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(b) As distinguished from act-deontologism, the ruledeontologist, holds that what is right or wrong is to be ascertained by appeal to general rules intuitively apprehended. The validity of these rules does not depend on the productivity of the goodness or badness of consequences, and they are not inductively arrived at, but rather given to us directly by intuitive apprehension. For example, the particular action of killing or stealing is wrong, because it violates the rule, 'Do not kill' or 'Do not steal' which is intrinsically right, and the particular action of fulfilling a promise is right, because it observes the intrinsically right rule ‘keep your promise'. Thus the rule-deontologist asserts that there are certain rules which are absolutely always wrong regardless of the goodness or badness of consequences. In other words, there are certain actions, like telling the truth, keeping the promises, repaying the debt ought to be performed even when they do not promote any good whatsoever, that certain actions are our duties is sufficient ground for our doing them and considering them as right.
· According to Jaina Ācāryas, both (a) act-deontologism and (b) rule-deontologism are untenable theories of the criterion of rightness or wrongness.
a) The weakness of act-deontologism is that it regards human situations as extremely different from one another, and does not recognize the universal element inherent in them. No doubt each human situation has something of its own, but it is contrary to moral experience to say that it is not like other situations in morally relevant respects. In many human situations, because of their likeness in important respects, the general rule do not kill’ can be applied without any incongruity. In practical life, according to Jaina ethics, moral rules cannot be dispensed with and each man's moral
Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays
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