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About “Who cares about your rules, Deontology? Others’ lives matter more than that,” it is interesting that this is a very fundamental part of Judaism ("Pikuach nefesh" on Wikipedia explains it). My neighbor is an Orthodox Jewish woman so I have seen how this is important for her life - when she was a nurse she regularly broke Sabbath to help at the hospital when she saw them blinking their lights signifying that they needed her. (And she also justifies her track record in utilitarian terms - she emphasizes that she never lost a patient, even though she often broke hospital rules in order to accomplish that.)

However, there are then exceptions to this rule, certain things you can't do even to save a life (including idolatry, incest, and some sorts of murder), so in the end deontology trumps I suppose. But I do find it interesting how a blatant utilitarian exception to the otherwise extremely strict rule book with which my neighbor lives her life doesn't seem to lead her to question her faith on philosophical grounds. Like, couldn't you be saving lives in developing countries with all the money you spend on expensive kosher meat?

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