Ethical Theories Quiz: Explore Morality and Ethics Questions

Ethics: A Summary

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that deals with right and wrong conduct.
It involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime.
Three major areas of study within ethics are meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.
Meta-ethics asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong.
Normative ethics examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions.
Virtue ethics describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior.
Ancient philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle were proponents of virtue ethics.
Modern virtue ethics was popularized during the late 20th century in response to G.E.M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy".
Ethics is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
The ontology of ethics is about value-bearing things or properties.
The word ethics in English refers to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy, as well as a common human ability to think about ethical problems.Overview of Ethical Theories
Virtue ethics is a modern ethical theory that focuses on the character of the moral agent, rather than rules or consequences.
Ethical intuitionism is a family of views in moral epistemology that holds moral truths can be known non-inferentially through intuitive awareness of value.
Hedonism posits that the principal ethic is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.
Cyrenaic hedonism supports immediate gratification or pleasure without concern for the future.
Epicurean ethics is a hedonist form of virtue ethics that presents pleasure, correctly understood, as coinciding with virtue, and rejects the extremism of Cyrenaics.
State consequentialism evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the basic goods of a state.
Consequentialism holds that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action.
Utilitarianism 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.
Deontological ethics or deontology determines goodness or rightness from examining acts or the rules and duties that the person doing the act strove to fulfill.
Kantianism is a deontological ethical theory that argues people must act from duty and that it is not the consequences of actions that make them right or wrong but the motives of the person who carries out the action.
The major division within utilitarianism is between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.
Ethical relativism is the belief that ethical truths are relative to the individuals or groups holding them.Overview of Ethical Theories
Kantian deontologism argues that the morality of an action is determined by the will or motive of the person doing it, and the only absolutely good thing is a good will.
Divine command theory states that an action is right if God has decreed that it is right, and moral obligations arise from God's commands.
Discourse ethics, proposed by Jürgen Habermas, suggests that action should be based on communication between those involved, and agreement between the parties is crucial for a moral decision to be reached.
Pragmatic ethics prioritizes social reform over attempts to account for consequences, individual virtue, or duty, and holds that moral correctness evolves similarly to scientific knowledge.
Ethics of care seeks to incorporate traditionally feminized virtues and values, such as empathetic relationships and compassion, and emphasizes the importance of caring as a human strength.
Feminist matrixial ethics, proposed by Bracha L. Ettinger, articulates a revolutionary philosophical approach that establishes the rights of each female subject over her own reproductive body and offers a language to relate to human experiences that escape the phallic domain.
Role ethics is an ethical theory based on family roles, and morality is derived from a person's relationship with their community.
Anarchist ethics, based on the studies of anarchist thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin, advocates certain behavioral practices to enhance humanity's capacity for freedom and well-being, namely practices which emphasize solidarity, equality, and justice.
Postmodern ethics argues that ethics must study the complex and relational conditions of actions, and narrative is a helpful tool for understanding ethics.
Applied ethics attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations, and includes specialized fields such as engineering ethics, bioethics, geoethics, public service ethics, and business ethics.Overview of Applied Ethics
Ethical judgments are made in areas such as public policy and personal conduct.
Ethical decisions are multifaceted and require consideration of multiple factors.
Moral judgments consider the character of the moral agent, the deed of the action, and the consequences of the action.
Bioethics studies controversial ethics related to biology and medicine, including gene therapy and human genetic engineering.
Business ethics examines ethical principles and moral problems that arise in a business environment, including contract violations and deceitful practices.
Machine ethics requires new specificity in normative theories, especially regarding learning algorithms.
Military ethics is concerned with the application of force and the ethos of the soldier.
Political ethics makes moral judgments about political action and political agents.
Public sector ethics guides public officials in their service to their constituents, with a focus on the public's interests.
Publication ethics follows principles that guide the writing and publishing process for all professional publications, including avoiding plagiarism and publication bias.
Relational ethics in qualitative research values and respects the connection between researchers and the communities they study.
Animal ethics describes human-animal relationships and how animals ought to be treated.
Ethics of technology addresses ethical questions specific to the Technology Age.
Moral psychology studies the intersection of ethics and psychology, including moral character and moral development.
Evolutionary ethics concerns approaches to ethics based on the role of evolution in shaping human psychology and behavior.
Descriptive ethics offers a value-free approach to ethics and examines actual choices made by moral agents in practice.