanks for sticking with us through all of this very dense debate. You should be proud.