A synthetic view
Both the approaches are vital and presently co-exist. We witness a plethora of thriving
“codes” and in many fields, compliance has become the major criterion of judgment.
But the content of these codes and of this compliance is open to acknowledge or assume
external values. Whatever viewpoint we take, morals remain a problem of values, and
it is the determination of such values that lies outside the purview of both theories: first
one must define the values in order to either find the duties, or to assess the
consequences.
Commonsense usually ascribes immorality to action: we should also consider the
immorality of inaction – the commission of an offence by neglect. Another common
belief of morality is that it is a set of fixed values. On the one extreme, we may assume
that exists a unique, universally valid set of values, corresponding to the “ultimate”
person’s “good”, to an inner relationship with the Duty in Kantian sense, or with God.