Deontology

"Deontology is a major approach to normative ethical theory that holds that whether an agent's action is right or wrong depends not just on consequences, but also on other "agent-relative" features of an individual's situation - their relations to others, to past actions, and so on." "One classical source for this view is Kant's idea that every person has an inestimable worth, or dignity, that cannot be traded off against other values. But the idea is also prominent in "intuitionist" deontologists; who hold that many different moral considerations and principles exist, and that these cannot…