Abstract

There are two basic types of ethical judgment: deontological judgments focused on duty and obligation and eudaimonist judgments focused on human excellence and the good life. The first contention of this paper is that we must distinguish these two types of judgment and not understand the one as a special case of the other. Ethical theories divide into two main kinds, deontological or eudaimonist, based on whether they take one or the other of these types of judgment as primary. The second contention of this paper is that neither kind of theory should hold prominence over the other, nor should we subsume them under some more encompassing ethical theory or narrative.