Deontology and Alan Donagan's problem of exception-rules

Abstract

In his The Theory of Morality,1 Alan Donagan attempts to systematize and clarify the moral conception found in the 'common code' or 'moral law' of the Hebrew-Christian tradition (p. 6). As part of this project, Donagan attempts to defend the position of 'common morality' that the scope of its moral precepts should not be limited by purely 'consequentialist' considerations. Donagan's recognition of this problem has interesting general implications, because it reveals the need for deontological theories of morality to derive principles for determining the scope of precepts from their own grounds. I will show that Donagan tries to solve this problem by relying implicitly on a two-part standard to determine whether a limitation on the scope of a moral precept is justified. However, both parts of Donagan's standard turn out to be inadequate: the first because it is incompatible with Donagan's own deontological approach, and the second because its implications are more ambiguous than Donagan realizes. The system Donagan sets out in A Theory of Morality is based on a Kantian fundamental principle categorically requiring respect for human beings as rational. The resulting theory contains (at the first-order level) 'prohibitory precepts and precepts commanding the promotion of certain ends' (p. 153), as well as a rule governing their relation. We might distinguish these as follows: (1) certain perfect duties to oneself and others requiring us 'not to do, or not to omit, a certain kind of action'; (2) certain imperfect duties, such as the principles of 'culture' and 'beneficence,' which require us 'to promote a certain general end' (p. 154); and finally (3) the 'Pauline principle,' which implies that the perfect duties are always absolutely prior to the imperfect ones: