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Normative Ethics
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the former examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, whereas the latter studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts. Likewise, normative ethics is distinct from applied ethics in that the former is more concerned with 'who ought one be' rather than the ethics of a specific issue (e.g. if, or when, abortion is acceptable). Normative ethics is also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the latter is an empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs. In this context normative ethics is sometimes called ''prescriptive'', as opposed to ''descriptive'' ethics. However, on certain versions of the meta-ethical view of moral realism, moral facts are both descriptive and prescriptive at the same ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consequentialism
In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value.Teleological Ethics " ''''. via ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Veil Of Ignorance
The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of ignorance'' were coined by the American philosopher John Rawls, but the thought experiment itself was developed by William Vickrey and John Harsanyi in earlier writings. In the original position, you are asked to consider which principles you would select for the basic structure of society, but you must select as if you had no knowledge ahead of time what position you would end up having in that society. This choice is made from behind a "veil of ignorance", which prevents you from knowing your ethnicity, social status, gender and, crucially in Rawls' formulation, your or anyone else's idea of how to lead a good life. Ideally, this would force participants to select principles impartially and rationally. In Rawls's theory the original posi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's work "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one". In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his introduction to the field that "it is generally accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's ''A Theory of Justice'' in 1971". Rawls has often been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. He has the unusual distinction among contemporary political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contractualism
Contractualism is a term in philosophy which refers either to a family of political theories in the social contract tradition (when used in this sense, the term is an umbrella term for all social contract theories that include contractarianism), or to the ethical theory developed in recent years by T. M. Scanlon, especially in his book ''What We Owe to Each Other'' (published 1998).Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyContractualism/ref> Social contract theorists from the history of political thought include Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797); more recently, John Rawls (1971), David Gauthier (1986) and Philip Pettit Philip Noel Pettit (born 1945) is an Irish philosopher and political theorist. He is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University and also Distinguished University Professor of Philos ... (1997). Ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Categorical Imperative
The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 ''Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of evaluating motivations for action. It is best known in its original formulation: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."It is standard to also reference the ''Akademie Ausgabe'' of Kant's works. The ''Groundwork'' occurs in the fourth volume. Citations throughout this article follow the format 4:x. For example, the above citation is taken from 4:421. According to Kant, sentient beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in an imperative, or ultimate commandment of reason, from which all duties and obligations derive. He defines an ''imperative'' as any proposition declaring a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary. Hypothetical imperati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy. In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, Kant argued that space and time are mere "forms of intuition" which structure all experience, and therefore that, while " things-in-themselves" exist and contribute to experience, they are nonetheless distinct from the objects of experience. From this it follows that the objects of experience are mere "appearances", and that the nature of things as they are in themselves is unknowable to us. In an attempt to counter the skepticism he found in the writings of philosopher David Hume, he wrote the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781/1787), one of his most well-known works. In it, he developed his theory of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosalind Hursthouse
Mary Rosalind Hursthouse (born 10 November 1943) is a British-born New Zealand moral philosopher noted for her work on virtue ethics. Hursthouse is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. Biography Born in Bristol, England, in 1943, Hursthouse spent her childhood in New Zealand. Her aunt Mary studied philosophy and when her father asked her what that was all about, he could not understand her answer. Rosalind, 17 at the time, knew immediately that she wanted to study philosophy, too, and enrolled the next year. Work She taught for many years at the Open University in England. She was head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland from 2002 to 2005. Though she had written a substantial amount previously, Hursthouse entered the international philosophical scene for the first time in 1990–91, with three articles: Hursthouse, who was mentored by Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot, is best known as a virtue ethicist. Hursthouse's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yves Simon (philosopher)
Yves René Marie Simon (14 March 1903 – 11 May 1961) was a French Catholic political philosopher. Life Simon studied under Jacques Maritain at the Institut Catholique de Paris. He taught at the Institut Catholique de Lille from 1930 to 1938. In 1938, he came to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, as a visiting professor. He was unable to return to France because of World War II, and after the war he remained as a professor at Notre Dame until 1948. He then joined the Committee on Social Thought, at the University of Chicago. He remained at the University of Chicago until retiring in 1958 due to illness. He died of cancer in South Bend, Indiana on 11 May 1961. In 1975, Maurice Cranston called him one of the world's "most original and distinguished political theorists." Simon left many materials unfinished at his death, and many of his publications have only appeared after his death. His son, Anthony O. Simon, has taken on the role of director of the Yves R. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas for modern times, and was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. The same pope had seriously considered making him a lay cardinal, but Maritain rejected it. Maritain's interest and works spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics, the nature of education, liturgy and ecclesiology. Life Maritain was born in Paris, the son of Paul Maritain, who was a lawyer, and his wife Geneviève Favre, the daughter of Jules Favre, and was reared in a liberal Protestant milieu. He was sent to the Ly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mortimer J
Mortimer () is an English surname, and occasionally a given name. Norman origins The surname Mortimer has a Norman origin, deriving from the village of Mortemer, Seine-Maritime, Normandy. A Norman castle existed at Mortemer from an early point; one 11th century figure associated with the castle was Roger, lord of Mortemer, who fought in the Battle of Mortemer in 1054. The 12th century abbey of Mortemer at Lisors near Lyons-la-Forêt is assumed to share the same etymological origin, and was granted to the Cistercian order by Henry II in the 1180s. According to the toponymists Albert Dauzat and later, François de Beaurepaire, there are two possible explanations for such a place name: First, a small pond must have already existed before the land was given to the monks and have already been called ''Mortemer'' like the two other ''Mortemers'', because the word ''mer'' "pond" was not used anymore beyond the Xth century. This word is only attested in North-Western France and of Fran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alasdair MacIntyre
Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (; born 12 January 1929) is a Scottish-American philosopher who has contributed to moral and political philosophy as well as history of philosophy and theology. MacIntyre's '' After Virtue'' (1981) is one of the most important works of Anglophone moral and political philosophy in the 20th century. He is senior research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP) at London Metropolitan University, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and permanent senior distinguished research fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.. During his lengthy academic career, he also taught at Brandeis University, Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and Boston University. Biography MacIntyre was born on 12 January 1929 in Glasgow, to Eneas and Greta (Chalmers) MacIntyre. He was educated at Queen Mary College, London, and has a Master of Arts degree from the Victoria University of Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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