Deontological rule-following ignores that moral action is essentially interactive, harming public policy

Evidence

One might suppose that the first of these branches is incoherent almost by inspection of the nature of our lives, in which action of moral significance is most often interaction. Social life is relational, not individual. I cannot cause outcomes by my actions but must rely on our joint causation of outcomes as merely a partial function of my own actions. To focus on rules for behavior or the individual’s action taken separately from others’ actions therefore grossly oversimplifies the nature of our problem (see further Hardin in press b, chapter 6; Hardin 1988b, 68-70). For example, such deontological rule following is fundamentally irrelevant to most public policy. Indeed, when it is intruded into public policy, it is often harmful to the purposes of the policy, as Jonathan Baron (1998) argues forcefully. He notes that we should not be surprised when policies produce suboptimal outcomes, such as organ shortages and even world poverty, when the policies result from reliance on deontological rules that ignore consequences. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 919

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the distinction between deontological (rule-based, individualistic) vs. relational/consequentialist modes of moral reasoning that frames the book’s central argument.
• SHARE: The point that individual-initiated organ shortages and world poverty result from deontological policy framing is a sharp contribution-worthy observation for anyone working in policy ethics.