RT Article
T1 Teleology, Deontology, and the Priority of the Right: On Some Unappreciated Distinctions
JF Ethical theory and moral practice
VO 13
IS 4
SP 453
OP 472
A1 Ronzoni, Miriam
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2010
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1785695770
AB The paper analyses Rawls’s teleology/deontology distinction, and his concept of priority of the right. The first part of the paper aims both 1) to clarify what is distinctive about Rawls’s deontology/teleology distinction (thus sorting out some existing confusion in the literature, especially regarding the conflation of such distinction with that between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism); and 2) to cash out the rich taxonomy of moral theories that such a distinction helpfully allows us to develop. The second part of the paper examines the concept of priority of the right. It argues that such a concept should not be identified with that of deontology—indeed, deontological theories do not necessarily assign priority to the right over the good. However, it contends that the concept of priority of the right is essential to explaining what specific kind of deontological theory “justice as fairness” is. Justice as fairness is a deontological theory which assigns priority to the right as a consequence of its commitment to a neutral position with respect to different accounts of what is ultimately valuable and good.
K1 Consequentialism vs nonconsequentialism
K1 Utilitarianism
K1 Neutrality
K1 justice as fairness
K1 John Rawls
K1 Right/good distinction
DO 10.1007/s10677-009-9209-z