ABSTRACT
Like consequentialism, virtue ethics and the needs-centred theory, deontological theories of ethics focus on just one of the four elements of moral practice I distinguished in Chapter 3. In deontological theories, it is the action which takes centre-stage, which is regarded by ‘competing’ deontologists as the most fundamental element, with the greatest capacity to reveal what is characteristic and important about our moral life. Again like other moral theorists, deontologists do not tend to see ethics
as a distinctive practice, and take their task rather to be that of explaining the whole of our practical rational life. I argued in earlier chapters that the practice conception of ethics and the needs-centred theory provide resources for a more complete account of ethics, and a better understanding of why moral philosophy has had the problems it has and how they might be solved. In this chapter, I consider the significance of these ideas for deontological ways of thinking about ethics.
