Answer: According to the Deontological ethics of normative ethical theory, an action can be said to be right if the action follows a set of rules or standards not because of the amount of good in the outcome. This proposition is against the idea of consequentialism, which judges actions based on their results. For instance, taking the side of a Dalit mid-day meal cook at a primary school, even though the majority of parents threaten to change their children’s schools if she continues to cook is the right action. Even though, the result of children dropping out of school may be a wrong consequence. Norms that ensure the rightness of an action despite consequences:

• Following universal rules: The rules must be logically upright and shouldn’t lead to any contradictions. It should also be consistent and can be applied to all people in all situations. For example, corruption is prohibited even if some level of corruption makes decision-making quicker.
• Person’s intentions: Since we can’t always control or predict the outcomes of our actions, keeping intentions in control will ensure the right conduct in action. For instance, saving accident victims with the right intention even though sometimes it may lead to police inquiry is a justifiable act.
• Selfless act: Any actions should not be motivated by personal desire or greed but a set of certain socially accepted norms.
• Treating all people as “ends”: This ensures, knowingly and intentionally never sacrificing the good of one person for the good of another. For example, taking away one healthy person’s organs to save five other persons.
• Morally compliant action: Even though good action enhances the lives of those who possess it, it has to be in conformity with moral obligations as well. For instance, tax planning may help in maximizing profits, but it is morally obligatory for firms to do so without flouting the law.

However, sometimes de-emphasising consequences makes us guilty of ‘Crimes of Omission’, for example, not lying about the location of a friend, even to a person trying to murder him. One way of resolving this problem is through an idea called threshold deontology, which argues that we should always obey the rules unless in an emergency situation, at which point we should revert to a consequentialist approach. Nonetheless, it can be said that the deontological approach possesses the strong advantage of being able to account for strong, widely shared moral intuitions about one’s duties better than consequentialism.