Deontology is based on duties and rights and respects individuals as ends in themselves. It places value on the intentions of the individual (rather than the outcomes of any action) and focuses on rules, obligations and duties. Deontology requires absolute adherence to these obligations and acting from duty is viewed as acting ethically. One of the key criticisms in healthcare is that applying a strictly deontological approach to healthcare can lead to conflicts of interest between equally entitled individuals which can be difficult or even seemingly impossible to resolve.
Deontology comes from the Greek word "deontos" which means "duty"; it is an ethical system which does not base off moral value into the consequences of act, but in the correspondence to some system of requirements. Those requirements are norms and this is why those ethical theories are said to be normative (it bases off most of its work onto norms, or rules).
However, you must see that it doesn't always bear value to circumstances; Kant, for instance, didn't. What makes an action moral for any deontologist is the correspondence to the moral code. You have to oppose this to the consequentialist system which bases morality onto the produced consequences of the actions. An example of consequentialism is Bentham's Unitarianism (note that this theory has been greatly criticized for obvious logical mistakes and/or inconsistencies; Mill's utilitarianism of the rule allows norms to be fixed and makes for a more acceptable basis).
Deontological ethics recognizes a number of distinct duties, such as those proscribing the killing of innocent people (murder) and prohibitions on lying and promise breaking. Deontology maintains that the wrongness of (some) actions is intrinsic, or resides in the kind of action that it is, rather than the consequences it brings about. So, for example, an act of killing an innocent man is wrong because it is the killing of an innocent man, rather than because it deprives someone of future happiness and causes grief to a family. In this, deontological ethics is opposed to Consequentialism, which defines the moral rightness of an action in terms of the consequences it brings about.
Refference :
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110313142018AANlGhH
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics
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