Threshold deontology is a series of theoretical approaches to moral conflicts. It is not a theory. The Stanford article tries to discuss the many approaches to deontological ethics, but don’t confuse that with a long article of authors who are known, read, discussed or taken seriously. I cannot find a single book with an author who directly posits this approach. Instead it is discussed abstractly in several other works (mostly introductory books to ethics). Amongst commentary on threshold deontological moral systems, is the frequent comment, my position included, is that they are no longer deontological once normative tools are jamed into the deontological moral system. But neo-deontological.
Of all the names mentioned in that article, Nagel is the only one who I am even remotely familiar. It is hard to get your hands on his work. He has only two books available in the philosophy library of Leuven (an enormous library of philosophy books at the Leuven institute of Philosophy) of which none are directly on ethics. I got hold of his article “Agent-Relativity and Deontology”. In it he discusses:
agent-relative and agent-neutral values
through the question of:
the central problem of ethics: how the lives, interests, and welfare of others make claims on us and how these claims, of various forms, are to be reconciled with the
aim of living our own lives
We have completely left the theatre of deontological ethics here. It’s true, he was deeply influenced by Kant, and you could call him a neo-deontologist, but his attempt to insert cultural moral norms and relativity, utterly undermine the idea of duty to moral principles. Eventually I find it impossible to make sense of how one can not only rationally, but even subjectively make sense of his approach. The following paragraph illustrates it where he turns to the practically post modernesque:
On the other hand, the more a desire has as its object the quality of the subject’s experience, and the more immediate and independent of his other values it is, the more it will tend to generate impersonal as well as personal reasons. But to the extent that it transcends his own experience, the achievement of a typical personal project or ambition has no value except from the perspective of its subject — at least none in any way comparable to the value reasonably placed on it by the person whose ambition it is. (I am assuming here that we can abstract from any intrinsic value the achievement may have which does not depend on his interest at all — or else that we are dealing with projects whose actual value, whatever it is, derives entirely from the interest of the subject.) Whereas one clearly can find value in the occurrence/nonoccurrence of a sensory experience that is strongly liked/disliked for itself, whether or not one has or even empathizes with the reaction. To put it in a way that sounds paradoxical: the more subjective the object of the desire, the more impersonal the value of its satisfaction.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked his book on the possibility of altruism. But good luck finding more than a scattering of people who call his theory anything other than neo-deontological if not really a confusing mess. I think from just one article that what he was written is an utter mess.
Moore is also mentioned a few times in that stanford article. The only books I can find of his are on jurisprudence. His books that directly deal with deontological ethics are also not available in the library, I cannot get access to any of his papers online. The only article I can find is by John Oberdiek in “Culpability and the Definition of Deontological Constraints” in which he heavily criticizes Moore for trying to introduce consequentialism into deontological ethics. Next time I’m in Leuven I’ll try and find some of the works by the others mentioned in that article though it will be difficult because in a couple cases only the last name is given and their full name or work isn’t mentioned at the end of the article.
Davis 4 years, 7 months ago.
Brightsky.
