To review from this diary:

Deontology: about the extent to which doing a particular thing is a good-in-itself. Wikipedia:

In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Ancient Greek δέον (déon) 'duty, obligation' and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action.

Consequentialism: about the notion that the consequences of one's actions are the only things that matter about action, and so the only good things are results. Wikipedia:

consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.

Now, clearly, deontology has the benefit that the deontologist actually believes in something. Sure, the deontologist might believe in the wrong things. I could believe that I am "doing the right thing" when in fact I was doing the wrong thing. But deontologists are generally people who believe in something, which is better than believing in nothing. This is a pretty important character attribute in an era in which there are plenty of people in all walks of life who in fact believe in nothing.

Creatures of money, on the other hand, are generally consequentialists, because they believe that the consequences of what they do is that they will receive more money. Members of Congress are generally creatures of money, because they feel they need so much money to retain their seats. But what if the consequences of having a political class which cares only about money is that we are in the world of hurt we are in right now?

Consequentialists, in other words, could be wrong about consequences. There could be some pretty sh#tty consequences to one's actions, especially if one is in the US political classes, and in fact sh#tty consequentialism has been the reigning philosophy of the US political classes for the past half-century. Perhaps Bernie Sanders and AOC were better consequentialists than the rest of Congress. But they were not that much better.

Deontologists, on the other hand, could be wrong about the rightness of their actions. One might argue, for instance, that there are right and wrong times to be a pacifist. We might not want to be pacifists, for instance, during World War Two. We might also, on the other hand, argue that there are right and wrong times to wage war.

HOWEVER! In debating the rightness or wrongness of pacifism or of warmongering, one is actually debating something, specifically the rightness or wrongness of particular actions, whereas the sh#tty consequentialists might conclude (wrongly, of course) that honest debate would be pointless because they have already made a judgment about the consequences of their actions.

In concluding, I might judge that what our era of history -- and I can observe history every day in this month's news -- needs the most is a big dose of deontology. What are our moral duties? What must we do? However, if I were to judge thusly, I would be doing so on the basis of the observable failure of a half-century of sh#tty consequentialism. We are in sh#itty consequences now.

So there you have it.