Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deontology as consequentialism

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Eugene van der Pijll 14:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Deontology as consequentialism

Original research. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 07:36, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Original research. --DrTorstenHenning 08:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I would urge caution here. The subject matter is a serious avenue of study in the philosophy of ethics, and is encyclopedic. It needs some serious attention, most importantly its writing needs to be NPOV. It is in serious need of references. Are there other articles in the Philosophy sections that touch on the subject matter? If there is already a good article on it I'd urge deletion for duplication. If there is no other article, I'd urge applying the clean up tag and bringing it to the attention of the philosophy experts on Wikipedia.—Encephalon | ζ | Σ 11:06:40, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

  Reply I'm sure that in the field of philosophy I cannot say that I am an expert, but I am rather confident that there is almost nothing relevant going on in this field and that attempts to reconcile deontology with consequentialism are simply flights of fancy. Realistically, they are polar opposites; it's like trying to reconcile oil and water. I believe that one philosopher advanced a "deontological consequestialist" theory of some kind, but it was more of a suggestion than anything, and I'm not sure that he actually supported the theory personally. Anyway, this article is a personal essay. --malathion ^talk 16:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• Re Reply. I understand how you feel, but I'm afraid I am unpersuaded. You seem to be giving us reasons why you feel deontology may not be reconciled with consequentialism. That's fair as far as it goes, Malathion, but it doesn't quite address the issue, does it? I think the issue is the encyclopedic merits of the subject. This truly should not necessarily take into account how "true" a conjecture is, or even how many people themselves agree with one or more of the conjectures. For example, no one today believes in the pre-Copernican idea that Earth was the center of the solar system, but that does not mean an article on Ptolemy and his astronomical theories should not be written. No one today believes some of what Plato had to say about politics and philosophy, or what Aristotle had to say about medicine, but that shouldn't stop anyone from writing just such articles. In 5 years time, some genius Cambridge physicist might show that Einstein's light constant is in fact no constant at all; I doubt any of us would be rushing to remove articles from Wikipedia in that eventuality. Now, I am no philosopher, and I really cannot tell you for certain how widely the above problem is studied. However, I don't think it's as bad as you suggest; I seem to remember RM Hare writing on the subject just before he died (see his Sorting out ethics, for example). Of course, if it stays it's going to need a massive rewrite, as it's got all kinds of problems.—Encephalon | ζ | Σ 22:49:18, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

• Reply I understand the NPOV policy. My point is not that I dislike this article because I disagree with it, but because everyone disagrees with it. RM Hare was not a "utilitarian consequentialist" and he advanced the idea as a flight of fancy. No one else takes the idea seriously. That makes it unencyclopedic. Further, this article is a personal essay about the author's own ideas, and not those of Hare. That makes in original research. --malathion ^talk 00:20, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Reply Malathion, you continue to miss the point. Ptolemy's theories of planetary motion were a flight of fancy. Aristotle's idea of the number of teeth women had was a flight of fancy. Much of Galen's anatomy was a flight of fancy. Most of Hippocrates' therapeutics were flights of fancy (indeed, all of medicine was a flight of fancy until about 150 or so years ago). Yet all of these things have a place in Wikipedia (and every other reputable encyclopedia) — and rightly so. Wikipedia is a scholarly record of things about us and our world and our past. If it were restricted only to those theories and "facts" which are held by contemporary society to be true or plausible, then an astonishing amount of our scientific, religious, cultural, philosophical and artistic heritage will find no place in it. That we don't believe Hippocrates' quackery or the Intelligent design peoples' fantasies ourselves, does not mean that a record of these beliefs and thoughts should find no place in an encyclopedia. Now, as I have said earlier, I am no philosopher. I have no idea how much scholarly activity is contemporarily centered on this subject. I do know that it has been debated in the past, and it engaged some of the best minds in philosophy. Certainly that has been my impression. Now, like very many other things, it might be deeply flawed, but that is not intrinsically a reason for it not to have mention in an encyclopedia. If you know something of the subject, I will have no objection if you rewrote that article to say "The idea of deontological consequentialism is held by most philosophers today to be little more than a flight of fancy. Etc etc etc..." That's fine (I'm assuming that assertion is factually true). If it stays, it will need a complete rewrite anyway, because as I (and you and the others) have pointed out earlier, it's very badly written. I'm only saying that I am mystified by your reasoning — that to find place in an encyclopedia, a subject or theory or thought has to be true or held to be true by contemporaries. That's absurd.—Encephalon | ζ | Σ 02:04:35, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

PS. Do you realize you wrote "utilitarian consequentialist" when you were talking about the deontology-consequentialist relationship?—Encephalon | ζ | Σ 02:04:35, 2005-08-10 (UTC) This was a silly thing to ask, and I'm striking it with apologies to Ryan.—Encephalon | ^ζ  17:21:35, 2005-08-18 (UTC)

None of that changes the fact that this essay is original research. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 12:00, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Malathion/Ryan, I was addressing your argument that an article has to be about things that are held by contemporary thinkers to be wholly or largely true before it may be included in an encyclopedia. This is an erroneous belief. Your point about WP:NOR on the other hand is a very good one; I am rather inclined to view this essay as poorly cited, rather than wholly unacceptable.

Having read once more Hare's "Could Kant have been a utilitarian?", I am inclined to think that the earlier claim that Hare advanced this subject as a flight of fancy is in fact a flight of fancy. Hare was making a serious effort to form a bridge. Be that as it may, I don't think WP will suffer a real loss with the deletion of this article. The problem with what to do with an article or stub that 1. is of encyclopedia value but 2. is poorly written and referenced, is vexatious. Editors like Tony Sidaway usually move to "save" anything that isn't actually incomprehensible gibberish; other editors with higher standards about what should find a place on WP often vote to delete. If I had to describe my own view, it is far closer to the second than the first; by this I do not mean that the former are "wrong," in fact both "types" of editors usually act within WP policy/guidelines. In this particular instance, I feel the page should not be deleted for reasons already elaborated. Summary of what I think should be done: 1. Keep the page. 2. Reduce it to a stub with only verifiably true details of the concept, with references. Kind regards—Encephalon | ^ζ  17:21:35, 2005-08-18 (UTC)

• Delete original research. --malathion ^talk 16:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.