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

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

IAWTC for the most part; I was thinking that the whole business of creating taxonomies of ethics is problematic in itself, but didn't want to derail the straightforward question asked!

I see what you mean about 'virtue ethics', but I think it rather depends on who's defining them; I'm not sure they have to be unpleasant or oppressive. I'm not sure I understand it correctly, but since the Wikipedia article says;

A system of virtue theory is only intelligible if it is teleological: that is, if it includes an account of the purpose (telos) of human life, or in popular language, the meaning of life. Obviously, strong claims about the purpose of human life, or of what the good life for human beings is, will be highly controversial.

that might seem to me to put Nietzsche somewhat out of the picture. And if we think that an action helps with the overall goal of human purpose (whatever that is), and is taken in accordance with the virtue of reason, then within the system of virtue ethics, it would be good? It does seem to me to be somewhat related to deontological ethics, if one sees virtues as analogous to rules, because both need to be defined and known in advance. But would an action which seems consequentialist be 'virtuous' if it sprang from character rather than end? I'm not sure how we'd define this; would Sidney Carton's "far, far better thing" be an expression of it, for example?

I don't quite know. It's a bit too vague and amorphous to get a handle on it, and that's why I don't like it so much myself, but I don't think it must perforce be negative.