Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch
of
philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...
s of
right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical ...
and wrong
behavior".
[''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' ] The field of ethics, along with
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
, concerns matters of
value
Value or values may refer to:
Ethics and social
* Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them
** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called
axiology.
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human
morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
by defining concepts such as
good and evil, right and
wrong
A wrong (from Old English – 'crooked') is an act that is illegal or immoral. Legal wrongs are usually quite clearly defined in the law of a state and/or jurisdiction. They can be divided into civil wrongs and crimes (or ''criminal offens ...
,
virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
and
vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
,
justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
and
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
. As a field of
intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of
moral psychology,
descriptive ethics, and
value theory
In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy ...
.
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 value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false'').
Computing
In some pro ...
s (if any) can be determined;
#
Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action;
#
Applied ethics
Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadersh ...
, concerning what a person is
obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action.
Defining ethics
The English word ''ethics'' is derived from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
word ''ēthikós'' (), meaning "relating to one's character", which itself comes from the root word ''êthos'' () meaning "character, moral nature". This word was transferred into
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
as ''ethica'' and then into French as ''éthique'', from which it was transferred into English.
Rushworth Kidder Rushworth Moulton Kidder (May 8, 1944 – March 5, 2012) was an American author, ethicist, and professor. Kidder founded the Institute for Global Ethics in 1990, and is the author of ''Moral Courage'' and ''How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resol ...
states that "standard definitions of ''ethics'' have typically included such phrases as 'the science of the ideal human character' or 'the science of moral duty'. Richard William Paul and
Linda Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures".
The ''
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'' (1995; second edition 1999; third edition 2015) is a dictionary of philosophy published by Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Camb ...
'' states that the word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with '
morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual." Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the law, and do not treat ethics as a stand-alone concept.
The word ''ethics'' in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason to answer various kinds of ethical questions. As the English moral philosopher
Bernard Williams
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...
writes, attempting to explain moral philosophy: "What makes an inquiry a philosophical one is reflective generality and a style of argument that claims to be rationally persuasive." Williams describes the content of this area of inquiry as addressing the very broad question, "how one should live". Ethics can also refer to a common human ability to think about ethical problems that is not particular to philosophy. As
bioethicist
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
Larry Churchill has written: "Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values and direct our actions in terms of such
values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
, is a generic human capacity."
Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics that asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong.
An ethical question pertaining to a particular practical situation—such as, "Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake?"—cannot be a meta-ethical question (rather, this is an applied ethical question). A meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, "Is it ever possible to have a secure knowledge of what is right and wrong?" is a meta-ethical question.
Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. For example, Aristotle implies that less precise knowledge is possible in ethics than in other spheres of inquiry, and he regards ethical knowledge as depending upon habit and
acculturation
Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and ...
in a way that makes it distinctive from other kinds of knowledge. Meta-ethics is also important in
G.E. Moore
George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...
's ''
Principia Ethica
''Principia Ethica'' is a 1903 book by the British philosopher G. E. Moore, in which the author insists on the indefinability of "good" and provides an exposition of the naturalistic fallacy. ''Principia Ethica'' was influential, and Moore's ...
'' from 1903. In it he first wrote about what he called ''the
naturalistic fallacy
In philosophical ethics, the naturalistic fallacy is the claim that any reductive explanation of good, in terms of natural properties such as ''pleasant'' or ''desirable'', is false. The term was introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in ...
''. Moore was seen to reject
naturalism in ethics, in his
open-question argument The open-question argument is a philosophical argument put forward by British philosopher G. E. Moore i§13of ''Principia Ethica'' (1903), to refute the equating of the property of goodness with some non-moral property, X, whether natural (e.g. ple ...
. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about ethics. Earlier, the Scottish
philosopher David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
had put forward a similar view on the difference between
facts and values.
Studies of how we know in ethics divide into
cognitivism and
non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt). A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are ...
; these, respectively, take descriptive and non-descriptive approaches to moral goodness or value. Non-cognitivism is the view that when we judge something as morally right or wrong, this is neither true nor false. We may, for example, be only expressing our emotional feelings about these things. Cognitivism can then be seen as the claim that when we talk about right and wrong, we are talking about matters of fact.
The
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
of ethics is about
value
Value or values may refer to:
Ethics and social
* Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them
** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
-bearing things or properties, that is, the kind of things or stuff referred to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivists and non-cognitivists believe that ethics does not need a specific ontology since ethical propositions do not refer. This is known as an anti-realist position. Realists, on the other hand, must explain what kind of entities, properties or states are relevant for ethics, how they have value, and why they guide and motivate our actions.
Moral skepticism
Moral skepticism (or moral scepticism) is a
class
Class or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
of
metaethical theories in which all members entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger,
modal claim that
moral knowledge is impossible. Moral skepticism is particularly against
moral realism which holds the view that there are knowable and objective moral truths.
Some proponents of moral skepticism include
Pyrrho,
Aenesidemus,
Sextus Empiricus
Sextus Empiricus ( grc-gre, Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, ; ) was a Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Pyrrhonism, and bec ...
,
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
,
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as Max Stirner, was a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen a ...
,
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
, and
J.L. Mackie.
Moral skepticism is divided into three sub-classes:
* Moral error theory (or
moral nihilism).
* Epistemological moral skepticism.
*
Non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions (i.e., statements) and thus cannot be true or false (they are not truth-apt). A noncognitivist denies the cognitivist claim that "moral judgments are ...
.
All of these three theories share the same conclusions, which are as follows:
:(a) we are never justified in believing that moral claims (claims of the form "state of affairs x is good," "action y is morally obligatory," etc.) are true and, even more so
:(b) we never know that any moral claim is true.
However, each method arrives at (a) and (b) by different routes.
Moral error theory holds that we do not know that any moral claim is true because
:(i) all moral claims are false,
:(ii) we have reason to believe that all moral claims are false, and
:(iii) since we are not justified in believing any claim we have reason to deny, we are not justified in believing any moral claims.
Epistemological moral skepticism is a subclass of theory, the members of which include
Pyrrhonian moral skepticism and dogmatic moral skepticism. All members of epistemological moral skepticism share two things: first, they acknowledge that we are unjustified in believing any moral claim, and second, they are
agnostic on whether (i) is true (i.e. on whether all moral claims are false).
*Pyrrhonian moral skepticism holds that the reason we are unjustified in believing any moral claim is that it is irrational for us to believe either that any moral claim is true or that any moral claim is false. Thus, in addition to being agnostic on whether (i) is true, Pyrrhonian moral skepticism denies (ii).
*Dogmatic moral skepticism, on the other hand, ''affirms'' (ii) and cites (ii)'s truth as the reason we are unjustified in believing any moral claim.
Noncognitivism holds that we can never know that any moral claim is true because moral claims are ''incapable'' of being true or false (they are not truth-apt). Instead, moral claims are
imperatives (e.g. "Don't steal babies!"),
expressions of emotion (e.g. "stealing babies: Boo!"), or
expressions of "pro-attitudes" ("I do not believe that babies should be stolen.")
Normative ethics
Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. Normative ethics is distinct from
meta-ethics because normative ethics examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts.
[ Normative ethics is also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the latter is an empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs. To put it another way, descriptive ethics would be concerned with determining what proportion of people believe that killing is always wrong, while normative ethics is concerned with whether it is correct to hold such a belief. Hence, normative ethics is sometimes called prescriptive rather than descriptive. However, on certain versions of the meta-ethical view called moral realism, moral facts are both descriptive and prescriptive at the same time.
Traditionally, normative ethics (also known as moral theory) was the study of what makes actions right and wrong. These theories offered an overarching moral principle one could appeal to in resolving difficult moral decisions.
At the turn of the 20th century, moral theories became more complex and were no longer concerned solely with rightness and wrongness, but were interested in many different kinds of moral status. During the middle of the century, the study of normative ethics declined as meta-ethics grew in prominence. This focus on meta-ethics was in part caused by an intense linguistic focus in analytic philosophy and by the popularity of logical positivism.
]
Virtue ethics
Virtue ethics describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior, and it is used to describe the ethics of early Greek philosophers such as Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
and Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
, and ancient Indian philosophers such as Valluvar
Thiruvalluvar (Tamil: திருவள்ளுவர்), commonly known as Valluvar, was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He is best known as the author of the ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'', a collection of couplets on ethics, political and ...
. Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
(469–399 BC) was one of the first Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
to encourage both scholars and the common citizen to turn their attention from the outside world to the condition of humankind. In this view, knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...
bearing on human life was placed highest, while all other knowledge was secondary. Self-knowledge was considered necessary for success and inherently an essential good. A self-aware person will act completely within his capabilities to his pinnacle, while an ignorant person will flounder and encounter difficulty. To Socrates, a person must become aware of every fact (and its context) relevant to his existence, if he wishes to attain self-knowledge. He posited that people will naturally do what is good if they know what is right. Evil or bad actions are the results of ignorance. If a criminal was truly aware of the intellectual and spiritual consequences of his or her actions, he or she would neither commit nor even consider committing those actions. Any person who knows what is truly right will automatically do it, according to Socrates. While he correlated knowledge with virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
, he similarly equated virtue with joy
The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.
Dictionary definitions
Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of ...
. The truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
(384–323 BC) posited an ethical system that may be termed "virtuous." In Aristotle's view, when a person acts in accordance with virtue this person will do good and be content. Unhappiness and frustration are caused by doing wrong, leading to failed goals and a poor life. Therefore, it is imperative for people to act in accordance with virtue, which is only attainable by the practice of the virtues in order to be content and complete. Happiness was held to be the ultimate goal. All other things, such as civic life or wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
, were only made worthwhile and of benefit when employed in the practice of the virtues. The practice of the virtues is the surest path to happiness. Aristotle asserted that the soul of man had three natures: body (physical/metabolism), animal (emotional/appetite), and rational (mental/conceptual). Physical nature can be assuaged through exercise and care; emotional nature through indulgence of instinct and urges; and mental nature through human reason and developed potential. Rational development was considered the most important, as essential to philosophical self-awareness, and as uniquely human. Moderation
Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include:
*Ensuring consistency and accuracy in the marking of stud ...
was encouraged, with the extremes seen as degraded and immoral. For example, courage is the moderate virtue between the extremes of cowardice
Cowardice is a trait wherein excessive fear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger. It is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowa ...
and recklessness. Man should not simply live, but live well with conduct governed by virtue. This is regarded as difficult, as virtue denotes doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reason.
Valluvar
Thiruvalluvar (Tamil: திருவள்ளுவர்), commonly known as Valluvar, was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He is best known as the author of the ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'', a collection of couplets on ethics, political and ...
(before 5th century CE) keeps virtue, or ''aṟam'' ( dharma) as he calls it, as the cornerstone throughout the writing of the Kural literature. While religious scriptures generally consider ''aṟam'' as divine in nature, Valluvar describes it as a way of life rather than any spiritual observance, a way of harmonious living that leads to universal happiness. Contrary to what other contemporary works say, Valluvar holds that ''aṟam'' is common for all, irrespective of whether the person is a bearer of palanquin or the rider in it. Valluvar considered justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
as a facet of ''aṟam.'' While ancient Greek philosophers
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
such as Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
, and their descendants opined that justice cannot be defined and that it was a divine mystery, Valluvar positively suggested that a divine origin is not required to define the concept of justice. In the words of V. R. Nedunchezhiyan, justice according to Valluvar "dwells in the minds of those who have knowledge of the standard of right and wrong; so too deceit dwells in the minds which breed fraud."
Stoicism
The Stoic
Stoic may refer to:
* An adherent of Stoicism; one whose moral quality is associated with that school of philosophy
* STOIC, a programming language
* ''Stoic'' (film), a 2009 film by Uwe Boll
* ''Stoic'' (mixtape), a 2012 mixtape by rapper T-Pain
* ...
philosopher Epictetus
Epictetus (; grc-gre, Ἐπίκτητος, ''Epíktētos''; 50 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, when ...
posited that the greatest good was contentment and serenity. Peace of mind, or '' apatheia'', was of the highest value
Value or values may refer to:
Ethics and social
* Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them
** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
; self-mastery over one's desires and emotions leads to spiritual peace. The "unconquerable will" is central to this philosophy. The individual's will should be independent and inviolate. Allowing a person to disturb the mental equilibrium is, in essence, offering yourself in slavery. If a person is free to anger you at will, you have no control over your internal world, and therefore no freedom. Freedom from material attachments is also necessary. If a thing breaks, the person should not be upset, but realize it was a thing that could break. Similarly, if someone should die, those close to them should hold to their serenity because the loved one was made of flesh and blood destined to death. Stoic philosophy says to accept things that cannot be changed, resigning oneself to the existence and enduring in a rational fashion. Death is not feared. People do not "lose" their life, but instead "return", for they are returning to God (who initially gave what the person is as a person). Epictetus said difficult problems in life should not be avoided, but rather embraced. They are spiritual exercises needed for the health of the spirit, just as physical exercise is required for the health of the body. He also stated that sex and sexual desire are to be avoided as the greatest threat to the integrity
Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. In ...
and equilibrium of a man's mind. Abstinence is highly desirable. Epictetus said remaining abstinent in the face of temptation was a victory for which a man could be proud.
Contemporary virtue ethics
Modern virtue ethics was popularized during the late 20th century in large part due to a revival of Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism ( ) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the so ...
, and as a response to G.E.M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy
"Modern Moral Philosophy" is an article on moral philosophy by G. E. M. Anscombe, originally published in the journal ''Philosophy'', vol. 33, no. 124 (January 1958).
The article has influenced the emergence of contemporary virtue ethics, especial ...
". Anscombe argues that consequentialist
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 ...
and deontological
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
ethics are only feasible as universal theories if the two schools ground themselves in divine law
Divine law is any body of law that is perceived as deriving from a transcendent source, such as the will of God or godsin contrast to man-made law or to secular law. According to Angelos Chaniotis and Rudolph F. Peters, divine laws are typicall ...
. As a deeply devoted Christian herself, Anscombe proposed that either those who do not give ethical credence to notions of divine law take up virtue ethics, which does not necessitate universal laws as agents themselves are investigated for virtue or vice and held up to "universal standards", or that those who wish to be utilitarian or consequentialist ground their theories in religious conviction. Alasdair MacIntyre, who wrote the book '' After Virtue'', was a key contributor and proponent of modern virtue ethics, although some claim that MacIntyre supports a relativistic account of virtue based on cultural norms
Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or soci ...
, not objective standards. Martha Nussbaum, a contemporary virtue ethicist, objects to MacIntyre's relativism, among that of others, and responds to relativist objections to form an objective account in her work "Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach". However, Nussbaum's accusation of relativism appears to be a misreading. In ''Whose Justice, Whose Rationality?'', MacIntyre's ambition of taking a rational path beyond relativism was quite clear when he stated "rival claims made by different traditions are to be evaluated without relativism" (p. 354) because indeed "rational debate between and rational choice among rival traditions is possible” (p. 352). ''Complete Conduct Principles for the 21st Century''[John Newton, Ph.D., ''Complete Conduct Principles for the 21st Century'' (2000). .] blended the Eastern virtue ethics and the Western virtue ethics, with some modifications to suit the 21st Century, and formed a part of contemporary virtue ethics.
Mortimer J. Adler
Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in N ...
described Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a "unique book in the Western tradition of moral philosophy, the only ethics that is sound, practical, and undogmatic."
One major trend in contemporary virtue ethics is the Modern Stoicism
Contemporary Stoicism refers to currents in culture from the 20th century and later reviving elements of Stoicism. It is different from neostoicism, an earlier revival in the late 16th century. The term "contemporary Stoicism" covers both the r ...
movement.
Intuitive ethics
Ethical intuitionism (also called moral intuitionism) is a family of views in moral epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epis ...
(and, on some definitions, metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
). At minimum, ethical intuitionism is the thesis that our intuitive awareness of value, or intuitive knowledge of evaluative facts, forms the foundation of our ethical knowledge.
The view is at its core a foundationalism about moral knowledge: it is the view that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially (i.e., known without one needing to infer them from other truths one believes). Such an epistemological view implies that there are moral beliefs with propositional contents; so it implies cognitivism. As such, ethical intuitionism is to be contrasted with coherentist
In philosophical epistemology, there are two types of coherentism: the coherence theory of truth; and the coherence theory of justification (also known as epistemic coherentism).
Coherent truth is divided between an anthropological approach, whic ...
approaches to moral epistemology, such as those that depend on reflective equilibrium
Reflective equilibrium is a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgements. Although he did not use the term, philosopher Nelson G ...
.[Shafer-Landau & Cuneo (2012), p. 385]
Throughout the philosophical literature, the term "ethical intuitionism" is frequently used with significant variation in its sense. This article's focus on foundationalism reflects the core commitments of contemporary self-identified ethical intuitionists.[Stratton-Lake (2014) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism-ethics/ ]
Sufficiently broadly defined, ethical intuitionism can be taken to encompass cognitivist forms of moral sense theory Moral sense theory (also known as moral sentimentalism) is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics concerning the discovery of moral truths. Moral sense theory typically holds that distinctions between morality and immorality are discovered ...
.[Stratton-Lake (2013), p. 337] It is usually furthermore taken as essential to ethical intuitionism that there be self-evident
In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof, and/or by ordinary human reason.
Some epistemologists deny that any proposition can be self- ...
or ''a priori
("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ...
'' moral knowledge; this counts against considering moral sense theory to be a species of intuitionism.
Ethical intuitionism was first clearly shown in use by the philosopher Francis Hutcheson. Later ethical intuitionists of influence and note include Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected i ...
, G.E. Moore
George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...
, Harold Arthur Prichard
Harold Arthur Prichard (30 October 1871 – 29 December 1947) was an English philosopher. He was born in London in 1871, the eldest child of Walter Stennett Prichard (a solicitor) and his wife Lucy. Harold Prichard was a scholar of Clifton Coll ...
, C.S. Lewis
CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to:
Job titles
* Chief Secretary (Hong Kong)
* Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces
* Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...
and, most influentially, Robert Audi
Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an American philosopher whose major work has focused on epistemology, ethics (especially on ethical intuitionism), rationality and the theory of action. He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the Universi ...
.
Objections to ethical intuitionism include whether or not there are objective moral values (an assumption which the ethical system is based upon) the question of why many disagree over ethics if they are absolute, and whether Occam's razor cancels such a theory out entirely.
Hedonism
Hedonism posits that the principal ethic is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. There are several schools of Hedonist thought ranging from those advocating the indulgence of even momentary desires to those teaching a pursuit of spiritual bliss. In their consideration of consequences, they range from those advocating self-gratification regardless of the pain and expense to others, to those stating that the most ethical pursuit maximizes pleasure and happiness for the most people.
Cyrenaic hedonism
Founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, Cyrenaics
The Cyrenaics or Kyrenaics ( grc, Κυρηναϊκοί, Kyrēnaïkoí), were a sensual hedonist Greek school of philosophy founded in the 4th century BCE, supposedly by Aristippus of Cyrene, although many of the principles of the school are be ...
supported immediate gratification or pleasure. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Even fleeting desires should be indulged, for fear the opportunity should be forever lost. There was little to no concern with the future, the present dominating in the pursuit of immediate pleasure. Cyrenaic hedonism encouraged the pursuit of enjoyment and indulgence without hesitation, believing pleasure to be the only good.
Epicureanism
Epicurean ethics is a hedonist form of virtue ethics. Epicurus "presented a sustained argument that pleasure, correctly understood, will coincide with virtue." He rejected the extremism of the Cyrenaics
The Cyrenaics or Kyrenaics ( grc, Κυρηναϊκοί, Kyrēnaïkoí), were a sensual hedonist Greek school of philosophy founded in the 4th century BCE, supposedly by Aristippus of Cyrene, although many of the principles of the school are be ...
, believing some pleasures and indulgences to be detrimental to human beings. Epicureans
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism.
Few writings by ...
observed that indiscriminate indulgence sometimes resulted in negative consequences. Some experiences were therefore rejected out of hand, and some unpleasant experiences endured in the present to ensure a better life in the future. To Epicurus, the ''summum bonum'', or greatest good, was prudence, exercised through moderation and caution. Excessive indulgence can be destructive to pleasure and can even lead to pain. For example, eating one food too often makes a person lose a taste for it. Eating too much food at once leads to discomfort and ill-health. Pain and fear were to be avoided. Living was essentially good, barring pain and illness. Death was not to be feared. Fear was considered the source of most unhappiness. Conquering the fear of death would naturally lead to a happier life. Epicurus reasoned if there were an afterlife and immortality, the fear of death was irrational. If there was no life after death, then the person would not be alive to suffer, fear, or worry; he would be non-existent in death. It is irrational to fret over circumstances that do not exist, such as one's state of death in the absence of an afterlife.
State consequentialism
State consequentialism, also known as Mohist consequentialism, is an ethical theory that evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the basic goods of a state.[ The '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' describes Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BC, as "a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare". Unlike utilitarianism, which views pleasure as a moral good, "the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are … order, material wealth, and increase in population".] During Mozi's era, war and famines were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. The "material wealth" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs
The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty in developing countries globally. It works to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of ...
like shelter and clothing, and the "order" of Mohist consequentialism refers to Mozi's stance against warfare and violence, which he viewed as pointless and a threat to social stability.
Stanford sinologist David Shepherd Nivison
David Shepherd Nivison (January 17, 1923 – October 16, 2014) was an American Sinologist and scholar known for his publications on late imperial and ancient Chinese history, philology, and philosophy, and his 40 years as a professor at Sta ...
, in ''The Cambridge History of Ancient China
''The Cambridge History of China'' is a series of books published by the Cambridge University Press (CUP) covering the history of China from the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC to 1982 AD. The series was conceived by British historian Den ...
'', writes that the moral goods of Mohism "are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth … if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically." The Mohists believed that morality is based on "promoting the benefit of all under heaven and eliminating harm to all under heaven". In contrast to Bentham's views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic or individualistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweighs the importance of individual pleasure and pain.
Consequentialism
Consequentialism refers to moral theories that hold the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action (or create a structure for judgment, see rule consequentialism). Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence. This view is often expressed as the aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by ...
''"The ends justify the means"''.
The term "consequentialism" was coined by G.E.M. Anscombe in her essay "Modern Moral Philosophy
"Modern Moral Philosophy" is an article on moral philosophy by G. E. M. Anscombe, originally published in the journal ''Philosophy'', vol. 33, no. 124 (January 1958).
The article has influenced the emergence of contemporary virtue ethics, especial ...
" in 1958, to describe what she saw as the central error of certain moral theories, such as those propounded by Mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
*
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Textile mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...
and Sidgwick. Since then, the term has become common in English-language ethical theory.
The defining feature of consequentialist moral theories is the weight given to the consequences in evaluating the rightness and wrongness of actions. In consequentialist theories, the consequences of an action or rule generally outweigh other considerations. Apart from this basic outline, there is little else that can be unequivocally said about consequentialism as such. However, there are some questions that many consequentialist theories address:
* What sort of consequences count as good consequences?
* Who is the primary beneficiary of moral action?
* How are the consequences judged and who judges them?
One way to divide various consequentialisms is by the many types of consequences that are taken to matter most, that is, which consequences count as good states of affairs. According to utilitarianism
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...
, a good action is one that results in an increase and positive effect, and the best action is one that results in that effect for the greatest number. Closely related is eudaimonic consequentialism, according to which a full, flourishing life, which may or may not be the same as enjoying a great deal of pleasure, is the ultimate aim. Similarly, one might adopt an aesthetic consequentialism, in which the ultimate aim is to produce beauty. However, one might fix on non-psychological goods as the relevant effect. Thus, one might pursue an increase in material equality or political liberty
Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and F ...
instead of something like the more ephemeral "pleasure". Other theories adopt a package of several goods, all to be promoted equally. Whether a particular consequentialist theory focuses on a single good or many, conflicts and tensions between different good states of affairs are to be expected and must be adjudicated.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that argues the proper course of action is one that maximizes a positive effect, such as "happiness", "welfare", or the ability to live according to personal preferences. Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
and John Stuart Mill are influential proponents of this school of thought. In ''A Fragment on Government'' Bentham says 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong' and describes this as a fundamental axiom. In ''An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation'' he talks of 'the principle of utility' but later prefers "the greatest happiness principle".
Utilitarianism is the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This form of utilitarianism holds that the morally correct action is the one that produces the best outcome for all people affected by the action. John Stuart Mill, in his exposition of utilitarianism, proposed a hierarchy of pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of pleasure is more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures. Other noteworthy proponents of utilitarianism are neuroscientist Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics ...
, author of ''The Moral Landscape
''The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values'' is a 2010 book by Sam Harris, in which he promotes a science of morality and argues that many thinkers have long confused the relationship between morality, facts, and science. He ai ...
'', and moral philosopher Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a Secularit ...
, author of, amongst other works, ''Practical Ethics
''Practical Ethics'', a 1979 book by the moral philosopher Peter Singer, is an introduction to applied ethics. The book has been translated into a number of languages.
Summary
Singer analyzes, in detail, why and how beings' interests should be ...
''.
The major division within utilitarianism is between ''act utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics that states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces the best possible results in that specific situation. Classical utilitarians, including Jeremy Bentham, John Stuar ...
'' and ''rule utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which ...
''. In act utilitarianism, the principle of utility applies directly to each alternative act in a situation of choice. The right act is the one that brings about the best results (or the least bad results). In rule utilitarianism, the principle of utility determines the validity of rules of conduct (moral principles). A rule like promise-keeping is established by looking at the consequences of a world in which people break promises at will and a world in which promises are binding. Right and wrong are the following or breaking of rules that are sanctioned by their utilitarian value. A proposed "middle ground" between these two types is Two-level utilitarianism Two-level utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics developed by R. M. Hare. According to the theory, a person's moral decisions should be based on a set of moral rules, except in certain rare situations where it is more appropriate to engag ...
, where rules are applied in ordinary circumstances, but with an allowance to choose actions outside of such rules when unusual situations call for it.
Deontology
Deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, ''deon'', "obligation, duty"; and , ''-logia
''-logy'' is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek ending in ('). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French '' -logie'', which was in turn inherited from the Latin '' -logi ...
'') is an approach to ethics that determines goodness or rightness from examining acts, or the rules and duties that the person doing the act strove to fulfill. This is in contrast to 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, fro ...
, in which rightness is based on the consequences of an act, and not the act by itself. Under deontology, an act may be considered right even if it produces a bad consequence, if it follows the ''rule'' or moral law. According to the deontological view, people have a ''duty'' to act in ways that are deemed inherently good ("truth-telling" for example), or follow an objectively obligatory rule (as in rule utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which ...
).
Kantianism
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 ...
's theory of ethics is considered deontological for several different reasons.[Orend, Brian. 2000. ''War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective''. West Waterloo, Ontario: ]Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is a publisher of scholarly writing and is part of Wilfrid Laurier University. The fourth-largest university press in Canada, WLUP publishes work in a variety of disciplines in the hum ...
: 19. First, Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must act from duty (''Pflicht''). Second, Kant argued that it was not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the person who carries out the action.
Kant's argument that to act in the morally right way one must act purely from duty begins with an argument that the highest good must be both good in itself and good without qualification.[Kant, Immanuel. 1785. 'First Section: Transition from the Common Rational Knowledge of Morals to the Philosophical', ]Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
''Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'' (1785; german: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; also known as the ''Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals'', ''Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals'', and the ''Grounding for the Metaphysics o ...
. Something is "good in itself" when it is intrinsically good, and "good without qualification", when the addition of that thing never makes a situation ethically worse. Kant then argues that those things that are usually thought to be good, such as intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
, perseverance
Perseverance may refer to:
Behaviour
* Psychological resilience
* Perseverance of the saints, a Protestant Christian teaching
* Assurance (theology)
Geography
* Perseverance, Queensland, a locality in Australia
* Perseverance Island, Seychelles
...
and pleasure, fail to be either intrinsically good or good without qualification. Pleasure, for example, appears not to be good without qualification, because when people take pleasure in watching someone suffer, this seems to make the situation ethically worse. He concludes that there is only one thing that is truly good:
Kant then argues that the consequences of an act of willing cannot be used to determine that the person has a good will; good consequences could arise by accident from an action that was motivated by a desire to cause harm to an innocent person, and bad consequences could arise from an action that was well-motivated. Instead, he claims, a person has goodwill when he 'acts out of respect for the moral law'. People 'act out of respect for the moral law' when they act in some way ''because'' they have a duty to do so. So, the only thing that is truly good in itself is goodwill, and goodwill is only good when the willer chooses to do something because it is that person's duty, i.e. out of "respect" for the law. He defines respect as "the concept of a worth which thwarts my self-love".
Kant's three significant formulations of the 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 eva ...
are:
* Act only according to that maxim
Maxim or Maksim may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine
** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition
** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition
*Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...
by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.
* Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
* Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in a universal kingdom of ends.
Kant argued that the only absolutely good thing is a good will, and so the single determining factor of whether an action is morally right is the will, or motive of the person doing it. If they are acting on a bad maxim, e.g. "I will lie", then their action is wrong, even if some good consequences come of it.
In his essay, ''On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns
On, on, or ON may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* On (band), a solo project of Ken Andrews
* ''On'' (EP), a 1993 EP by Aphex Twin
* ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995
* ''On'' (Gary Glitter album), 2001
* ''On'' (Imperial Teen album), 200 ...
'', arguing against the position of
Benjamin Constant
Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (; 25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), or simply Benjamin Constant, was a Franco-Swiss political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion.
A committed republican from 1795, he backed t ...
, ''Des réactions politiques'', Kant states that "Hence a lie defined merely as an intentionally untruthful declaration to another man does not require the additional condition that it must do harm to another, as jurists require in their definition (''mendacium est falsiloquium in praeiudicium alterius''). For a lie always harms another; if not some human being, then it nevertheless does harm to humanity in general, inasmuch as it vitiates the very source of right 'Rechtsquelle''... All practical principles of right must contain rigorous truth ... This is because such exceptions would destroy the universality on account of which alone they bear the name of principles."
Divine command theory
Although not all deontologists are religious, some belief in the 'divine command theory', which is actually a cluster of related theories which essentially state that an action is right if God has decreed that it is right. According to Ralph Cudworth
Ralph Cudworth ( ; 1617 – 26 June 1688) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian Hebraist, classicist, theologian and philosopher, and a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists who became 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew ...
, an English philosopher, William of Ockham
William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vil ...
, René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
, and eighteenth-century Calvinists all accepted various versions of this moral theory, as they all held that moral obligations arise from God's commands. The Divine Command Theory is a form of deontology because, according to it, the rightness of any action depends upon that action being performed because it is a duty, not because of any good consequences arising from that action. If God commands people not to work on Sabbath, then people act rightly if they do not work on Sabbath ''because God has commanded that they do not do so''. If they do not work on Sabbath because they are lazy, then their action is not truly speaking "right", even though the actual physical action performed is the same. If God commands not to covet a neighbor's goods, this theory holds that it would be immoral to do so, even if coveting provides the beneficial outcome of a drive to succeed or do well.
One thing that clearly distinguishes Kantian deontologism from divine command deontology is that Kantianism maintains that man, as a rational being, makes the moral law universal, whereas divine command maintains that God makes the moral law universal.
Discourse ethics
German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has proposed a theory of discourse ethics that he states is a descendant of Kantian ethics. He proposes that action should be based on communication between those involved, in which their interests and intentions are discussed so they can be understood by all. Rejecting any form of coercion or manipulation, Habermas believes that agreement between the parties is crucial for a moral decision to be reached. Like Kantian ethics, discourse ethics is a cognitive ethical theory, in that it supposes that truth and falsity can be attributed to ethical propositions. It also formulates a rule by which ethical actions can be determined and proposes that ethical actions should be universalizable, in a similar way to Kant's ethics.[Payrow Shabani 2003, p. 54]
Habermas argues that his ethical theory is an improvement on Kant's ethics.[ He rejects the dualistic framework of Kant's ethics. Kant distinguished between the phenomena world, which can be sensed and experienced by humans, and the ]noumena
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; ; noumena) is a posited object or an event that exists independently of human sense and/or perception. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''phenomenon'', whi ...
, or spiritual world, which is inaccessible to humans. This dichotomy was necessary for Kant because it could explain the autonomy of a human agent: although a human is bound in the phenomenal world, their actions are free in the noumenal world. For Habermas, morality arises from discourse, which is made necessary by their rationality and needs, rather than their freedom.
Pragmatic ethics
Associated with the pragmatists
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
, William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
, and especially John Dewey, pragmatic ethics holds that moral correctness evolves similarly to scientific knowledge: socially over the course of many lifetimes. Thus, we should prioritize social reform over attempts to account for consequences, individual virtue or duty (although these may be worthwhile attempts, if social reform is provided for).
Ethics of care
Care ethics contrasts with more well-known ethical models, such as consequentialist theories (e.g. utilitarianism) and deontological theories (e.g., Kantian ethics) in that it seeks to incorporate traditionally feminized virtues and values that—proponents of care ethics contend—are absent in such traditional models of ethics. These values include the importance of empathetic relationships and compassion.
Care-focused feminism is a branch of feminist thought, informed primarily by ethics of care as developed by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings
Nel Noddings (; January 19, 1929 – August 25, 2022) was an American feminist, educator, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care.
Biography
Noddings received a bachelor's deg ...
. This body of theory is critical of how caring is socially assigned to women, and consequently devalued. They write, "Care-focused feminists regard women's capacity for care as a human strength," that should be taught to and expected of men as well as women. Noddings proposes that ethical caring has the potential to be a more concrete evaluative model of moral dilemma than an ethic of justice. Noddings’ care-focused feminism requires practical application of relational ethics
Relational may refer to:
Business
* Relational capital, the value inherent in a company's relationships with its customers, vendors, and other important constituencies
* Relational contract, a contract whose effect is based upon a relationship of ...
, predicated on an ethic of care.
Feminist matrixial ethics
The 'metafeminist' theory of the matrixial gaze
''The Matrixial Gaze'' is a 1995 book by artist, psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist, writer and painter Bracha L. Ettinger.Ettinger Bracha L. (1995). ''The Matrixial Gaze.'' Feminist Arts & Histories Network, It is a work of feminist film theor ...
and the matrixial time-space, coined and developed Bracha L. Ettinger
Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger (born March 23, 1948) is an Israeli artist, painter and writer, visual analyst, psychoanalyst and philosopher, living and working in Paris and Tel Aviv. She is regarded as a major French feminist theorist and pr ...
since 1985, articulates a revolutionary philosophical approach that, in "daring to approach", to use Griselda Pollock
Griselda Frances Sinclair Pollock''The International Who's Who of Women''; 3rd ed.; ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, 2002, p. 453 (born 11 March 1949) is an art historian and cultural analyst of international, postcolonial feminist stud ...
's description of Ettinger's ethical turn, "the prenatal with the pre-maternal encounter", violence toward women at war, and the Shoah, has philosophically established the rights of each female subject over her own reproductive body, and offered a language to relate to human experiences which escape the phallic domain. The matrixial sphere is a psychic and symbolic dimension that the 'phallic' language and regulations cannot control. In Ettinger's model, the relations between self and other are of neither assimilation nor rejection but 'coemergence'. In her conversation with Emmanuel Levinas, 1991, Ettinger prooses that the source of human Ethics is feminine-maternal and feminine-pre-maternal matrixial encounter-event. Sexuality and maternality coexist and are not in contradiction (the contradiction established by Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
and Jacques Lacan), and the feminine is not an absolute alterity (the alterity established by Jacques Lacan and Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics t ...
). With the 'originary response-ability', 'wit(h)nessing', 'borderlinking', 'communicaring', 'com-passion', 'seduction into life' and other processes invested by affects that occur in the Ettingerian matrixial time-space, the feminine is presented as the source of humanized Ethics in all genders. Compassion and Seduction into life occurs earlier than the primary seduction which passes through enigmatic signals from the maternal sexuality according to Jean Laplanche
Jean Laplanche (; 21 June 1924 – 6 May 2012) was a French author, psychoanalyst and winemaker. Laplanche is best known for his work on psychosexual development and Sigmund Freud's seduction theory, and wrote more than a dozen books on p ...
, since it is active in 'coemergence' in 'withnessing' for any born subject, earlier to its birth. Ettinger suggests to Emanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, ...
in their conversations in 1991, that the feminine understood via the matrixial perspective is the heart and the source of Ethics. At the beginning of life, an originary 'fascinance' felt by the infant is related to the passage from response-ability to responsibility, from com-passion to compassion, and from wit(h)nessing to witnessing operated and transmitted by the m/Other. The 'differentiation in jointness' that is at the heart of the matrixial borderspace has deep implications in the relational field and for the ethics of care. The matrixial theory that proposes new ways to rethink sexual difference through the fluidity of boundaries informs aesthetics and ethics of compassion, carrying and non-abandonment in 'subjectivity as encounter-event'. It has become significant in Psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and in transgender studies.
Role ethics
Role ethics is an ethical theory based on family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
roles. Unlike virtue ethics
Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ; ...
, role ethics is not individualistic. Morality is derived from a person's relationship with their community. Confucian
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
ethics is an example of role ethics though this is not straightforwardly uncontested. Confucian roles center around the concept of filial piety
In Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoist ethics, filial piety (, ''xiào'') (Latin: pietas) is a virtue of respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian '' Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the lat ...
or ''xiao'', a respect for family members. According to Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, "Confucian normativity is defined by living one's family roles to maximum effect." Morality is determined through a person's fulfillment of a role, such as that of a parent or a child. Confucian roles are not rational
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abi ...
, and originate through the ''xin'', or human emotions.
Anarchist ethics
Anarchist ethics is an ethical theory based on the studies of anarchist thinkers. The biggest contributor to anarchist ethics is Peter Kropotkin.
Starting from the premise that the goal of ethical philosophy should be to help humans adapt and thrive in evolutionary terms, Kropotkin's ethical framework uses biology and anthropology as a basis – in order to scientifically establish what will best enable a given social order to thrive biologically and socially – and advocates certain behavioural practices to enhance humanity's capacity for freedom and well-being, namely practices which emphasise solidarity, equality, and justice.
Kropotkin argues that ethics itself is evolutionary, and is inherited as a sort of a social instinct through cultural history, and by so, he rejects any religious and transcendental explanation of morality. The origin of ethical feeling in both animals and humans can be found, he claims, in the natural fact of "sociality" (mutualistic symbiosis), which humans can then combine with the instinct for justice (i.e. equality) and then with the practice of reason to construct a non-supernatural and anarchistic system of ethics. Kropotkin suggests that the principle of equality at the core of anarchism is the same as the Golden rule: This principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea.
Postmodern ethics
Antihumanists such as Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and structuralists such as Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...
challenged the possibilities of individual agency and the coherence of the notion of the 'individual' itself. This was on the basis that personal identity was, in the most part, a social construction. As critical theory developed in the later 20th century, post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
sought to problematize human relationships to knowledge and 'objective' reality. Jacques Derrida argued that access to meaning and the 'real' was always deferred, and sought to demonstrate via recourse to the linguistic realm that "there is no outside-text/non-text" ("''il n'y a pas de hors-texte''" is often mistranslated as "there is nothing outside the text"); at the same time, Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...
theorised that signs and symbols or simulacra mask reality (and eventually the absence of reality itself), particularly in the consumer world.
Post-structuralism and postmodernism argue that ethics must study the complex and relational conditions of actions. A simple alignment of ideas of right and particular acts is not possible. There will always be an ethical remainder that cannot be taken into account or often even recognized. Such theorists find narrative (or, following Nietzsche and Foucault, genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
) to be a helpful tool for understanding ethics because narrative is always about particular lived experiences in all their complexity rather than the assignment of an idea or norm to separate and individual actions.
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman (; 19 November 1925 – 9 January 2017) was a Polish sociologist and philosopher. He was driven out of the Polish People's Republic during the 1968 Polish political crisis and forced to give up his Polish citizenship. He emigrat ...
says postmodernity
Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
is best described as modernity without illusion, the illusion being the belief that humanity can be repaired by some ethic principle. Postmodernity can be seen in this light as accepting the messy nature of humanity as unchangeable. In this postmodern world, the means to act collectively and globally to solve large-scale problems have been all but discredited, dismantled or lost. Problems can be handled only locally and each on its own. All problem-handling means building a mini-order at the expense of order elsewhere, and at the cost of rising global disorder as well as depleting the shrinking supplies of resources which make ordering possible. He considers Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics t ...
's ethics as postmodern. Unlike the modern ethical philosophy which leaves the Other
In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; h ...
on the outside of the self as an ambivalent presence, Levinas's philosophy readmits her as a neighbor and as a crucial character in the process through which the moral self comes into its own.
David Couzens Hoy states that Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics t ...
's writings on the face of the Other and Derrida's meditations on the relevance of death to ethics are signs of the "ethical turn" in Continental philosophy that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Hoy describes post-critique ethics as the "obligations that present themselves as necessarily to be fulfilled but are neither forced on one or are enforceable".
Hoy's post-critique model uses the term ''ethical resistance''. Examples of this would be an individual's resistance to consumerism in a retreat to a simpler but perhaps harder lifestyle, or an individual's resistance to a terminal illness. Hoy describes Levinas's account as "not the attempt to use power against itself, or to mobilize sectors of the population to exert their political power; the ethical resistance is instead the resistance of the powerless".
Hoy concludes that
Applied ethics
Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations. The discipline has many specialized fields, such as engineering ethics
Engineering ethics is the field of system of moral principles that apply to the practice of engineering. The field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to society, to their clients, and to the profession. As a scholarly discipline, it is ...
, bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, m ...
, geoethics Geoethics is the branch of ethics which relates to the interaction of human activity with our physical world in general, and with the practice of the Earth sciences in particular.Wyss M. and Peppoloni S. (Eds) (2015)Geoethics, Ethical Challenges and ...
, public service ethics and business ethics.
Specific questions
Applied ethics is used in some aspects of determining public policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...
, as well as by individuals facing difficult decisions. The sort of questions addressed by applied ethics include: "Is getting an abortion immoral?"; "Is euthanasia immoral?"; "Is affirmative action right or wrong?"; "What are human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, and how do we determine them?"; "Do animals have rights as well?"; and "Do individuals have the right of self-determination?"[
A more specific question could be: "If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed?" Without these questions, there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of arbitration—in fact, no common assumptions of all participants—so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example, making ethical judgments regarding questions such as, "Is lying always wrong?" and, "If not, when is it permissible?" is prior to any etiquette.
People, in general, are more comfortable with dichotomies (two opposites). However, in ethics, the issues are most often multifaceted and the best-proposed actions address many different areas concurrently. In ethical decisions, the answer is almost never a "yes or no" or a "right or wrong" statement. Many buttons are pushed so that the overall condition is improved and not to the benefit of any particular faction.
And it has not only been shown that people consider the character of the moral agent (i.e. a principle implied in virtue ethics), the deed of the action (i.e. a principle implied in ]deontology
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
), and the consequences of the action (i.e. a principle implied in utilitarianism) when formulating moral judgments, but moreover that the effect of each of these three components depends on the value of each component.
Particular fields of application
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
and medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
, medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
, law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, and philosophy. It also includes the study of the more commonplace questions of values ( "the ethics of the ordinary") that arise in primary care and other branches of medicine.
Bioethics also needs to address emerging biotechnologies that affect basic biology and future humans. These developments include cloning
Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, c ...
, gene therapy
Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human DN ...
, human genetic engineering
Human genetic enhancement or human genetic engineering refers to human enhancement by means of a genetic modification. This could be done in order to cure diseases (gene therapy), prevent the possibility of getting a particular disease (similarly ...
, astroethics and life in space, and manipulation of basic biology through altered DNA, RNA and proteins, e.g. "three parent baby, where baby is born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor. Correspondingly, new bioethics also need to address life at its core. For example, biotic ethics
Biotic ethics (also called life-centered ethics) is a branch of ethics that values not only species and biospheres, but life itself. On this basis, biotic ethics defines a human purpose to secure and propagate life. These principles are related to ...
value organic gene/protein life itself and seek to propagate it. With such life-centered principles, ethics may secure a cosmological future for life.
Business ethics
Business ethics (also corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics
Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadersh ...
or professional ethics
Professional ethics encompass the personal and corporate standards of behavior expected of professionals.
The word professionalism originally applied to vows of a religious order. By no later than the year 1675, the term had seen secular applic ...
that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment, including fields like medical ethics. Business ethics represents the practices that any individual or group exhibits within an organization that can negatively or positively affect the businesses core values. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.
Business ethics has both normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
and descriptive dimensions. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive methods. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflect the interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic concerns. Interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporations promote their commitment to non-economic values under headings such as ethics codes and social responsibility charters. Adam Smith said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Governments use laws and regulations to point business behavior in what they perceive to be beneficial directions. Ethics implicitly regulates areas and details of behavior that lie beyond governmental control. The emergence of large corporations with limited relationships and sensitivity to the communities in which they operate accelerated the development of formal ethics regimes. Business ethics also relates to unethical activities of interorganizational relationships, such as strategic alliances, buyer-supplier relationships, or joint ventures. Such unethical practices include, for instance, opportunistic behaviors, contract violations, and deceitful practices.
Machine ethics
In ''Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong'', Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen conclude that issues in machine ethics
Machine ethics (or machine morality, computational morality, or computational ethics) is a part of the ethics of artificial intelligence concerned with adding or ensuring moral behaviors of man-made machines that use artificial intelligence, otherw ...
will likely drive advancement in understanding of human ethics by forcing us to address gaps in modern normative theory and by providing a platform for experimental investigation. The effort to actually program a machine or artificial agent to behave as though instilled with a sense of ethics requires new specificity in our normative theories, especially regarding aspects customarily considered common-sense. For example, machines, unlike humans, can support a wide selection of learning algorithms, and controversy has arisen over the relative ethical merits of these options. This may reopen classic debates of normative ethics framed in new (highly technical) terms.
Military ethics
Military ethics are concerned with questions regarding the application of force and the ethos of the soldier and are often understood as applied professional ethics. Just war theory
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is ...
is generally seen to set the background terms of military ethics. However individual countries and traditions have different fields of attention.
Military ethics involves multiple subareas, including the following among others:
# what, if any, should be the laws of war.
# justification for the initiation of military force.
# decisions about who may be targeted in warfare.
# decisions on choice of weaponry, and what collateral effects such weaponry may have.
# standards for handling military prisoners.
# methods of dealing with violations of the laws of war.
Political ethics
Political ethics (also known as political morality or public ethics) is the practice of making moral judgements about political action and political agents.
Public sector ethics
Public sector ethics is a set of principles that guide public officials in their service to their constituents, including their decision-making on behalf of their constituents. Fundamental to the concept of public sector ethics is the notion that decisions and actions are based on what best serves the public's interests, as opposed to the official's personal interests (including financial interests) or self-serving political interests.
Publication ethics
Publication ethics is the set of principles that guide the writing and publishing process for all professional publications. To follow these principles, authors must verify that the publication does not contain plagiarism or publication bias. As a way to avoid misconduct in research these principles can also apply to experiments that are referenced or analyzed in publications by ensuring the data is recorded honestly and accurately.
Plagiarism is the failure to give credit to another author's work or ideas, when it is used in the publication. It is the obligation of the editor of the journal to ensure the article does not contain any plagiarism before it is published. If a publication that has already been published is proven to contain plagiarism, the editor of the journal can retract the article. Another critical publication ethics issue pertains to citation plagiarism when researchers copy and paste citation entries from other published works without reading the original source.
Publication bias occurs when the publication is one-sided or "prejudiced
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perc ...
against results". In best practice, an author should try to include information from all parties involved, or affected by the topic. If an author is prejudiced against certain results, than it can "lead to erroneous conclusions being drawn".
Misconduct in research can occur when an experimenter falsifies results. Falsely recorded information occurs when the researcher "fakes" information or data, which was not used when conducting the actual experiment. By faking the data, the researcher can alter the results from the experiment to better fit the hypothesis they originally predicted. When conducting medical research, it is important to honor the healthcare rights of a patient by protecting their anonymity in the publication.
''Respect for autonomy'' is the principle that decision-making should allow individuals to be autonomous; they should be able to make decisions that apply to their own lives. This means that individuals should have control of their lives.
''Justice'' is the principle that decision-makers must focus on actions that are fair to those affected. Ethical decisions need to be consistent with the ethical theory. There are cases where the management has made decisions that seem to be unfair to the employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders (Solomon, 1992, pp49). Such decisions are unethical.
Relational ethics
Relational ethics are related to an ethics of care
The ethics of care (alternatively care ethics or EoC) is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories t ...
. They are used in qualitative research, especially ethnography and autoethnography. Researchers who employ relational ethics value and respect the connection between themselves and the people they study, and "...between researchers and the communities in which they live and work." (Ellis, 2007, p. 4). Relational ethics also help researchers understand difficult issues such as conducting research on intimate others that have died and developing friendships with their participants. Relational ethics in close personal relationships form a central concept of contextual therapy
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy (May 19, 1920 – January 28, 2007) was a Hungarian-American psychiatrist and one of the founders of the field of family therapy. Born Iván Nagy, his family name was changed to Böszörményi-Nagy during his childhood. He e ...
.
Ethics of nanotechnologies
Ethics of nanotechnology is the study of the ethical issues emerging from advances in nanotechnology.
Ethics of quantification
Ethics of quantification is the study of the ethical issues associated to different forms of visible or invisible forms of quantification.
Animal ethics
Animal ethics is a term used in academia to describe human-animal relationships and how animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
, animal welfare, animal law
Animal law is a combination of statutory and case law in which the nature legal, social or biological of nonhuman animals is an important factor. Animal law encompasses companion animals, wildlife, animals used in entertainment and animals raise ...
, speciesism
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves t ...
, animal cognition
Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influen ...
, wildlife conservation
Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habita ...
, the moral status of nonhuman animals, the concept of nonhuman personhood
Personhood or personality is the status of being a person. Defining personhood is a controversial topic in philosophy and law and is closely tied with legal and political concepts of citizenship, equality, and liberty. According to law, only a l ...
, human exceptionalism, the history of animal use, and theories of justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
.
Ethics of technology
Ethics of technology is a sub-field of ethics addressing the ethical questions specific to the Technology Age. Some prominent works of philosopher Hans Jonas are devoted to ethics of technology. The subject has also been explored, following the work of Mario Bunge
Mario Augusto Bunge (; ; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles.
He was ...
, under the term technoethics.
Moral psychology
Moral psychology is a field of study that began as an issue in philosophy and that is now properly considered part of the discipline of psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
. Some use the term "moral psychology" relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development
Moral Development focuses on the emergence, change and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. Morality develops across a life span in a variety of ways and is influenced by an individual's experiences and behavior when faced ...
. However, others tend to use the term more broadly to include any topics at the intersection of ethics and psychology (and philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...
). Such topics are ones that involve the mind and are relevant to moral issues. Some of the main topics of the field are moral responsibility
In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations.
Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a ...
, moral development, moral character (especially as related to virtue ethics
Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ; ...
), altruism, psychological egoism
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest and selfishness, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefi ...
, moral luck
Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences, even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. This term, in ...
, and moral disagreement.
Evolutionary ethics
Evolutionary ethics concerns approaches to ethics (morality) based on the role of evolution in shaping human psychology and behavior. Such approaches may be based in scientific fields such as evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evol ...
or sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within ...
, with a focus on understanding and explaining observed ethical preferences and choices.
Descriptive ethics
Descriptive ethics is on the less philosophical end of the spectrum since it seeks to gather particular information about how people live and draw general conclusions based on observed patterns. Abstract and theoretical questions that are more clearly philosophical—such as, "Is ethical knowledge possible?"—are not central to descriptive ethics. Descriptive ethics offers a value-free
Loaded language (also known as loaded terms, emotive language, high-inference language and language-persuasive techniques) is rhetoric used to influence an audience by using words and phrases with strong connotations. This type of language is v ...
approach to ethics, which defines it as a social science rather than a humanity. Its examination of ethics does not start with a preconceived theory but rather investigates observations of actual choices made by moral agents in practice. Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...
or culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This can lead to situational ethics
Situational ethics or situation ethics takes into account ''only'' the particular context of an act when evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it only according to absolute moral standards. With the intent to have a fair basis for judgment ...
and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
, etiquette, and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating "bottom up" to imply the existence of, rather than explicitly prescribe, theories of value or of conduct. The study of descriptive ethics may include examinations of the following:
* Ethical code
Ethical codes are adopted by organizations to assist members in understanding the difference between right and wrong and in applying that understanding to their decisions. An ethical code generally implies documents at three levels: codes of b ...
s applied by various groups. Some consider aesthetics itself the basis of ethics—and a personal moral core developed through art and storytelling as very influential in one's later ethical choices.
* Informal theories of etiquette that tend to be less rigorous and more situational. Some consider etiquette a simple negative ethics, i.e., where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? One notable advocate of this view is Judith Martin
Judith Martin (née Perlman; born September 13, 1938), better known by the pen name Miss Manners, is an American columnist, author, and etiquette authority.
Early life and career
Martin is the daughter of Helen and Jacob Perlman. Her father w ...
("Miss Manners"). According to this view, ethics is more a summary of common sense
''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arg ...
social decisions.
* Practices in arbitration and law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, e.g., the claim that ethics itself is a matter of balancing "right versus right", i.e., putting priorities on two things that are both right, but that must be traded off carefully in each situation.
* Observed choices made by ordinary people, without expert aid or advice, who vote
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an Constituency, electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision making, decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election camp ...
, buy, and decide what is worth valuing. This is a major concern within disciplines such as political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
and economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...
.[ Hary Gunarto, Ethical Issues in Cyberspace and IT Society, Symposium on Whither The Age of Uncertainty, APU Univ.]
paper
, Jan. 2003
See also
* Morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
* Integrity
Integrity is the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. In ...
* Applied ethics
Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadersh ...
* Axiological ethics
Axiological ethics is concerned with the values by which we uphold our ethical standards and theories. It questions what, if any, basis exists for such values. Through doing so, it explores the justification for our values, and examines if there ...
* Contemporary ethics Ethics is, in general terms, the study of right and wrong. It can look descriptively at moral behaviour and judgements; it can give practical advice (normative ethics), or it can analyse and theorise about the nature of morality and ethics.
Contemp ...
* Corporate social responsibility
* Declaration of Geneva
The Declaration of Geneva was adopted by the General Assembly of the World Medical Association at Geneva in 1948, amended in 1968, 1983, 1994, editorially revised in 2005 and 2006 and amended in 2017.
It is a declaration of a physician's dedicati ...
* Declaration of Helsinki
The Declaration of Helsinki (DoH, fi, Helsingin julistus, sv, Helsingforsdeklarationen) is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association (WMA) ...
* Deductive reasoning
* Dharma
* Effective altruism
* Environmental ethics
In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resourc ...
* Ethical movement
The Ethical movement, also referred to as the Ethical Culture movement, Ethical Humanism or simply Ethical Culture, is an ethical, educational, and religious movement that is usually traced back to Felix Adler (1851–1933).
* Ethicist An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgment. Following the advice of ...
* Ethics in religion
Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''"Ethics"/ref> A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply sati ...
* Ethics paper
* Feminist ethics
Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethi ...
* Internalism and externalism
Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integration of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of d ...
* Humanism
Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and Agency (philosophy), agency of Human, human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical in ...
* Index of ethics articles—alphabetical list of ethics-related articles
* Longtermism
Longtermism is an ethical stance which gives priority to improving the long-term future. It is an important concept in effective altruism and serves as a primary motivation for efforts that claim to reduce existential risks to humanity.
Sigal S ...
* Neuroethics
In philosophy and neuroscience, Neuroethics is the study of both the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. The ethics of neuroscience comprises the bulk of work in neuroethics. It concerns the ethical, legal and social impact of n ...
* Outline of ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'"Ethics"/ref> The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, c ...
—list of ethics-related articles, arranged by sub-topic
* Practical philosophy The modern division of philosophy into theoretical philosophy and practical philosophyImmanuel Kant, ''Lectures on Ethics'', Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 41 ("On Universal Practical Philosophy"). Original text: Immanuel Kant, ''Kant’s Gesa ...
* Science of morality
The science of morality may refer to various forms of ethical naturalism grounding morality in rational, empirical consideration of the natural world. It is sometimes framed as using the scientific approach to determine what is right and wrong, i ...
* Secular ethics
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from belief in supernatural revelation or guidance—the source of ethics in many ...
* Sexual ethics
Sexual ethics (also known as sex ethics or sexual morality) is a branch of philosophy that considers the ethics or morality or otherwise in sexual behavior. Sexual ethics seeks to understand, evaluate and critique interpersonal relationships and ...
* Theory of justification
Justification (also called epistemic justification) is the property of belief that qualifies it as knowledge rather than mere opinion. Epistemology is the study of reasons that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is a ...
* Trail ethics
Trail ethics define appropriate ranges of behavior for hikers on a public trail. It is similar to both environmental ethics and human rights in that it deals with the shared interaction of humans and nature. There are multiple agencies and grou ...
Notes
References
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Further reading
*Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
, '' Nicomachean Ethics''
* Azurmendi, J. 1998: "The violence and the search for new values" in ''Euskal Herria krisian'', (Elkar, 1999), pp. 11–116.
* Blackburn, S. (2001)
''Being good: A short introduction to ethics''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Cools, Guy & Gielen, Pascal. ''The Ethics of Art''. Valiz: Amsterdam, 2014.Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
Jadranka Skorin-Kapov (born as Jadranka Boljunčić in Pula, Croatia in 1955) is a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the
College of Business, and with affiliated positions in the Department of Philosophy and the Dep ...
, ''The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity''. Lexington Books, 2016. De Finance, Joseph, ''An Ethical Inquiry'', Rome, Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1991.
* De La Torre, Miguel A., "Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins", Orbis Books, 2004.
* Derrida, J. 1995, ''The Gift of Death'', translated by David Wills, University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
, Chicago.
*D'Urance, Michel, ''Jalons pour une éthique rebelle'', Aléthéia, Paris, 2005.
*Fagothey, Austin, ''Right and Reason'', Tan Books & Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 2000.
* Ehrlich, Paul R. (May 2016)
Conference on population, environment, ethics: where we stand now
(video, 93 min), ''University of Lausanne
The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...
''
*''Encyclopedia of Ethics
The ''Encyclopedia of Ethics'' is a scholarly work with the original focus on ethical theory. It is published by Routledge and includes "biographical articles, entries on areas and issues related to ethics, treatment of major traditions in religio ...
''. Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, editors. Second edition in three volumes. New York: Routledge, 2002. A scholarly encyclopedia with over 500 signed, peer-review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer revie ...
ed articles, mostly on topics and figures of, or of special interest in, Western philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ' ...
.
*John Paul II, Encyclical Lette
''Veritatis Splendor''
August 6, 1993.
*Lafollette, Hugh d. ''Ethics in Practice: An Anthology.'' Wiley Blackwell, 4th edition, Oxford 2014.
London Philosophy Study Guide
offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject
* Levinas, E. 1969, ''Totality and infinity, an essay on exteriority'', translated by Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne University Press
Duquesne University Press, founded in 1927, is a publisher that is part of Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Press is the scholarly publishing arm of Duquesne University, and publishes monographs and collections in the humanit ...
, Pittsburgh.
* Nagel, Thomas, "Types of Intuition: Thomas Nagel on human rights and moral knowledge", '' London Review of Books'', vol. 43, no. 11 (3 June 2021), pp. 3, 5–6, 8. Deontology
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
, 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, fro ...
, utilitarianism
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different chara ...
.
*Newton, John Ph.D. ''Complete Conduct Principles for the 21st Century'', 2000. ., Butchvarov, Panayot. Skepticism in Ethics (1989).
* Solomon, R.C., ''Morality and the Good Life: An Introduction to Ethics Through Classical Sources'', New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company
McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...
, 1984.
*Vendemiati, Aldo, ''In the First Person, An Outline of General Ethics'', Rome, Urbaniana University Press, 2004.
* An entire issue of ''Pacific Island Studies'' devoted to studying "Constructing Moral Communities" in Pacific islands, 2002, vol. 25
Link
External links
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An Introduction to Ethics
by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
2d ed., 1973. by William Frankena
William Klaas Frankena (June 21, 1908 – October 22, 1994) was an American moral philosopher. He was a member of the University of Michigan's department of philosophy for 41 years (1937–1978), and chair of the department for 14 years (1947 ...
Ethics Bites
, Open University
The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...
podcast series podcast exploring ethical dilemmas in everyday life.
National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature
World's largest library for ethical issues in medicine and biomedical research
entry in Encyclopædia Britannica by Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a Secularit ...
The Philosophy of Ethics
on Philosophy Archive
Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics
Resources, events, and research on a range of ethical subjects from a Christian perspective.
Basic principle of ethics
summary talk
International Association for Geoethics (IAGETH)
International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG)
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University
Resources for analyzing real-world ethical issues and tools to address them.
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