Toward a Genealogy of 'Deontology'

Toward a Genealogy of 'Deontology' ROBERT B. LOUDEN [A]ny choiceof a conceptual scheme presupposes values. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History tN Va'HICSAS ELS~.WHEI~,the basic categories used by writers to mark the conceptual terrain of their field profoundly affect readers' understanding of what is important within the field. And in ethics (as elsewhere), most writers who habitually employ the currently accepted categories of their discipline have no knowledge of the particular history of these categories--of who first coined them, of the purposes for which they were originally intended, of how their meanings have shifted over the years, of how ascending categories have displaced descending ones, of who is primarily responsible for their current meanings, etc. As an illustration of this claim, I propose to examine the history of'deontology' in ethics, with an aim to making the recent topographical shifts within the field less "unknown to ourselves.''~ Who was the first author to employ "the general, ugly, and familiar head1Cf . Nietzsche's opening remark in The Genealogy of Morals: "We are unknown to ourselves, we seekers after knowledge [w/r Erkennendon]" (Pref., l). It is perhaps worth noting at the outset that the following exercise in moral genealogy is not terribly Nietzschean--I myself accept very little of the specifics of his attack on morality. However, I do concur with Nietzsche's general convictionthat moral philosophers have paid insufficientattention to the origin and development of moral concepts (including technical concepts within their own discipline). The following moral genealogy is also decidedly un-Foucaultian,for, unlike Foucauh, I do not contrast genealogy with history, but hold rather that (as Alexander Nehamas puts it) "genealogy simply/s history, correctly practiced" (Nietzsche: Life as Literature [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985], ~46, n.l.). I wish to establish the origins and development of 'deontology' in modern ethics. Foucault, on the other hand, daims that a "genealogy of values, morality, asceticism, and knowledge will never confuse itself with a quest for their 'origins' " CNietzsche, Genealogy, History," in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader [New York: Pantheon Books, 1984], 80). For further discussion of the senses of'genealogy' in Nietzsche, see the essays in Part II of Richard Schacht, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). [571 ] 57~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:4 OCTOBER 1996 ing of deontology TMwithin ethics, and how was the term first used? How have the term's primary meanings within ethics changed over the years, and who is responsible for these changes? How did 'deontology' come to be viewed as one of the "two main concepts of ethics,"s and what categories did it replace during its ascendancy? Although one writer has recently reminded us that "the canon that sorts all moral theories as deontological or teleological" has, like all other canons, "a history,"4 I believe that the details of this particular history have still not been accurately traced. 1. ETYMOLOGY The English word 'deontology' is a neologism coined from the Greek deon, deont-: that which is binding, needful, right, proper (neuter of the present participle of dei: it is binding on one, it behooves one to do, one must, one ought) + logia: discourse. Although many ancient Greek authors frequently used the word dei in contexts which arguably express (some) sense of a moral 'ought',5 it should be kept in mind throughout our discussion that 'deontology' tThomas Nagel, The Viewfrom Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 165. In recent discussions the language of deontology is sometimes replaced with that of 'agent-relative values' (in the case of Nagel) or 'agent-centered restrictions' (Samuel Schemer, The Rejection of Consequentialism [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 198~]). Though the latter terms are not yet quite as familiar as 'deontology',they are probably about as ugly. They are also not fullyco-extensivewith previous applicationsof 'deontology',and thus (insofar as they succeed in replacing the language of deontology) represent yet another conceptual shift in our basic moral categories. sJohn Rawls, in a frequently-citedpassage, writes: "The two main concepts of ethics are those of the right and the good .... The structure of an ethical theory is... largelydetermined...