What sort of ethics do you subscribe to?

[ciphergoth]

Does the right thing to do depend only on the consequences, or are some acts inherently right or wrong no matter what likely consequences follow?

From Wikipedia:

Deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: δέον (deon) meaning 'obligation' or 'duty') is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions.

Consequentialism refers to those moral theories which hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action.

Virtue theory is a branch of moral philosophy that emphasizes character, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of ethical thinking.

Which of these best describes your position?

[Poll #1225625]

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

I tickied "virtue ethics" because, er, I think moral judgements are matters for the thought police IYSWIM.

For more practical methods I think I'm more a Consequentialist. But I'm not sure.

Big unfamiliar words, so I might be wrong... some quiz that says "what do you think of X situation" and told me what Moral System I was using might be in order... (yes yes, memesheep and all that).

[simont]

The trouble with that is that each of the frameworks shown here permits you to choose the actual details in a huge variety of ways. (With deontology, what rules do you follow? With consequentialism, what consequences do you consider good and bad? And with virtue ethics, what virtues do you consider important?) So the distinction this poll is asking you to draw has very little to do with what decision you'd make in a given case, and much more to do with why you'd make that decision.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Troo. But suggesting some more concrete examples might make it easier to decide how I think.

Thinking about thinking does my head in TBH (it's what the people I work for do for a living, I don't know how they don't go mad!)