Preference and Prevention: A New Paradox of Deontology

It’s commonly thought that we can reasonably oppose serious wrongdoing. For example, deontologist bystanders may prefer that an agent allows the killing of five rather than wrongly killing one as a means to saving the five. But this preference turns out to conflict with caring sufficiently strongly, after the one is killed, that the remaining entirely gratuitous killings are successfully prevented. This surprising incompatibility suggests that, whatever view we accept for ourselves, we cannot want others to abide by deontology.