system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What does "right is prior to good" mean in deontological ethics?

Can anyone explain what is meant by right? I know good being prior to right means that the ultimate justification of our actions is maximizing good.
gpt
People use this phrase in a few different ways, but usually the idea is that either the right or the good has some kind of logical or metaphysical priority.

That is, if the good is prior to the right, then we mean something like rightness, as such, substantially depends on or is derived from goodness, as such.  If consequentialism is supposed to be such a system wherein the good is prior to the right, then it is a system in which we can't know the right until we work out the good because it turns out that the right *just is* something in relation to the good.

So, if we're thinking this way, saying the right is prior to the good is the supposed reversal of this.  That is, the good, as such, is derived from the right.  So, if something like Kantian Deontology is such a system where the right is prior to the good then, perhaps, we mean that good, as such, (like the Good Will) is conceptually dependent upon the right, as such (i.e. Duty).

Beyond this, though, these distinctions sometimes have a tough time being maintained.