Deontological ethics

Deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek , deon, "obligation, duty") is the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on rules.

It is sometimes described as "duty-" or "obligation-" or "rule-" based ethics, because rules "bind you to your duty". Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism,virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences.

The term deontological was first used to describe the current, specialised definition by C. D. Broad in his book, Five Types of Ethical Theory, which was published in 1930. Older usage of the term goes back to Jeremy Bentham, who coined it in c. 1826 to mean more generally "the knowledge of what is right and proper". The more general sense of the word is retained in French, especially in the term code de déontologie "ethical code", in the context of professional ethics.

Deontology is the study of that which is an "obligation or duty," and consequent moral judgment on the actor on whether he or she has complied. In philosophy and religion, states Bocheński, there is an important distinction between deontic and epistemic authority. A typical example of epistemic authority, explains Anna Brożek, is "the relation of a teacher to his students; a typical example of deontic authority is the relation between an employer and his employee." A teacher has epistemic authority when making declarative sentences that the student presumes is reliable knowledge and appropriate but feels no obligation to accept or obey; in contrast, an employer has deontic authority in the act of issuing an order that the employee is obliged to accept and obey regardless of its reliability or appropriateness.

There are numerous formulations of deontological ethics.

Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics is considered deontological for several different reasons. First, Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must act from duty (deon). Second, Kant argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the person who carries out the action.

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