Which term is the ethical framework that evaluates actions by adherence to rules or duties?

• A. Ethics
• B. Duty
• C. Deontological Ethics
• D. Applied Ethics

Answer: (C)

Deontological ethics evaluates actions by whether they follow rules or duties. It treats the morality of an act as dependent on its conformity to a duty—such as telling the truth, keeping promises, or respecting rights—rather than on the outcomes it produces. So an action is considered right if it adheres to the relevant duty, even if the result would be worse. This focus on adherence to moral rules differentiates it from approaches that judge actions by their consequences. In the broader landscape, ethics is the field as a whole, while applied ethics deals with applying ethical theory to specific issues, and the concept of duty refers to obligatory norms that inform deontology. Thus, the framework described is deontological ethics.