Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such asabortion,treatment of animals, andbusiness practices. Metaethics explores the underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories areconsequentialism,deontology, andvirtue ethics. According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere toduties, like telling the truth and keeping promises. Virtue ethics sees the manifestation ofvirtues, likecourage andcompassion, as the fundamental principle of morality.
Ethics is closely connected tovalue theory, which studies the nature and types ofvalue, like the contrast betweenintrinsic and instrumental value.Moral psychology is a related empirical field and investigates psychological processes involved in morality, such asreasoning and the formation ofcharacter.Descriptive ethics describes the dominant moral codes and beliefs in different societies and considers their historical dimension.
Morality is about what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or whatsocial conventions require. As a rational and systematic field of inquiry, ethics studies practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. Most ethical theories seek universal principles that express a general standpoint of what is objectively right and wrong.[4] In a slightly different sense, the termethics can also refer to individual ethical theories in the form of a rational system of moral principles, such asAristotelian ethics, and to a moral code that certain societies, social groups, or professions follow, as inProtestant work ethic andmedical ethics.[5]
The English wordethics has its roots in theAncient Greek wordêthos (ἦθος), meaning'character' and'personal disposition'. This word gave rise to the Ancient Greek wordēthikós (ἠθικός), which was translated intoLatin asethica and entered the English language in the 15th century through theOld French terméthique.[6] The termmorality originates in the Latin wordmoralis, meaning'manners' and'character'. It was introduced into the English language during theMiddle English period through the Old French termmoralité.[7]
The termsethics andmorality are usually used interchangeably but some philosophers distinguish between the two. According to one view, morality focuses on what moral obligations people have while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to lead a meaningful life. Another difference is that codes of conduct in specific areas, such as business and environment, are usually termedethics rather than morality, as inbusiness ethics andenvironmental ethics.[8]
Normative ethics is the philosophical study of ethical conduct and investigates the fundamental principles ofmorality. It aims to discover and justify general answers to questions like "How should one live?" and "How should people act?", usually in the form of universal or domain-independent principles that determine whether an act is right or wrong.[9] For example, given the particular impression that it is wrong to set a child on fire for fun, normative ethics aims to find more general principles that explain why this is the case, like the principle that one should not cause extremesuffering to theinnocent, which may itself be explained in terms of a more general principle.[10] Many theories of normative ethics also aim to guide behavior by helping people make moraldecisions.[11]
Theories in normative ethics state how people should act or what kind of behavior is correct. They do not aim to describe how people normally act, what moral beliefs ordinary people have, how these beliefs change over time, or whatethical codes are upheld in certain social groups. These topics belong todescriptive ethics and are studied in fields likeanthropology,sociology, andhistory rather than normative ethics.[12]
Some systems of normative ethics arrive at a single principle covering all possible cases. Others encompass a small set of basic rules that address all or at least the most important moral considerations.[13] One difficulty for systems with several basic principles is that these principles may conflict with each other in some cases and lead toethical dilemmas.[14]
Distinct theories in normative ethics suggest different principles as the foundation of morality. The three most influential schools of thought areconsequentialism,deontology, andvirtue ethics.[15] These schools are usually presented as exclusive alternatives, but depending on how they are defined, they can overlap and do not necessarily exclude one another.[16] In some cases, they differ in which acts they see as right or wrong. In other cases, they recommend the same course of action but provide differentjustifications for why it is right.[17]
Consequentialism, also called teleological ethics,[18][a] says that morality depends on consequences. According to the most common view, an act is right if it brings the best future. This means that there is no alternative course of action that has better consequences.[20] A key aspect of consequentialist theories is that they provide a characterization of what is good and then define what is right in terms of what is good.[21] For example, classicalutilitarianism says that pleasure is good and that the action leading to the most overall pleasure is right.[22] Consequentialism has been discussed indirectly since the formulation of classical utilitarianism in the late 18th century. A more explicit analysis of this view happened in the 20th century, when the term was coined byG. E. M. Anscombe.[23]
Consequentialists usually understand the consequences of an action in a very wide sense that includes the totality of its effects. This is based on the idea that actions make a difference in the world by bringing about acausal chain of events that would not have existed otherwise.[24] A core intuition behind consequentialism is that the future should be shaped to achieve the best possible outcome.[25]
The act itself is usually not seen as part of the consequences. This means that if an act hasintrinsic value or disvalue, it is not included as a factor. Some consequentialists see this as a flaw, saying that all value-relevant factors need to be considered. They try to avoid this complication by including the act itself as part of the consequences. A related approach is to characterize consequentialism not in terms of consequences but in terms of outcome, with the outcome being defined as the act together with its consequences.[26]
Most forms of consequentialism are agent-neutral. This means that the value of consequences is assessed from a neutral perspective, that is, acts should have consequences that are good in general and not just good for the agent. It is controversial whether agent-relative moral theories, likeethical egoism, should be considered as types of consequentialism.[27]
There are many different types of consequentialism. They differ based on what type of entity they evaluate, what consequences they take into consideration, and how they determine the value of consequences.[28] Most theories assess the moral value of acts. However, consequentialism can also be used to evaluatemotives,character traits, rules, andpolicies.[29]
Many types assess the value of consequences based on whether they promote happiness or suffering. But there are also alternative evaluative principles, such asdesire satisfaction,autonomy,freedom,knowledge,friendship,beauty, and self-perfection.[30] Some forms of consequentialism hold that there is only asingle source of value.[31] The most prominent among them is classicalutilitarianism, which states that the moral value of acts only depends on thepleasure andsuffering they cause.[32] An alternative approach says that there are many different sources of value, which all contribute to one overall value.[31] Before the 20th century, consequentialists were only concerned with the total of value or the aggregate good. In the 20th century, alternative views were developed that additionally consider the distribution of value. One of them states that an equal distribution of goods is better than an unequal distribution even if the aggregate good is the same.[33]
There are disagreements about which consequences should be assessed. An important distinction is between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism. According to act consequentialism, the consequences of an act determine its moral value. This means that there is a direct relation between the consequences of an act and its moral value. Rule consequentialism, by contrast, holds that an act is right if it follows a certain set of rules. Rule consequentialism determines the best rules by considering their outcomes at a community level. People should follow the rules that lead to the best consequences when everyone in the community follows them. This implies that the relation between an act and its consequences is indirect. For example, if telling the truth is one of the best rules, then according to rule consequentialism, a person should tell the truth even in specific cases where lying would lead to better consequences.[34]
Another disagreement is between actual and expected consequentialism. According to the traditional view, only the actual consequences of an act affect its moral value. One difficulty of this view is that many consequences cannot be known in advance. This means that in some cases, even well-planned and intentioned acts are morally wrong if they inadvertently lead to negative outcomes. An alternative perspective states that what matters are not the actual consequences but the expected consequences. This view takes into account that when deciding what to do, people have to rely on their limited knowledge of the total consequences of their actions. According to this view, a course of action has positive moral value despite leading to an overall negative outcome if it had the highestexpected value, for example, because the negative outcome could not be anticipated or was unlikely.[35]
A further difference is betweenmaximizing andsatisficing consequentialism. According to maximizing consequentialism, only the best possible act is morally permitted. This means that acts with positive consequences are wrong if there are alternatives with even better consequences. One criticism of maximizing consequentialism is that it demands too much by requiring that people do significantly more than they are socially expected to. For example, if the best action for someone with a good salary would be to donate 70% of their income to charity, it would be morally wrong for them to only donate 65%. Satisficing consequentialism, by contrast, only requires that an act is "good enough" even if it is not the best possible alternative. According to this view, it is possible to do more than one is morally required to do.[36][b]
Mohism in ancientChinese philosophy is one of the earliest forms of consequentialism. It arose in the 5th century BCE and argued that political action should promote justice as a means to increase the welfare of the people.[38]
The most well-known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. In its classical form, it is an act consequentialism that seeshappiness as the only source of intrinsic value. This means that an act is morally right if it produces "the greatest good for the greatest number" by increasing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarians do not deny that other things also have value, like health, friendship, and knowledge. However, they deny that these things have intrinsic value. Instead, they say that they have extrinsic value because they affect happiness and suffering. In this regard, they are desirable as a means but, unlike happiness, not as an end.[39] The view that pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value is called ethical orevaluative hedonism.[40]
Classical utilitarianism was initially formulated byJeremy Bentham at the end of the 18th century and further developed byJohn Stuart Mill. Bentham introduced thehedonic calculus to assess the value of consequences. Two key aspects of the hedonic calculus are the intensity and the duration of pleasure. According to this view, a pleasurable experience has a high value if it has a high intensity and lasts for a long time. A common criticism of Bentham's utilitarianism argued that its focus on the intensity of pleasure promotes an immoral lifestyle centered around indulgence in sensory gratification. Mill responded to this criticism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. He stated that higher pleasures, like the intellectual satisfaction of reading a book, are more valuable than lower pleasures, like the sensory enjoyment of food and drink, even if their intensity and duration are the same.[42] Since its original formulation, many variations of utilitarianism have developed, including the difference betweenact andrule utilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism.[43]
Deontology assesses the moral rightness of actions based on a set ofnorms or principles. These norms describe the requirements that all actions need to follow.[44] They may include principles like telling the truth, keepingpromises, and not intentionally harming others.[45] Unlike consequentialists, deontologists hold that the validity of general moral principles does not directly depend on their consequences. They state that these principles should be followed in every case since they express how actions are inherently right or wrong. According to moral philosopherDavid Ross, it is wrong to break a promise even if no harm comes from it.[46] Deontologists are interested in which actions are right and often allow that there is a gap between what is right and what is good.[47] Many focus on prohibitions and describe which acts are forbidden under any circumstances.[48]
Agent-centered deontological theories focus on theperson who acts and theduties they have. Agent-centered theories often focus on the motives and intentions behind people's actions, highlighting the importance of acting for the right reasons. They tend to be agent-relative, meaning that the reasons for which people should act depend on personal circumstances. For example, a parent has a special obligation to their child, while a stranger does not have this kind of obligation toward a child they do not know. Patient-centered theories, by contrast, focus on the people affected by actions and the rights they have. An example is the requirement to treat other people as ends and not merely as a means to an end.[49] This requirement can be used to argue, for example, that it is wrong to kill a person against their will even if this act would save the lives of several others. Patient-centered deontological theories are usually agent-neutral, meaning that they apply equally to everyone in a situation, regardless of their specific role or position.[50]
Immanuel Kant formulated a deontological system based on universal laws that apply to allrational creatures.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is one of the most well-known deontologists.[51] He states that reaching outcomes that people desire, such as being happy, is not the main purpose of moral actions. Instead, he argues that there are universal principles that apply to everyone independent of their desires. He uses the termcategorical imperative for these principles, saying that they have their source in the structure ofpractical reason and are true for allrational agents. According to Kant, to act morally is to act in agreement with reason as expressed by these principles[52] while violating them is both immoral and irrational.[53]
Kant provided several formulations of the categorical imperative. One formulation says that a person should only followmaxims[c] that can beuniversalized. This means that the person would want everyone to follow the same maxim as a universal law applicable to everyone. Another formulation states that one should treat other people always as ends in themselves and never as mere means to an end. This formulation focuses on respecting and valuing other people for their own sake rather than using them in the pursuit of personal goals.[55]
In either case, Kant says that what matters is to have a good will. A person has a good will if they respect the moral law and form their intentions and motives in agreement with it. Kant states that actions motivated in such a way are unconditionally good, meaning that they are good even in cases where they result in undesirable consequences.[56]
Divine command theory says that God is the source of morality. It states that moral laws are divine commands and that to act morally is to obey and followGod's will. While all divine command theorists agree that morality depends on God, there are disagreements about the precise content of the divine commands, and theorists belonging to different religions tend to propose different moral laws.[57] For example, Christian and Jewish divine command theorists may argue that theTen Commandments express God's will[58] while Muslims may reserve this role for the teachings of theQuran.[59]
Contractualists reject the reference to God as the source of morality and argue instead that morality is based on an explicit or implicitsocial contract between humans. They state that actual or hypotheticalconsent to this contract is the source of moral norms and duties. To determine which duties people have, contractualists often rely on athought experiment about what rational people under ideal circumstances would agree on. For example, if they would agree that people should not lie then there is a moral obligation to refrain from lying. Because it relies on consent, contractualism is often understood as a patient-centered form of deontology.[60][d] Famous social contract theorists includeThomas Hobbes,John Locke,Jean-Jacques Rousseau, andJohn Rawls.[62]
Discourse ethics also focuses on social agreement on moral norms but says that this agreement is based oncommunicative rationality. It aims to arrive at moral norms for pluralistic modern societies that encompass a diversity of viewpoints. A universal moral norm is seen as valid if all rational discourse participants do or would approve. This way, morality is not imposed by a single moral authority but arises from the moral discourse within society. This discourse should aim to establish anideal speech situation to ensure fairness and inclusivity. In particular, this means that discourse participants arefree to voice their different opinions without coercion but are at the same time required to justify them using rational argumentation.[63]
The main concern of virtue ethics is howvirtues are expressed in actions. As such, it is neither directly interested in the consequences of actions nor in universal moral duties.[64] Virtues are positive character traits likehonesty,courage,kindness, andcompassion. They are usually understood asdispositions to feel, decide, and act in a certain manner by being wholeheartedly committed to this manner. Virtues contrast withvices, which are their harmful counterparts.[65]
Virtue theorists usually say that the mere possession of virtues by itself is not sufficient. Instead, people should manifest virtues in their actions. An important factor is the practical wisdom, also calledphronesis, of knowing when, how, and which virtue to express. For example, a lack of practical wisdom may lead courageous people to perform morally wrong actions by taking unnecessary risks that should better be avoided.[66]
Different types of virtue ethics differ on how they understand virtues and their role in practical life.Eudaimonism is the original form of virtue theory developed in Ancient Greek philosophy and draws a close relation between virtuous behavior and happiness. It states that people flourish by living a virtuous life. Eudaimonist theories often hold that virtues are positive potentials residing in human nature and that actualizing these potentials results in leading a good and happy life.[67] Agent-based theories, by contrast, see happiness only as a side effect and focus instead on the admirable traits and motivational characteristics expressed while acting. This is often combined with the idea that one can learn fromexceptional individuals what those characteristics are.[67] Feministethics of care are another form of virtue ethics. They emphasize the importance ofinterpersonal relationships and say that benevolence by caring for thewell-being of others is one of the key virtues.[68]
Influential schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy wereAristotelianism andStoicism. According toAristotle (384–322 BCE), each virtue[e] is agolden mean between two types of vices: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is a virtue that lies between the deficient state ofcowardice and the excessive state ofrecklessness. Aristotle held that virtuous action leads to happiness and makes people flourish in life.[70] Stoicism emerged about 300 BCE[71] and taught that, through virtue alone, people can achieve happiness characterized by apeaceful state of mind free from emotional disturbances. The Stoics advocated rationality and self-mastery to achieve this state.[72] In the 20th century, virtue ethics experienced a resurgence thanks to philosophers such asElizabeth Anscombe,Philippa Foot,Alasdair MacIntyre, andMartha Nussbaum.[73]
There are many other schools of normative ethics in addition to the three main traditions.Pragmatist ethics focuses on the role of practice and holds that one of the key tasks of ethics is to solve practical problems in concrete situations. It has certain similarities to utilitarianism and its focus on consequences but concentrates more on how morality is embedded in and relative to social and cultural contexts. Pragmatists tend to give more importance tohabits than to conscious deliberation and understand morality as a habit that should be shaped in the right way.[74]
Postmodern ethics agrees with pragmatist ethics about thecultural relativity of morality. It rejects the idea that there are objective moral principles that apply universally to all cultures and traditions. It asserts that there is no one coherent ethical code since morality itself is irrational and humans are morally ambivalent beings.[75] Postmodern ethics instead focuses on how moral demands arise in specific situations as one encounters other people.[76]
Ethical egoism is the view that people should act in theirself-interest or that an action is morally right if the person acts for their own benefit. It differs frompsychological egoism, which states that people actually follow their self-interest without claiming that they should do so. Ethical egoists may act in agreement with commonly accepted moral expectations and benefit other people, for example, by keeping promises, helping friends, and cooperating with others. However, they do so only as a means to promote their self-interest. Ethical egoism is often criticized as an immoral andcontradictory position.[77]
Metaethics is the branch of ethics that examines the nature, foundations, and scope ofmoral judgments, concepts, and values. It is not interested in whichactions are right but in what it means for an action to be right and whether moral judgments areobjective and can be true at all. It further examines themeaning ofmorality and other moral terms.[87] Metaethics is ametatheory that operates on a higher level of abstraction than normative ethics by investigating its underlying assumptions. Metaethical theories typically do not directly judge which normative ethical theories are correct. However, metaethical theories can still influence normative theories by examining their foundational principles.[88]
Metaethics overlaps with various branches of philosophy. On the level ofontology,[f] it examines whether there areobjective moral facts.[90] Concerningsemantics, it asks what the meaning of moral terms are and whether moral statements have atruth value.[91] Theepistemological side of metaethics discusses whether and how people can acquire moral knowledge.[92] Metaethics overlaps withpsychology because of its interest in how moral judgments motivate people to act. It also overlaps withanthropology since it aims to explain howcross-cultural differences affect moral assessments.[93]
The deontic square visualizes the relations between possible moral statuses of an act.[94]
Metaethics examines basic ethical concepts and their relations. Ethics is primarily concerned withnormative statements about whatought to be the case, in contrast todescriptive statements, which are about what is the case.[95][g]Duties andobligations express requirements of what people ought to do.[98] Duties are sometimes defined as counterparts of therights that always accompany them. According to this view, someone has a duty to benefit another person if this other person has the right to receive that benefit.[99]
Obligation andpermission are contrasting terms that can be defined through each other: to be obligated to do something means that one is not permitted not to do it and to be permitted to do something means that one is not obligated not to do it.[100][h] Some theorists define obligations in terms ofvalues or what isgood. When used in a general sense,good contrasts withbad. When describing people and their intentions, the termevil rather thanbad is often employed.[101]
Obligations are used to assess the moral status of actions,motives, andcharacter traits.[102] An action is morally right if it is in tune with a person's obligations and morally wrong if it violates them.[103]Supererogation is a special moral status that applies to cases in which the agent does more than is morally required of them.[104] To bemorally responsible for an action usually means that the person possesses and exercises certain capacities or some form ofcontrol.[i] If a person is morally responsible then it is appropriate to respond to them in certain ways, for example, bypraising orblaming them.[106]
A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles are real. It examines whether moralproperties exist as objective features independent of the humanmind andculture rather than as subjective constructs or expressions of personal preferences andcultural norms.[107]
Moral realists accept the claim that there are objective moral facts. This view implies that moral values are mind-independent aspects of reality and that there is an absolute fact about whether a given action is right or wrong. A consequence of this view is that moral requirements have the same ontological status as non-moral facts: it is an objective fact whether there is an obligation to keep a promise just as it is an objective fact whether a thing is rectangular.[107] Moral realism is often associated with the claim that there are universal ethical principles that apply equally to everyone.[108] It implies that if two people disagree about a moral evaluation then at least one of them is wrong. This observation is sometimes taken as an argument against moral realism since moral disagreement is widespread in most fields.[109]
Moral relativists reject the idea that morality is an objective feature of reality. They argue instead that moral principles are human inventions. This means that a behavior is not objectively right or wrong but only subjectively right or wrong relative to a certain standpoint. Moral standpoints may differ between persons, cultures, and historical periods.[110] For example, moral statements like "Slavery is wrong" or "Suicide is permissible" may be true in one culture and false in another.[111][j] Some moral relativists say that moral systems are constructed to serve certain goals such as social coordination. According to this view, different societies and different social groups within a society construct different moral systems based on their diverging purposes.[113]Emotivism provides a different explanation, stating that morality arises from moral emotions, which are not the same for everyone.[114]
Moral nihilists deny the existence of moral facts. They reject the existence of both objective moral facts defended by moral realism and subjective moral facts defended by moral relativism. They believe that the basic assumptions underlying moral claims are misguided. Some moral nihilists conclude from this that anything is allowed. A slightly different view emphasizes that moral nihilism is not itself a moral position about what is allowed and prohibited but the rejection of any moral position.[115] Moral nihilism, like moral relativism, recognizes that people judge actions as right or wrong from different perspectives. However, it disagrees that this practice involves morality and sees it as just one type of human behavior.[116]
A central disagreement among moral realists is between naturalism and non-naturalism. Naturalism states that moral properties arenatural properties accessible toempirical observation. They are similar to the natural properties investigated by thenatural sciences, like color and shape.[117] Some moral naturalists hold that moral properties are a unique and basic type of natural property.[k] Another view states that moral properties are real but not a fundamental part of reality and can be reduced to other natural properties, such as properties describing the causes ofpleasure andpain.[119]
Non-naturalism argues that moral properties form part of reality and that moral features are not identical or reducible to natural properties. This view is usually motivated by the idea that moral properties are unique because they express what should be the case.[120] Proponents of this position often emphasize this uniqueness by claiming that it is afallacy to define ethics in terms of natural entities or to infer prescriptive from descriptive statements.[121]
The metaethical debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism is about the meaning of moral statements and is a part of the study of semantics. According to cognitivism, moral statements like "Abortion is morally wrong" and "Going to war is never morally justified" are truth-apt, meaning that they all have a truth value: they are either true or false. Cognitivism claims that moral statements have a truth value but is not interested in which truth value they have. It is often seen as the default position since moral statements resemble other statements, like "Abortion is a medical procedure" or "Going to war is a political decision", which have a truth value.[122]
There is a close relation between the semantic theory of cognitivism and the ontological theory of moral realism. Moral realists assert that moral facts exist. This can be used to explain why moral statements are true or false: a statement is true if it is consistent with the facts and false otherwise. As a result, philosophers who accept one theory often accept the other as well. An exception iserror theory, which combines cognitivism with moral nihilism by claiming that all moral statements are false because there are no moral facts.[123]
Non-cognitivism is the view that moral statements lack a truth value. According to this view, the statement "Murder is wrong" is neither true nor false. Some non-cognitivists claim that moral statements have no meaning at all. A different interpretation is that they have another type of meaning. Emotivism says that they articulate emotional attitudes. According to this view, the statement "Murder is wrong" expresses that the speaker has a negative moral attitude towards murder or disapproves of it.Prescriptivism, by contrast, understands moral statements ascommands. According to this view, stating that "Murder is wrong" expresses a command like "Do not commit murder".[124]
The epistemology of ethics studies whether or how one can know moral truths.Foundationalist views state that some moral beliefs are basic and do not require further justification.Ethical intuitionism is one such view that says that humans have aspecial cognitive faculty through which they can know right from wrong. Intuitionists often argue that general moral truths, like "Lying is wrong", areself-evident and that it is possible toknow them without relying on empirical experience. A different foundationalist position focuses on particular observations rather than general intuitions. It says that if people are confronted with a concrete moral situation, they can perceive whether right or wrong conduct was involved.[125]
In contrast to foundationalists,coherentists say that there are no basic moral beliefs. They argue that beliefs form a complex network and mutually support and justify one another. According to this view, a moral belief can only amount to knowledge if it coheres with the rest of the beliefs in the network.[125]Moral skeptics say that people are unable to distinguish between right and wrong behavior, thereby rejecting the idea that moral knowledge is possible. A common objection by critics of moral skepticism asserts that it leads toimmoral behavior.[126]
Thetrolley problem is a thought experiment about the moral difference between doing and allowing harm.
Thought experiments are used as amethod in ethics to decide between competing theories. They usually present an imagined situation involving anethical dilemma and explore how people's intuitions of right and wrong change based on specific details in that situation.[127] For example, inPhilippa Foot'strolley problem, a person can flip a switch to redirect a trolley from one track to another, thereby sacrificing the life of one person to save five. This scenario explores how the difference between doing and allowing harm affects moral obligations.[128] Another thought experiment, proposed byJudith Jarvis Thomson, examines the moral implications ofabortion by imagining a situation in which a person gets connected without their consentto an ill violinist. In this scenario, the violinist dies if the connection is severed, similar to how a fetus dies in the case of abortion. The thought experiment explores whether it would be morally permissible to sever the connection within the next nine months.[129]
On the level of psychology, metaethics is interested in how moral beliefs and experiences affect behavior. According tomotivational internalists, there is a direct link between moral judgments and action. This means that every judgment about what is right motivates the person to act accordingly. For example,Socrates defends a strong form of motivational internalism by holding that a person can only perform an evil deed if they areunaware that it is evil. Weaker forms of motivational internalism say that people can act against their own moral judgments, for example, because of theweakness of the will. Motivational externalists accept that people can judge an act to be morally required without feeling a reason to engage in it. This means that moral judgments do not always provide motivational force.[130] A closely related question is whether moral judgments can provide motivation on their own or need to be accompanied by othermental states, such as adesire to act morally.[131]
Applied ethics, also known as practical ethics,[132] is the branch of ethics andapplied philosophy that examines concrete moral problems encountered in real-life situations. Unlike normative ethics, it is not concerned with discovering or justifying universal ethical principles. Instead, it studies how those principles can be applied to specific domains of practical life, what consequences they have in these fields, and whether additional domain-specific factors need to be considered.[133]
One of the difficulties of applied ethics is to determine how to apply general ethical principles to concrete situations, likemedical procedures.
One of the main challenges of applied ethics is to breach the gap between abstract universal theories and their application to concrete situations.[134] For example, an in-depth understanding of Kantianism or utilitarianism is usually not sufficient to decide how to analyze the moral implications of amedical procedure like abortion. One reason is that it may not be clear how the Kantian requirement of respecting everyone'spersonhood applies to a fetus or, from a utilitarian perspective, what the long-term consequences are in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number.[135] This difficulty is particularly relevant to applied ethicists who employ a top-downmethodology by starting from universal ethical principles and applying them to particular cases within a specific domain.[136] A different approach is to use a bottom-up methodology, known ascasuistry. This method does not start from universal principles but from moral intuitions about particular cases. It seeks to arrive at moral principles relevant to a specific domain, which may not be applicable to other domains.[137] In either case, inquiry into applied ethics is often triggered byethical dilemmas in which a person is subject to conflicting moral requirements.[138]
Applied ethics covers issues belonging to both theprivate sphere, like right conduct in the family and close relationships, and thepublic sphere, like moral problems posed by new technologies and duties toward future generations.[139] Major branches includebioethics,business ethics, andprofessional ethics. There are many other branches, and their domains of inquiry often overlap.[140]
Bioethics covers moral problems associated withliving organisms andbiological disciplines.[141] A key problem in bioethics is how features such asconsciousness, being able to feel pleasure and pain,rationality, and personhood affect the moral status of entities. These differences concern, for example, how to treat non-living entities like rocks and non-sentient entities like plants in contrast to animals, and whether humans have a different moral status than other animals.[142] According toanthropocentrism, only humans have a basic moral status. This suggests that all other entities possess a derivative moral status only insofar as they impact human life.Sentientism, by contrast, extends an inherent moral status to all sentient beings. Further positions includebiocentrism, which also covers non-sentient lifeforms, andecocentrism, which states that all of nature has a basic moral status.[143]
Bioethics can be divided intomedical ethics,animal ethics, andenvironmental ethics based on whether the ethical problems relate to humans, other animals, or nature in general.[145] Medical ethics is the oldest branch of bioethics. TheHippocratic Oath is one of the earliest texts to engage in medical ethics by establishing ethical guidelines for medical practitioners like aprohibition to harm the patient.[146] Medical ethics often addresses issues related to the start and end of life. It examines the moral status of fetuses, for example, whether they are full-fledged persons and whether abortion is a form ofmurder.[147] Ethical issues also arise about whether a person has the right to end their life in cases of terminal illness or chronic suffering and ifdoctors may help them do so.[148] Other topics in medical ethics includemedical confidentiality,informed consent, research on human beings,organ transplantation, and access tohealthcare.[146]
Harm done to animals is a particular concern in animal ethics, for example, as a result ofintensive animal farming.
Animal ethics examines how humans should treat other animals. This field often emphasizes the importance ofanimal welfare while arguing that humans should avoid or minimize the harm done to animals. There is wide agreement that it is wrong totorture animals for fun. The situation is more complicated in cases where harm is inflicted on animals as a side effect of the pursuit of human interests. This happens, for example, during factory farming, when using animals as food, and for research experiments on animals.[149] A key topic in animal ethics is the formulation ofanimal rights. Animal rights theorists assert that animals have a certain moral status and that humans should respect this status when interacting with them.[150] Examples of suggested animal rights include the right to life, the right to be free from unnecessary suffering, and the right to natural behavior in a suitable environment.[151]
Environmental ethics deals with moral problems relating to the natural environment including animals, plants,natural resources, andecosystems. In its widest sense, it covers the wholecosmos.[152] In the domain ofagriculture, this concerns the circumstances under which the vegetation of an area may be cleared to use it for farming and the implications of plantinggenetically modified crops.[153] On a wider scale, environmental ethics addresses the problem ofglobal warming and people's responsibility on the individual andcollective levels, including topics likeclimate justice and duties towards future generations. Environmental ethicists often promotesustainable practices and policies directed at protecting and conserving ecosystems andbiodiversity.[154]
Business ethics examines the moral implications of business conduct and how ethical principles apply to corporations and organizations.[155] A key topic iscorporate social responsibility, which is the responsibility of corporations to act in a manner that benefits society at large. Corporate social responsibility is a complex issue since many stakeholders are directly and indirectly involved in corporate decisions, such as theCEO, theboard of directors, and theshareholders. A closely related topic is the question of whether corporations themselves, and not just their stakeholders, have moral agency.[156] Business ethics further examines the role of honesty and fairness in business practices as well as the moral implications ofbribery,conflict of interest, protection of investors and consumers,worker's rights,ethical leadership, and corporatephilanthropy.[155]
Professional ethics is a closely related field that studies ethical principles applying to members of a specificprofession, likeengineers,medical doctors,lawyers, andteachers. It is a diverse field since different professions often have different responsibilities.[157] Principles applying to many professions include that the professional has the required expertise for the intended work and that they have personal integrity and are trustworthy. Further principles are to serve the interest of their target group, followclient confidentiality, and respect and uphold the client's rights, such as informed consent.[158] More precise requirements often vary between professions. A cornerstone ofengineering ethics is to protect public safety, health, and well-being.[159]Legal ethics emphasizes the importance of respect for justice, personal integrity, and confidentiality.[160] Key factors injournalism ethics include accuracy, truthfulness, independence, andimpartiality as well as properattribution to avoidplagiarism.[161]
Many other fields of applied ethics are discussed in the academic literature.Communication ethics covers moral principles ofcommunicative conduct. Two key issues in it arefreedom of speech and speech responsibility. Freedom of speech concerns the ability to articulate one's opinions and ideas without the threats of punishment and censorship. Speech responsibility is about being accountable for the consequences of communicative action and inaction.[162] A closely related field isinformation ethics, which focuses on the moral implications of creating, controlling, disseminating, and usinginformation.[163]
Other fields of applied ethics includepolitical ethics, which examines the moral dimensions of political decisions,[170] educational ethics, which covers ethical issues related to proper teaching practices,[171] andsexual ethics, which addresses the moral implications ofsexual behavior.[172]
Value theory, also called axiology,[l] is the philosophical study of value. It examines the nature and types of value.[174] A central distinction is betweenintrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has intrinsic value if it is good in itself or good for its own sake. An entity has instrumental value if it is valuable as a means to something else, for example, by causing something that has intrinsic value.[175] Other topics include what kinds of things have value and how valuable they are. For instance, axiological hedonists say thatpleasure is the only source of intrinsic value and that the magnitude of value corresponds to the degree of pleasure. Axiological pluralists, by contrast, hold that there are different sources of intrinsic value, such as happiness, knowledge, and beauty.[176]
There are disagreements about the exact relation between value theory and ethics. Some philosophers characterize value theory as a subdiscipline of ethics while others see value theory as the broader term that encompasses other fields besides ethics, such asaesthetics andpolitical philosophy.[177] A different characterization sees the two disciplines as overlapping but distinct fields.[178] The termaxiological ethics is sometimes used for the discipline studying this overlap, that is, the part of ethics that studies values.[179] The two disciplines are sometimes distinguished based on their focus: ethics is about moral behavior or what is right while value theory is about value or what isgood.[180] Some ethical theories, like consequentialism, stand very close to value theory by defining what is right in terms of what is good. But this is not true for ethics in general and deontological theories tend to reject the idea that what is good can be used to define what is right.[181][m]
Moral psychology explores the psychological foundations and processes involved in moral behavior. It is anempirical science that studies how humans think and act in moral contexts. It is interested in howmoral reasoning and judgments take place, howmoral character forms, what sensitivity people have to moral evaluations, and how people attribute and react tomoral responsibility.[183]
One of its key topics ismoral development or the question of how morality develops on a psychological level from infancy to adulthood.[184] According toLawrence Kohlberg, children go through differentstages of moral development as they understand moral principles first as fixed rules governing reward and punishment, then as conventional social norms, and later as abstract principles of what is objectively right across societies.[185] A closely related question is whether and how people can betaught to act morally.[186]
Descriptive ethics, also called comparative ethics,[190] studies existing moral codes, practices, and beliefs. It investigates and compares moral phenomena in differentsocieties and different groups within a society. It aims to provide avalue-neutral and empirical description without judging or justifying which practices are objectively right. For instance, the question of how nurses think about the ethical implications of abortion belongs to descriptive ethics. Another example is descriptive business ethics, which describes ethical standards in the context of business, including common practices, official policies, and employee opinions. Descriptive ethics also has a historical dimension by exploring how moral practices and beliefs have changed over time.[191]
Descriptive ethics is a multidisciplinary field that is covered by disciplines such asanthropology,sociology,psychology, andhistory. Its empirical outlook contrasts with the philosophical inquiry into normative questions, such as which ethical principles are correct and how to justify them.[192]
Inancient Greece,Socrates (c. 469–399 BCE)[201] emphasized the importance of inquiry into what a good life is by critically questioning established ideas and exploring concepts like virtue, justice, courage, and wisdom.[202] According toPlato (c. 428–347 BCE),[203] to lead a good life means that the different parts of the soul are in harmony with each other.[204] ForAristotle (384–322 BCE),[205] a good life is associated with being happy by cultivating virtues and flourishing.[206] Starting in the 4th century BCE, the close relation between right action and happiness was also explored by theHellenistic schools ofEpicureanism, which recommended a simple lifestyle without indulging in sensory pleasures, andStoicism, which advocated living in tune with reason and virtue while practicing self-mastery and becoming immune to disturbing emotions.[207]
Ethical thought in themedieval period was strongly influenced by religious teachings.Christian philosophers interpreted moral principles asdivine commands originating from God.[208]Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274 CE)[209] developednatural law ethics by claiming that ethical behavior consists in following the laws and order of nature, which he believed were created by God.[210] In the Islamic world, philosophers likeAl-Farabi (c. 878–950 CE)[211] andAvicenna (980–1037 CE)[212] synthesized ancient Greek philosophy with the ethical teachings of Islam while emphasizing the harmony between reason and faith.[213] In medieval India, Hindu philosophers likeAdi Shankara (c. 700–750 CE)[214] andRamanuja (1017–1137 CE)[215][p] saw the practice of spirituality to attainliberation as the highest goal of human behavior.[217]
G. E. Moore's bookPrincipia Ethica was partly responsible for the emergence of metaethics in the 20th century.
Moral philosophy in the modern period was characterized by a shift toward a secular approach to ethics.Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)[218] identified self-interest as the primary drive of humans. He concluded that it would lead to "a war of every man against every man" unless asocial contract is established to avoid this outcome.[219]David Hume (1711–1776)[220] thought that only moral sentiments, likeempathy, can motivate ethical actions while he saw reason not as a motivating factor but only as what anticipates the consequences of possible actions.[221]Immanuel Kant (1724–1804),[222] by contrast, saw reason as the source of morality. He formulated adeontological theory, according to which the ethical value of actions depends on their conformity with moral laws independent of their outcome. These laws take the form ofcategorical imperatives, which are universal requirements that apply to every situation.[223]
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)[224] saw Kant's categorical imperative on its own as an empty formalism and emphasized the role of social institutions in providing concrete content to moral duties.[225] According to the Christian philosophy ofSøren Kierkegaard (1813–1855),[226] thedemands of ethical duties are sometimes suspended when doing God's will.[227]Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)[228] formulated criticisms of both Christian and Kantian morality.[229] Another influential development in this period was the formulation ofutilitarianism byJeremy Bentham (1748–1832)[230] andJohn Stuart Mill (1806–1873).[231] According to the utilitarian doctrine, actions should promote happiness while reducing suffering and the right action is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.[232]
An important development in20th-century ethics inanalytic philosophy was the emergence of metaethics.[234] Significant early contributions to this field were made byG. E. Moore (1873–1958),[235] who argued that moral values are essentially different from otherproperties found in the natural world.[236]R. M. Hare (1919–2002)[237] followed this idea in formulating hisprescriptivism, which states that moral statements are commands that, unlike regularjudgments, are neither true nor false.[238]J. L. Mackie (1917–1981)[239] suggested that every moral statement is false since there are no moral facts.[240] An influential argument for moral realism was made byDerek Parfit (1942–2017),[241] who argued that morality concerns objective features of reality that give people reasons to act in one way or another.[242]Bernard Williams (1929–2003)[243] agreed with the close relation between reasons and ethics but defended a subjective view instead that sees reasons as internalmental states that may or may not reflect external reality.[244]
Another development in this period was the revival of ancientvirtue ethics by philosophers likePhilippa Foot (1920–2010).[245] In the field of political philosophy,John Rawls (1921–2002)[246] relied onKantian ethics to analyzesocial justice asa form of fairness.[247] In continental philosophy,phenomenologists such asMax Scheler (1874–1928)[248] andNicolai Hartmann (1882–1950)[249] built ethical systems based on the claim that values have objective reality that can be investigated using the phenomenological method.[250] Existentialists likeJean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)[251] andSimone de Beauvoir (1908–1986),[252] by contrast, held that values are created by humans and explored the consequences of this view in relation to individual freedom, responsibility, and authenticity.[253] This period also saw the emergence offeminist ethics, which questions traditional ethical assumptions associated with a male perspective and puts alternative concepts, likecare, at the center.[254]
^A maxim is a rule that people can adopt to guide their action, like "If you want to make big money, you should go into sales" or "Thou shalt not commit murder".[54]
^Some ethicists state that contractualism is not a normative ethical theory but a metaethical theory because of its emphasis on how moral norms are justified.[61]
^The ancient Greeks used the wordarête, which has the meaning of both 'virtue' and 'excellence'.[69]
^Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature and categories of being.[89]
^This contrast is closely related to theis–ought problem problem, first articulated byDavid Hume, which states that one cannot deduce a normative statement from a descriptive statement.[96] The exact relation between these types of statements is disputed.[97]
^Some philosophers suggest that there ismoral luck, which occurs when factors outside a person's control influence the moral status of that person.[105]
^This position can be understood by analogy toEinstein's theory of relativity, which states that the magnitude of physical properties like mass, length, and duration depends on theframe of reference of the observer.[112]
^For example,natural law ethics, an influential position inChristian ethics, says that morality is based on a natural law created by God.[118]
^There are disagreements in the academic literature about whether they are synonyms or whether one or the other is the wider term.[173]
^For example, the deontologistDavid Ross holds that the principles of right actions are distinct from the principles of value. He says that the termsgood andright mean different things and should not be confused with one another.[182]
^The first explicit discussions of Maat as a concept date to about 2100 BCE.[195]
^Dates for the emergence of Daoism are disputed and some theorists suggest a later date between the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE.[199]
^Modern scholars have questioned these traditionally cited dates, suggesting that Ramanuja's life ran from 1077 to 1157.[216]
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