Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

faded out of the US, the violence would decrease dramatically. In Kant’s vision of the ideal

world this would be possible. The corruptness and nature of the US nation however seems to

discourage any application of deontology as a justification for gun laws.

Utilitarianism versus Deontology

Whilst deontology has good fundamentals, it is hard to follow through, but helps discover the

faults in the utilitarian approach and vice-versa. Deontology claims against utilitarianism, that

the ends are illusory. It is impossible to foresee the results of someone's actions with com-

plete certainty. Whether a person’s actions are moral or immoral is the only thing that once

can be sure of according to the categorical imperative. Furthermore, deontology would state

that we may only be accountable for our actions and not the actions of others.

Thus, when applied to gun violence, only the individual is responsible for their action to use a

firearm inappropriately; another person’s poor choices do not affect the ethical responsibility

of the individual. One is only responsible for following the categorical imperative. Finally,

deontologists argue that utilitarianism devolves into dangerous moral relativism where hu-

man beings are allowed to justify heinous acts on the grounds that their outcomes are benefi-

cial.

A first claim to be made by an utilitarian against deontology would be that there are no

‘moral truths’. To come up with an absolute universal truth is nearing impossible. Con-

versely, calculating the consequences and advantages of actions is quite simple. Instead of

trusting formless imprecise moral truths to base our actions upon, it would be best to look at

more solid methods to determine the ethics of an action. Additionally, an utilitarian would

state that deontology creates ethically indefensible products. Utilitarianism would further ar-

gue that deontology leads to morally untenable outcomes and that the outcome of ten deaths