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Are Deontology and TeleologyMutually Exclusive?

James E. MacdonaldCaryn L. Beck-Dudley

ABSTRJ\.CT. Current discussions of business ethicsusually only consider deontological and utilitarianapproaches. What is missing is a discussion oftraditional teleology, often referred to as "virtueethics." While deontology and teleology are useful,they both suffer insufficiencies. Traditional teleology,while deontological in many respects, does not objectto utilitarian style calculations as long as they arecontained within a moral framework that is notutilitarian in its origin. It contains the best of bothapproaches and can be used to focus on the indi-vidual's role within an organization. More work isneeded in exposing students and faculty to traditionalteleology and its place in business ethic's discussions.

People having even a passing acquaintance withmoral philosophy have probably met with thedistinction betv^êen deontological and teleo-logical approaches to moral questions. "Adeontological norm is one that evaluates an actby a characteristic that cannot be gathered fromits consequences" (McCormick, 1973, p. 62).

Dr. James E. Macdonald received a Master of BusinessAdministration, a Ph.D in Philosophy, and aJ.D. Heis a founding member of the Business Ethics section ofthe Academy of Legal Studies in Business and past-president of the Rocky Mountain Academy of LegalStudies in Business.

Professor Caryn L. Beck-Dudley received a Juris Doctorate.She is a member of the Business Ethia sections of theAcademy of Legal Studies in Business and the Societyof Business Ethics. She has published several articles andin 1993 she received the Holmes-Cardozo award fromthe Academy of Legal Studies in Business for out-standing paper submitted and presented at the nationalmeeting. She is currently secretary-treasure of theAcademy of Legal Studies in Business.

Deontological approaches to ethics attempt toascertain the content of duty uîthout consideringthe consequences of particular vâys of acting.Generally speaking, deontologists have thoughtthat moral principles are ascertained throughsome sort of logical test of consistency, as Kantmaintained; or they have thought of the moralrightness of actions as directly intuited, as H. A.Pritchard (1949), for example, held.

Teleological approaches to ethics, on the otherhand, morally evaluate actions by looking to theirconsequences — right actions being right becausethey tend to have good consequences, wrongactions being wrong because they tend to havebad consequences. Thus, for teleologists, evalu-ations of consequences as good or bad providethe premises for inferring the norms of rightacting. Arthur Andersen's educational programsin business ethics' have probably done as muchto popularize this distinction as any other con-tributor, but Arthur Andersen is not alone: Mostwriters in business ethics seem eager to pay theirrespects to the distinction (Beauchamp andBowie, 1993; Donaldson and Werhane, 1993).With tables of contents that look almost litur-gical in their repetitive sameness, deontology isintroduced with Immanuel Kant, teleology withJeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill. Teleologyis quickly identified with some variety ofutilitarianism and perhaps prettified in the latest,fashionable economic dressing — for our money,a fair enough assessment of developments in thelaw and economics movement, although recentlythere have been calls for change (Solomon, 1992;Wolfe, 1991). Invariably, the apparent contra-diction between deontology and teleology isemphasized, each approach is subjected tobattering-ram criticism, and, in the rubble that

Journal of Business Ethics 13: 615-623, 1994.© 1994 Kluwer Academic PubUshers. Printed in the Netherlands.

616 J.E. Macdonald and C.L. Beck-Dudley

remains, bewildered students, marvelling at somucb effort squandered with so little to show forit, scavenge for something useful to carry away.Their antecedent moral skepticism and relativismseems confirmed in their minds, and their alreadytoo feeble grip on moral truth is furtherloosened, perhaps irretrievably. Their briefexposure to moral philosophy often leaves themworse off than they were before (Wolfe, 1991).There ought to be a better way, a safe passagebetween the Scylla of deontology and theCharybdis of utilitarianism.

There is such a way. On the one hand, utili-tarianism is, at its root, a milquetoast descendantof the traditional teleological approach to ethicsthat originated in antiquity and came to prevailin medieval times.^ Deontology, for its part, hasstrained unsuccessfully to recapture the moralabsolutes that once inhabited that same teleo-logical tradition; but it has left much that isessential behind. Both modern approaches aresubject to maladies from which their muchheartier and more robust ancestor was spared. Atthe same time, the truth that is missed in utili-tarianism, and (some say) is found in deontology,is also found - and found much more richly -in traditional teleology.

Almost in the Hegelian sense, the traditionalteleology is a synthesis of the thesis of deontologyand the antithesis of utihtarianism. It is a syn-thesis that, as any good synthesis should, absorbsthe truth from the thesis and antithesis, whileleaving behind their falsity and insufficiency. Onecan only conclude that in arriving at deontologyand utilitarianism history took a wrong turn andmarched away from truth. Odd. First comes thesynthesis, then the thesis and antithesis: Hegel isstood on his head in a way Marx never envi-sioned.

This introduction is a sort of retrospective thatmust now be followed by a delivery of the goodspromised. At least, as it is said in sales law, aconforming tender must be made, with thereader left to decide whether acceptance isproper. It must be shown that what is true indeontology and utilitarianism is not original, andwhat is original in them is not true.

Tall order. Our hope in this short paper is onlyto make a substantial beginning of performance.

First, however, before the good news of the syn-thesis can be sprung, the thesis and the antithesishave to be understood and their insufficienciesindicated. That should be short work, sincedeontology and utilitarianism are already widelyunderstood. Present memory need only berefreshed or, at the most, past memory recalled.

Deontology

"It is impossible to conceive of anything in theworld, or indeed out of it, which can be calledgood without qualification save only a goodwill." This is Kant's (1964, p. 64) stirring begin-ning to his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Moralsand the opening shot of deontology.

It should not be overlooked that the statementhas an initial strangeness, one that tends to wearoff. Older moralists (St. Thomas Aquinas (1848)in particular) had always carefully distinguishedthe goodness of the inner act (criminal lav^^ersnow call it the mens rea) from the goodness of theexternal act (called the actus reus) (Mclnerny,1982; 1992). The simple thought, for tradition-alists, was that what is intended is one thing,what is done is something else - the moralcharacter of an action might not match the moralcharacter of the intent with which it is done.Crimes committed for laudable motives are stillcrimes, i.e. bad acts done for good ends. RobinHood is said to have stolen from the rich to givealms to the poor, for instance, but his acts ofrobbery remain no less wrong. Conversely, goodacts can be done for bad ends: giving alms tothe poor, a good act considered in itself, maybe done for the evil end of humiliating therecipient.

Kant's preoccupation with good will is strangebecause intent was traditionally viewed as onlyone aspect to be considered in reaching an overallmoral assessment of a particular human action.External actions were traditionally thought tohave their own antecedent moral character asgood, bad, or neutral, separate and apart from themoral character of the end for which they arechosen. This familiar distinction between thegoodness of the internal and external actionsevaporates with Kant's enthronement of good

Deontology and Teleology 617

will as the sole unqualified good. It never seemsto reappear, although, remarkably, it is rarelymissed.

At any rate, understanding Kant's deontologyrequires understanding what he means by "goodwill." It means acting out of respect for the morallaw, i.e., for the sake of duty (Kant, 1964, p. 74)Good will means acting/or the sake of duty, mindyou, not merely in accord with it. People's actionsoften externally conform to duty's requirementsfor no other reason than blind inclination. Yetthere is no moral merit in following morallyunguided inclinations, even when such inclina-tions result in external actions consistent withmorality. People may have nonmoral reasons foracting as morality requires: Rosa Parks, forinstance, is said to have sat in the front of theBirmingham, Alabama, bus just because her feethurt and there were no other empty seats: notthat she wanted to protest the segregation of theraces. And, no doubt, she acted rightly, albeit fora morally irrelevant reason.

It is sometimes correctly said that Kant accordspriority to "the right" over "the good." This iswhat makes for his deontology, his placement ofduty first.' In contrast, the teleological approachto morals first identifies the sorts of goods humanactions ought to protect and realize, then evalu-ates actions as right or wrong according to theireffects. Wrong actions tend to be harmful, andright ones tend to be beneficial. Kant reversesthis ordering, even defining good will as a sortof right acting, i.e., acting with duty in mind,for its own sake. And, recall, all he requires forgood will is action on a maxim that may or canbe universalized - let the chips fall where theymay. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.The observance of duty thus becomes for him anend-in-itself, detached from all practical results,binding in the same measure on angels as onman.

That there is something very attractive aboutKant's insistence on the absolute demands ofduty, no one can deny. One of the most deep-seated moral convictions is that there are waysof treating people that can never be allowed, nomatter how dire the circumstances. Kant capturesthis conviction. Indeed, criminal law is absolutistto a degree that seems Kantian: Murder^ is always

and everywhere forbidden, for instance.'* It isentirely fair to say that substantive criminal lawreflects Kant's absolutism much more than utili-tarianism's incessant balancing of consequences.

Yet there is also something repellant aboutKant's approach. It smells of fanaticism, and, infact, his Categorical Imperative leaves ampleroom for fanaticism. Boiled down to familiarterms, the Categorical Imperative commands usto do as we would be done by. Never act on amaxim that one would not consent to be a partof a system of moral rules binding uponeveryone. The objection to Kant's test of moralmaxims is not that it is mistaken. Hardly anyonewittingly denies the Golden Rule. Rather, theobjection to Kant's moral philosophy is that it isentirely too permissive, allowing morally hor-rendous maxims to pass muster (Grisez, 1983).

As examples, one sees no knock-downargument against racial genocide or chattelslavery in the Golden Rule. I might be a Nazior a slave holder and reason that, were I anenlightened Jew or Negro, I would consent toextermination or enslavement as my just dessert.Indeed, John Hospers (1961), pushing the logicof the Categorical Imperative to its almost comiclimits, imagines how it would apply to a sado-masochist: He should not hesitate to inflict painupon others since he would welcome theirinfliction of pain upon himself.

In sum, the Golden Rule (and Kant'sCategorical Imperative), although no doubt anecessary moral measure, is far from a sufficienttest of practical maxims. It commands us to doas we would be done by, but leaves the questionof how we should be done by unanswered, evenunaddressed. Explained differently,

[t]he assumption Kant makes is that moral virtueor perfection consists in the rejection of desire inmoral action. This conception is developed atlength into a full fledged moral theory with all theattendant distinctions, such as acting from dutyversus acting according to duty, self-interest asprudence and not morality, and the obedience torules for their own sake. Thus, for Kant, a person\vho overcomes contrary inclinations and actionsfrom duty is morally superior to one who does hisduty and likes it (Rasmussen and Den Uyl, 1991,p. 38).


Therefore, I am to do as I v^ould be done by:But how do I know how I would be done by?What sorts of harms ought I to protect myselfagainst? I must first know how I should allowmyself to be treated before I can know how^ Imay allow myself to treat others. A missingidentification of the true and comprehensivehuman good and the included basic goods of life,knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, friendship,religion and practical reasonableness, is neededto get started (Finnis, 1988).

It is possible to couch the same point infamiliar legal terms. The "equal protection oflaws"^ cannot, standing alone, be a sufficient testof legal justice: Many unjust laws pass its testeasily. Equal injustice under law is a real possi-bility. Unfair discrimination, particularly unfairself-preference, is only one way of being unjust.*Yet equal protection is Kant's only test of themaxims upon which people act, and it is tooslender a base upon which to ground much, ifany, moral content. Is utilitarianism a moreadequate starting point?

Utilitarianism

As was stated earlier, teleological approaches tomorals are now often identified with somevariety of utilitarianism. Utilitarians morallyassess individual actions (or sometimes policies,laws or rules of action) by their consequences,the best being those that produce the greatestproportion of good over evil. If substantivecriminal law has a Kantian deontological flavor,widely used judicial balancing tests have autilitarian one. And cost/benefit critiques ofgovernmental regulations, which are essentiallyutilitarian, are now^adays familiar to almosteveryone.

Except perhaps for business majors, for whomthe groundwork for utilitarianism has alreadybeen cleared by their economics courses, studentsoften wonder v^hat question utihtarianismanswers: It comes at them like a bolt from theblue (Wolfe, 1992). Yet it is really best under-stood in the light of Jeremy Bentham's originallyplanned use of it. He intended utihtarianism asan engine of social change, employed to change

the laws, especially as to criminal penalties, ofearly nineteenth-century England. Laws, hethought, must be measured by their "utihty",their contribution to general social welfare. Theymust be reformed as need be to make for "thegreatest happiness of the greatest number." It maybe, for instance, that the incidence of pickpock-eting is actually increased through the pubhchanging of pickpockets because of the oppor-tunities for pickpocketing afforded by the largecrowds that gather to view such spectacles: If so,then the general welfare would appear to beharmed by this form of punishment. In fact,criminal penalties across the board must beadjusted for maximal net social benefit. Nothingcould sound more plausible.

Every schoolchild knows that Benthamoriginally identified happiness with pleasure,unhappiness with pain. No less than with Kant,these is here from the outset a foreboding senseof strangeness that tends to get lost. What, afterall, does the justice of laws have to do with howgenerally pleasing they are to those afFected bythem? In any event, not all pleasures are createdequal, as John Stuart Mill (1967) pointed outearly on. The pleasures of reading poetry seemto differ qualitatively from those of playingpushpin, Bentham (1962) notwithstanding.Should higher grade pleasures not count formore? How, in any event, did pleasure, whateverits grade, come to be identified as the soleultimate good? Is doing the right thing nothingmore than calculative efficiency in pleasingpeople?

These are foundational questions that manyutihtarians (particularly those working in eco-nomics) have always tried to avoid, preoccupyingthemselves instead with efforts at solving tech-nical problems, especially the measurement ofpleasure. The problem is obvious and immediate:Social welfare (or total pleasure, or "the greatesthappiness of the greatest number") would seemto have to be measured if it is to be the test ofactions, policies, and laws. Yet a moment'sreflection reveals that pleasures are incommen-surable, that they cannot, as Bentham thoughtthey could, each be translated into so many"utiles" and simply added up. Much, if not most,of the history of utilitarian thought has been


devoted to attempting to get around thisproblem.

A major advance was made when preferencesatisfaction took the place of pleasure as the goalof action and policy. At the same time it becameevident that, while cardinal measures of utilityare impossible, individuals can and do rankalternatives ordinally, as more, less, or equallysatisfying. People clearly forgo the satisfaction ofsome preferences to pursue others. They identifymarginal increases in pleasure even thoughcardinal measures must always elude them.

The quest for an adequate metric of socialwelfare continued. Figuring the overall level ofpreference satisfaction seemed to require morethan each individual's ranking of their ownutilities (mfrapersonal comparisons); it seemedalso to require comparisons of one person'sutilities with other people's (interpersonal com-parisons). A change in the existing allocation ofresources might be preferred by one person andnot by another - yet there seemed to be no way,without comparing the effect on one person'ssatisfaction with other people's results, to knowwhether the reallocation increased or decreasedthe overall level of satisfaction.

Enter the Pareto tests (Coleman, 1980). Whileavoiding any direct measure of total utility, oneallocation of resources can be recognized assuperior to another if anyone is made better offby it and no one is made worse off. Indeed, aPareto optimal allocation is one where no onecan be made better off without someone beingmade worse off. Of course, as a practical matter,as Richard Posner points out, the only way toknow if someone is made "better off" by aresource reallocation is if he consents to it. Thatbeing so, Posner (1983) notes, the Paretoapproach becomes useless for most policyquestions: It is usually impossible even to identify,much less to secure the consent of, everyoneaffected by an action, law, or policy.

Posner has his own ingenious solution to theproblem of an adequate social metric. He equatesthe "value" of people's preferences with theirwillingness to pay to have them satisfied (Posner,1983). Unlike the utility of satisfying preferences,which will remain imponderable forever, thevalue of satisfying them has the notable advan-

tage of being measurable in money. Wealth (thetotal value of satisfied preferences) thus replacesutility for Posner as the quantity that actions,policies and laws must maximize.

And the beat goes on: Posner, having formu-lated perhaps the most powerful version ofutilitarianism so far, has also brought it into clearfocus for a wide audience. He has made realprogress, we think, on the measurement problemthat has so plagued utilitarianism in the past. Heis also sensitive to the notorious "moral mon-strousness" of traditional utilitarianism: His newand improved version is perhaps much lessmonstrous than earlier ones. No doubt, hisproduct looks glossy by comparison withBentham's crude original.

But the fruit does not fall very far from thetree. Something morally essential is lost in allvarieties of utilitarianism, including even themost recent. All of them do unacceptableviolence to the insight behind the old saying that"the end does not justify the mean" - in thev ords of St. Paul, that evil may not be done thatgood may come of it.

Of course, only an end can justify a means.What else? But the sense of the saying is thatthere are means that cannot be justified by anyend, that there are ways of acting that are morallyprohibited no matter how much good might beyielded by allowing exceptions in hard cases.Whatever other insufficiencies afflict Kant's effortin moral philosophy, at least it has the consider-able merit of attempting to capture and protectthe sense of this old saying. Indeed, that is itschief attraction over utilitarianism, which losesgrip on the saying entirely. For utilitarians,anything goes, nothing is entirely forbidden, andeverything can be rationalized by the shiftingsands of expected good and evil consequences."Woe to those who creep through the serpent-windings of Utilitarianism," said Kant. He hit thenail on the head.

We spoke earlier of a teleological traditionthat is older and more adequate than eitherdeontology or utilitarianism, and we particularlycomplained of the modern tendency to identifyteleology with utihtarianism. The time has cometo introduce this venerable oldster.


Traditional teleology

Georg Henrik von Wright (1963, p. vi) oncemade a distinction that makes a good startingpoint for reflection. Defending teleology, hedistinguished

between two main variants of this position inethics. The one makes the notion of the goodrelative to the nature of man. The other makes itrelative to the needs and wants of individual men.We could call the two variants the 'objectivist' andthe 'subjectivist' variant respectively. I think it isright to say that Aristotle favored the first. . . . [Thesecond] is, I think, more akin to that of somewriters of the utilitarian tradition.

Textbook distinctions between deontology andteleology typically identify teleology with oneof its modern subjectivist variants (i.e., someform of utilitarianism), leaving the traditionalobjectivist variant undefined, even unmentioned.The resulting tunnel-vision makes deontologyand utilitarianism appear to be the only playerson the field - both, as it turns out, so crippledas to be of little use. A third player is needed(Newton, 1991; Solomon, 1992).

That third player is traditional, objectivistteleology. Utilitarianism is widely understood,but, unfortunately, traditional teleology is not.Comparing and contrasting utilitarianism andtraditional teleology, subjectivism and objec-tivism, should help in understanding the latter.

First the comparison. There is much uponwhich utilitarians and traditional teleologist seemto agree: that a happy life is the final and ultimateend of all human action; that all other ends aresought for the sake of happiness; that happinessis never sought as a means to any other end; thathappiness is the one end that is not also a means;that happiness is the end behind all ends andmeans; that a happy life is the all-encompassing,comprehensive good in which every assortedlesser good must find its place (Rasmussen andDen Uyl, 1991; Mclnerny, 1992).

They also agree that human beings, of neces-sity, pursue their own happiness. People desireonly what appears to them desirable and worthyof their desire — good, that is. Of course, whatlooks good may not be good, looks beingdeceiving. For that reason humans must submit

their actions to rational guidance if they are torealize the true human good and not be misledby appearances. Indeed, moral guidance isnothing but guidance in the ways of reasonability(Aristotle, 1991; Gratsch, 1985).

So much verbal agreement between utilitari-anism and traditional objectivist teleology canseem impressive, but it obscures important under-lying differences. The problem is that the samewords are often used with entirely differentmeanings. The rival understandings of happiness,moral rectitude, rationality, and the generalwelfare are cases in point.

Utilitarians think of the happiest life as the onewith the highest possible overall level of satisfieddesires. An egalitarian democracy of desiresreigns: One desire, one vote. For his part,Bentham went so far as to think of people aspleasure maximizers, his premise being one ofpsychological egoistic hedonism (Bentham,1962). To this day, utilitarians recognize noexternal, independent test of which desires areright, which wrong; which natural, whichacquired; which of real, genuine goods, which ofmerely apparent goods. Lacking any suchindependent test, an internal measure of coher-ence is all that remains to them: Those pleasuresare best that are in keeping with the largestavailable package of pleasures.

This conception of happiness seems awfullystrange to a traditional teleologist. Given the sortof creature humans are, they realize happinessthrough participation in a fairly short list of basicgoods: friendship, learning, play, work and leisureare familiar examples. Indeed, John Finnis's(1988) enumeration of the basic forms of humangood, which seems to us well thought out,includes most of these. People find their fulfill-ment through realizing and partaking in thesegoods: Through them, they can "be all that theycan be." The objective requirements of humansas rational animals provide the external, inde-pendent tests of desires that is lacking inutilitarianism. Human nature is the basis for acorrespondence test of moral truth for tradition-alists. Utilitarians later replaced it with a coher-ence test. To explain, a judgment is true in acorrespondence sense if it conforms with reality.A judgement is true in a coherence sense if itcoheres with other judgments that are generally


accepted as true. The difference is between thetruth of a judgment measured against reality,versus its truth measured by its fit with the overallweb of belief. Once the knowability of reahty asit is in itself is surrendered, or even seriouslycalled into question, the working understandingof truth slides away from correspondence towardcoherence. Thus, the working understanding ofmoral truth slipped toward a coherence test oncean understanding of the needs of human natureceased to be the starting point for moral reflec-tion.

Utilitarians and traditional teleologists alsodiffer in their understanding of what makes formoral rectitude, or the rightness of humanactions. Utilitarians are left to figure the right-ness of actions by how generally pleasing theyare. Of course, because what pleases and dis-pleases varies so much from person to person,time to time, and place to place, utilitarian iden-tifications of right and wrong sorts of actions arehighly fluid.

On the other hand, reliance on human natureas the basis of morality stabilizes the traditionalteleologist's assessments of right and wrong.Given the identification of the true human goodand certain basic human goods that make it up,a universal rule protecting those goods can beformulated: Respect every basic human good ineach of your actions (Aristotle, 1991). In partic-ular, never intentionally harm a basic good: "Firstof all, do no harm!" More specific rules protectspecific goods over a wide range. From therecognition that life is good comes the realiza-tion that murder is wrong; from the knowledgethat property is good comes the prohibition oftheft; and so on to complete a list of moral rulesthat includes most of the Ten Commandments.

Another point to note is how radically differ-ently utilitarians and traditional teleologists thinkof rationality and reasonableness. Rationality forutilitarians essentially amounts to efficiency inallocating resources to maximally satisfy prefer-ences. Indeed, the economic concept of rationalman reflects the modern triumph of this under-standing of rationahty (Aristotle, 1991).

In contrast, traditional teleologists, fromAristotle on, make use of a "prudent man"standard — in all essential respects the ancientequivalent of the "reasonable man" standard

lawyers use today. Reasonable people steer clearof acting as morality forbids, while at the sametime affirmatively developing the natural virtues- prudence, courage, temperance, and justice -that morality (and, for that matter, their ownself-respect and happiness) requires.

It is easy to see that the utihtarian standard ofrationality sometimes collides with the tradi-tionalist's standard or reasonability. To see this,consider Alan Donagan's example, cited byRichard Posner (1983, p. 57):

It might well be the case that more good and lessevil would result from your painlessly and unde-tectedly murdering your malicious, old andunhappy grandfather that from your forebearingto do so: he would be freed from his wretchedexistence; his children would be rejoiced by theirinheritances and would no longer sufFer from hismischief; and you might anticipate the rewardpromised to those who do good in secret. Nobodyseriously doubts that a position with such a con-sequence is monstrous.

The utilitarian standard of rationality wouldseem to approve of the monstrous murder con-templated, although the traditionalist's standardof reasonability never would: An innocent humanlife, a basic good, may never intentionally bedestroyed.

It should be noted, finally, how different arethe utilitarian and traditional teleologist's con-ceptions of the general welfare. Utihtarians thinkof the general welfare as nothing but the overalllevel of satisfaction — the highest possible levelbeing the proper aim of government and rulers.Indeed, this way of thinking of the generalwelfare is the source of the title of utilitarians,ever since John Stuart Miss (1978) wrote OnLiberty, toward libertarian causes: Total happinesswould seem to be maximized when people'sfreedom to satisfy their preferences is unfetteredby legal constraints to the greatest extent consis-tent with maximal equal liberty for all.

Traditional teleologists, on the other hand,instead of speaking of the general welfare, tendto draw on the traditional notion of the commongood (Finnis, 1988). The common good is theend a community's rulers must seek to realize forits members if they are to have their best chanceat happiness, defined as "lasting and justified


satisfaction witb one's life as a wbole" (Murray,1988, p. 34). It is misconceived as total bappi-ness: It is, ratber, tbe good available for tbecommon use of a community's members in tbeirseparate pursuits of bappiness. Indeed, so distantis tbe standard of tbe common good from tbatof overall satisfaction tbat it must trump tbe latterwben tbey conflict. Minorities, for instance, baverigbts even democratic majorities must respect(Rasmussen and Den Uyl, 1991; Finnis, 1988).And everyone knows tbat doing tbe rigbt tbingis often unpopular.

Deontology or Teleology: MutuallyExclusive?

Altbougb we bave not yet directly addressed tbequestion we started witb, our answer to it sbouldbe evident. Traditional, objectivist teleology isnot deontological in its approacb (it does notplace tbe rigbt abead of tbe good), but it isdeontological in many of its results: Certain waysof treating people are always forbidden, let tbecbips fall wbere tbey will (Mclnerny, 1982). Ontbe positive side, everyone is obliged to developcertain virtues. Indeed, Aristotle implied tbatonly a life of virtue is witbin our control, allotber genuine goods are not entirely witbin ourcontrol.

Yet, in anotber vi ay, objectivist teleology isquite undeontological in considering good willas only one element in tbe moral assessment ofbuman action. Tbe tendency of an action to bebeneficial or barmful places it objectively as rigbtor wrong in tbe first place, separate and apartfrom tbe subjective intent witb wbicb it is done.Indeed, tbe traditionalist begins bis identificationof moral goodness from tbe objective pole.Giving alms to tbe poor is not good becausepeople of good will do it, for example; ratber,people of good will give alms because it is good(Mclnerny, 1982).

Traditional objectivist teleology bears a super-ficial resemblance to utilitarianism, anotber, butquite different, teleological position. No objec-tivist bas any objection to utiUtarian-style effi-ciency calculations, so long as tbey are containedwitbin a moral framev^^ork tbat is not utilitarianin its origin. To tbe contrary, preferences tbat are

morally allowable sbould be satisfied as efficientlyas possible.

Winding up, it must be empbasized tbateverday moral reasoning makes use of a fewexceptionless moral norms tbat are as universaland uncbangeable as any norms ever promisedby tbe deontological tradition. Tbese moralabsolutes are, bowever, more securely groundedin traditional, objectivist teleology tban tbey evercould be in deontology. At tbe same time, mucbof everyday reasoning amounts to tbe familiarutilitarian balancing of good and evil conse-quences. Tbus, botb deontological and teleolog-ical results coexist side by side in traditionalobjectivist teleology and in common sense, anyappearance to tbe contrary being tbe result of tbemistaken reduction of teleology to utilitarianismand subjectivism.

Traditional teleology offers tbe best of botbdeontology and utilitarianism witbout tbeinsufficiencies or perversions of eitber. Studentsbrougbt aboard for brief tours of deontology orutilitarianism will, unfortunately, probably misstbe one boat tbat does not leak.

Notes

' Arthur Andersen & Co., the large accounting firm,initiated a "Conference on Teaching Business Ethics"in the summer of 1988. As of 1993, participants frommore than 220 institutions have participated in thesessions. This paper is not meant to criticize ArthurAndersen's approach to teaching business ethics.Rather, its intent is to focus on the larger problemof failing to include traditional teleology in currentethical discussions.^ For purposes of this article, the tradition originatesin Aristotle and is advanced in the works of St.Thomas Aquinas, hereinafter referred to as "tradi-tionalists." While we recognize that there are impor-tant differences between the two philosophers, thefocus of this paper is on their similarities.' Murder is defined in the common law as "thekilling of another human with malice aforethought."It does not refer to all killings.^ This statement must be qualified somewhat. JohnFinnis (1983), notes that the Model Penal Code, arts.2 and 3, provides for a necessity defense to homicidethat is explicitly utilitarian in its rationale. Althoughthe future of this defense remains open, it seems fornow to be an anomalous utilitarian intrusion into


an overall fabric of substantive criminal law that isdeontological.' The fourteenth amendment to the U.S.Constitution states, in part, "No State Shall make orenforce any law which should abridge the privilegesor immunities of citizens of the United States; nowshall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, orproperty, without due process of law; nor deny to anyperson within its jurisdiction the equal protection ofthe laws."* Self-preference occurs where a rule is enacted tobenefit the rulemaker at another's expense. One suchrule in Oklahoma was a law that required a personto pass a literacy test before being allowed to voteunless a lineal descendant had voted before 1866. SeeGuinn V. United States, 238 U.S. 368 (1915). JohnRawls in A Theory of Justice tries to solve this Kantianself-preference problem by imposing a "veil ofignorance" over individuals. In a veil of ignoranceindividuals cannot choose alternatives that unfairlybenefit themselves since they do not know their"station" in life. This veil, then, restricts the rangeof choices individuals have since they may have to livewith the choice. In the "grandfather clause" case, youwould not know whether you were white or black,male or female, and therefore you would choose toallow every adult the right to vote.

References

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Department of Business Administration,Weber State University,

Ogden, UT 84408,U.S.A.

Department of Management and Human Resources,Utah State University,

Logan, UT 84321,U.S.A.

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