Eat Chinese Mustard and Cry!

I just chose that title because it’s fun to say, and it was the biggest thing I had written in my notebook. I’d like to spend some time, wether or not it be about deontology (it most certainly is in some way related), to talk about the importance of acts opposed to the consequences of those acts. I believe, it was one day last year in Good Vs. Right when we were doing the "run down of moral weighty-type things" when someone said "good consequences" someone else said "intuitions, or character etc." and then when pressed for another option I leaned foreword and said "well, it seems to me there should at least be some weight on what you actually DO". This does not mean that I hold this view explicitly or really want to back it up...I just think it’s morally interesting. And if it’s slightly misleading to ascribe that belief to the deontoligist, well, so be it, that’s what I want to talk about anyway (if anything I want to talk about it because it appears to be one more thing in the long and grievous list of stuff Kagan skips over.)
I would like to add to the list of things that are morally significant "things you actually DO". Not what the consequences of those acts are, not the "make up" which leads you to them (which is a position I will probably take later, or combine with this one...or some such, because after all, it is Aristotelean. And we all know Aristotle is my baby) but what one DOES. It seems to me, at least in common sense morality, this issue holds quite a lot of sway.
For instance, with the nose punching vs. head chopping. While in both cases the person ends up dead...that is irrelevant to the fact that it is much more grievous to cut off someone’s head than it is to punch them in the nose. (At least from this common sense point of view.) I think, foregoing the weight of intentions/character etc. the person who kills by chopping off someone’s head is much worse off morally than someone who kills by punching in the nose. If the nose puncher indeed knew what she was doing when she punched the guy in the nose, then they are still culpable for murder. Ohhh I used the word culpable, that sounds like I’m a dessert (pumpkin pie) theorist...but dessert (coconut cream tart) aside, both are ACTS of murder, so both are bad. But one is the ACT of cutting off someone’s head. This is certainly much worse than punching someone’s nose. Especially if you apply the virtue/vice/intention theory, because one would have to be much more callous and much more cruel of intent to have the guts to saw through someone’s neck than a person who simply punches someone in the nose.
The distillation of my argument goes something like this: It takes a lot more guts and moral grime to cut off someone’s head than it does to punch someone’s nose out. No matter the consequences, the head chopper is the worse moral offender.