There are three major traditions in ethical thought: virtue ethics,
deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics.
Furthermore, if the demandingness problem is applicable to consequentialist disquisitions such as Mill's, it is our contention that other ethical doctrines such as
deontological ethics may also incur in the enforceability of moral sainthood.
(2.) Virtue ethics is not about producing the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure for the greatest number (as it is in Utilitarianism or Consequentialism), nor is it about fulfilling one's duty or obligations (as it is in the
Deontological ethics of Kant).
Deontological Ethics. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter, 2016 Edition), Edward N.
Deontological ethics, which are also called rule-based ethics, focuses on duty, obligation, justice, and right- independent of the greatest good (Thiroux & Krasemann, 2009).
Richard Niebuhr (1963): human being as maker (teleological ethics), as citizen (
deontological ethics), and as answerer (dialogical ethics).
Considering the possible weaknesses of the text, I think that the comparison between virtue, consequentialist and
deontological ethics (p.
We are then left with consequentialist and
deontological ethics. Consequentialist ethics asks us to turn to the results in a particular context to judge morality--it asks us to consider consequences.
In the West, ethics or moral philosophy have followed three different strands of theorizing, namely; virtue ethics which is represented by Plato/Socrates and Aristotle,
deontological ethics which is represented by Immanuel Kant, and teleological ethics as defended by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, among others.
Robert Goodin shows that the term of responsibility comes from consequentialist ethics while duty from
deontological ethics. In this respect, duty drives action while responsibility drives results.