DEONTOLOGY noun (dee-on-tol-uh-jee)

noun
1. ethics, especially that branch dealing with duty, moral obligation, and right action.


Quotes

In deontology, the ethical theory whose most famous exponent was perhaps the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, I can be a good person by applying my reason to the discovery of moral behavior.
--*Armond Boudreaux and Corey Latta,*"The Dark Knight Returns: Why No Single Principle Is Sufficient," Titans: How Superheroes Can Help Us Make Sense of a Polarized World, 2017


How do we decide what is right? Philosophers had the question to themselves for centuries. Utilitarianism versus deontology. John Stuart Mill against Kant in the ultimate cage match. And after three centures without a resoluion from the philosophers, neuroscientists had begun eyeing the dilemma ...
--*Liam Durcan,*GarcÃ*a's Heart, 2007



Origin

Deontology, the study of moral obligation, derives from Greek déon (stem déont-), a neuter participle used as a noun, meaning “what is binding, necessary, right,” a derivative of the verb déein, deîn “to bind, tie, fetter.” The combining form -logy “science” is completely naturalized in English. Deontology was coined and published by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) in 1826.