"Suppose if you kill one person now you’ll kill A, while if you wait, you’ll kill A,B,C,D, and E. In this case, A will be killed regardless, so it’s just a question of whether B,C,D, and E all get killed. There is literally no benefit to anyone from not killing A. Thus, this option is untenable."
Just to reiterate Dominik's point, your argument here is basically, "Deontologists don't do the thing that maximizes good consequences, therefore deontology is false."
This is... unlikely to rationally persuade a deontologist.
I think it was Shelley Kagan who said something like: This is not an OBJECTION to my theory, this just IS my theory
This is exactly what this feels like. Obviously any deontologist would respond that premise 2b ("Therefore, you should kill one to prevent six killings done by other people") is false because reasons are agent-relative, i.e. what matters is that YOU don't kill.
This whole argument just feels like putting "I don't like deontology" into different words - I'm pretty convinced that no one who wasn't already sceptical of deontology has any reason whatsoever to be convinced by it.
"Suppose if you kill one person now you’ll kill A, while if you wait, you’ll kill A,B,C,D, and E. In this case, A will be killed regardless, so it’s just a question of whether B,C,D, and E all get killed. There is literally no benefit to anyone from not killing A. Thus, this option is untenable."
Just to reiterate Dominik's point, your argument here is basically, "Deontologists don't do the thing that maximizes good consequences, therefore deontology is false."
This is... unlikely to rationally persuade a deontologist.
> you don’t kill one person now, later in the year you’ll kill five people
In my view if Free Will is false then ethics is moot, and we should all kick back and relax:
I think it was Shelley Kagan who said something like: This is not an OBJECTION to my theory, this just IS my theory
This is exactly what this feels like. Obviously any deontologist would respond that premise 2b ("Therefore, you should kill one to prevent six killings done by other people") is false because reasons are agent-relative, i.e. what matters is that YOU don't kill.
This whole argument just feels like putting "I don't like deontology" into different words - I'm pretty convinced that no one who wasn't already sceptical of deontology has any reason whatsoever to be convinced by it.