Impartiality is also the basis for Singer’s utilitarianism, a term I’ve name-dropped several times without having defined yet. Utilitarianism is a branch of consequentialism, the idea that actions should be judged by their consequences. This stands in contrast to deontology (from the Greek prefix deon-, roughly meaning “duty”), which instead states that actions may be intrinsically good or bad based on ethical rules. Singer is suspicious of these rules because he thinks they lead to partiality—think of maxims such as “honor thy mother and father,” which prioritize those who are proximate to us
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